BABYLONIA. Discoveries of the recent decades seem to confirrn the idea that Babylonia was the cradle of civilization. The country, which is nearly enclosed by the Tigris and Euphrates from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, is bounded on the north by Mesopotamia; on the east by the plain of Elam; on the south by the Persian Gulf ; and on the west by the Arabian desert. It constitutes the largest portion of the country now lcnown as °Iraq el Arabi?) A considerable part of this alluvial plain has been made through deposits by the river. This land malting process continues at the present time at the rate of about 70 feet per year.
At one time the plain was covered with a com plicated networlc of canals which carried agri cultural prosperity to every part of the land. The neglect of these has changed the condi tions of the country so completely that instead of a fertility which was once the wonder of the ancient world, a cheerless waste now greets the eyes. Some months of the year the country is partially covered with swamps and marshes, while the remaining portion is a desolate plain.
Here and there througbout the land are to be seen mounds of debris, every one of which covers the remains of a long forgotten civiliza tion. About the middle of the last century a number of English explorers, Loftus, Layard and Taylor,. visited the ruins of some of the important cities. Through their tentative in vestigations Niffer (Nippur), Warka (Urulc or Erech), Senkera (Larsa), Muqayyar (Ur), Abu Shahrain (Eridu), besides Babylon, Bor sippa and other cities were located. A few decades later Rassam, also an Englishman, dis covered that the ruins laiown as Abu-Habba represmted the ancient Sippara; and decided definitely also that Tell-Ibrahim was Kutha (Cutha). The ancient names of most of these cities were known through the Old Testament. For excavations see ASSYRIOLOGY.
The earliest inhabitants of the country, which was known in the early period as Shumer (Biblical Shinar), are called Sumerians.
These Sumerians spoke an agg,lutinative tongue which belongs to that great unclassifi able group of languages known as Turanian. Clay was principally used as their writing material. The impression made by the stylus upon the soft clay has the appearance of a wedge, for which the Latin word cutteus is used; hence cuneiform writing. See ASSYRI
OLOGY.
Through other sources, particularly the Babylonian duplicates found in Asurbanipal's library at Nineveh, considerable is laiown con cerning the literature of the Babylonians. Notably might be mentioned the Creation and Gilgamesh epics, the Deluge story, which re semble the Biblical accounts; Ishtar's descent into Hades ; the Etana legend; Adapa and the South Wind, etc. Here properly should be mentioned also the codes of laws upon which the decisions of the kings and judges were made, particularly the code of Hammurabi (Amraphel, Gen. xiv), discovered by the French, in Susa, under de Morgan. It consists of 282 laws written on a stela which stands over seven feet high. This had been carried away the old national enemy of Babylonia, the Elamites. Very extensive also is the knowl edge of the customs and manners of the people gained through the thousands of contract tablets dated in the reigns of kims of all periods. Practically every kind of legal and domestic contract imaginable, mortgages, deeds of sale, promissory notes, guarantees, etc., the archives of business firms, notably the Egibi House of Babylon and the Murashu Sons of Nippur, have been found. Most valuable for the decipherment of the inscriptions have been the syllabaries, or sign lists, in which the different values of characters are given. Commentaries; lists of gods, names, places, temples, animals, stones, etc.; incantations, hymns, penitential psalms, prayers, are included among the tablets discovered.
The earliest inscriptions reveal a polytheism in a developed state. Most of the gods have Sumerian as well as Semitic names. Until the religion of the Sumerians, or of the Semites, prior to their occupation of this country is better ;mown, it will be impossible to ascertain with which people the different gods and religious conceptions originated. The pantheon, which was practically different in every period of Babylonian history, is exceedingly large. Some of the gods mentioned most frequently in the inscriptions are: Anu, Bel and Ea the important tnad of the early period; Merodach, Shamash, Sin, Ishtar, Nergal, Nebo, Nusku, Ninib, Gula, etc.