13 
made available by their decipherment, . it was a natural hope 
that by their means we might be able to reconcile the conflict¬ 
ing accounts of their early history which the Greeks and 
Romans have left us, but the task is more hopeless than ever. 
Some general facts, however, illustrating what Bunsen would 
have called “ Assyria’s Place in the World’s History,” may be 
stated with confidence. There can be no doubt that the cradle 
of the empire was in Lower Mesopotamia, in the region called 
by the Greeks and Romans Babylonia and Chaldsea. It is 
agreeable to analogy that the origin of civilized and powerful 
communities should be found in the rich alluvial soil near 
the mouth of great rivers. It was once thought that the popu¬ 
lation of Egypt had descended along the banks of the Nile 
from Ethiopia, but it is now known that the course of civiliza¬ 
tion has been the opposite. In the case of the Assyrian empire 
we may confidently state, that its origin is to be sought in the 
lower course of the Tigris and Euphrates. In the oldest ethno¬ 
graphical sketch which we possess. Genesis ch. x,, the land of 
Shinar is made the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod, 
Shinar being the Babylonian plain, and he appears only to 
have united and consolidated tribes previously independent and 
which long retained a distinct existence. Kiprat Arha^ the 
four nations, is an expression by which the people of this 
region are often designated in the cuneiform inscriptions. In 
the narative of Chedorlaomer’s expedition (Gen. xiv.) the King 
of Shinar appears only as one of a confederacy. In the tombs 
which have been opened in Lower Mesopotamia, by Mr. Loft us 
and Mr. Ainsworth, implements of stone and bronze have been 
found but none of iron, though this metal was employed for 
ornaments. (Rawlinson, Five Monarchies, 1. 129). The cunei¬ 
form character, as seen on Babylonian and still more Chaldsean 
bricks, is much more complex than on the Assyrian monuments, 
and retains more decisive marks of a pictorial origin. In re¬ 
gard to sculpture there is hardly room for comparison, as no 
material but clay was at hand. 
In calling the region nearest the sea Chaldaea, I have fol¬ 
lowed the usage of the later writers, both classical and Scrip¬ 
tural. But there is no reason to think that in earlier times it 
