Ancient Mesopotamian Homes and Burial
In early days the people dwelt in tents, or in huts built of the enormous reeds which are so plentiful here
From The Street of Human Habitations by Ray S. Lineham, 1894.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
In early days the people dwelt in tents, or in huts built of the enormous reeds which are so plentiful here. The roofs were arched over and covered with rush-mats, for in Chaldea is neither wood nor stone, and to bring these from distant countries is too laborious and too costly to be often attempted. The few tree-trunks that ever came in the way of an enterprising Chaldean are utilized as columns and rafters in the most recherche dwellings. But such primitive structures would not do at all for temples of gods and palaces of kings; so, as their eyes fell on the clay with which their huts were plastered, the idea arose of forming cakes which should resemble stones.
Thus men began to make bricks. At first they were rude and perishable, crumbling away in the sun and dissolving in the rain. Then somebody thought of baking them, but as this proved expensive, the economical Chaldee continued to use unbaked bricks for the inner part of his walls, and contented himself with a facing of baked ones for the exterior.
The latter were now splendidly made, and no doubt intended to last for ever; so each was stamped, as in Egypt, with the name of the reigning king, that there might be no mistake about its age and origin. Here is one from Erech, made so long ago that even those wedge-shaped characters we have become so familiar with in Assyria were only beginning to evolve out of the yet more remote picture-writing of Accad.
I want you to notice what a horror the ancient Chaldean has of anything like a curve. Even the sun, which you might think every sane person would represent as round, is here depicted as a lozenge. I can't explain it, but a curve, in the opinion Chaldean scribe, is a thing to be eschewed. The artist is not above using the objectionable form, but the architect takes after the scribe, so rectangular houses and square towers are quite de rigeur in Babylonian cities. You grumbled at the lighting arrangements of the Egyptians—honest people!—but you might very well have kept that for the present occasion. A loop-hole here and there you may see in Assyrian habitations; a window, never!
They have, however, two peculiar methods of interior decoration which are used by nobody else I ever heard of.
One is to form patterns by pushing cones of coloured terra-cotta into the walls while these are still soft. The broad ends of the cones appear in the design like a series of round studs. The other method is to use little clay cups in a similar way; the hollow part being kept to the front gives the walls a curious honeycombed effect.
One of the cones is lying beside you, and the extraordinary object next it is a coffin, which reminds me that nothing is stranger about these Chaldeans than their burial customs.
Northward, in Assyria, you will not find the vestige of a tomb, and you actually wonder whether they ever died at all; but here you find the dead heaped up in inconceivable numbers, and there is no cemetery in the world—except Memphis, perhaps—to compare with that of Erech. For miles the coffins are not merely laid side by side, but are piled one above another, down to a depth of nearly sixty feet. The people have no fancy for the tedious process of embalming, and simply pack their departed relations either into bottles, like the one before you, or into an equally incomprehensible sort of stone slipper; or else they lay them away on a slab of baked brick, and put a huge terra-cotta "dish-cover" over them.
There is another thing I must tell you—the people in this locality do not believe in climbing stairs. You will notice that the houses have only one storey, and even in this lofty stronghold, which is built exactly like the royal palaces both of Babylon and Nineveh, there is no attempt at more than one floor. Land is cheap, and where a large train of followers has to be housed, the dwelling simply spreads itself over a larger area.
Do not, however, run away with the idea that there are no stairs in Babylonia; you find them outside and not inside the buildings, that is all. The sanctuaries at the summits of those square towers—which may either be temples or observatories, and are probably both—can only be reached by outside stairs, winding round and round from base to apex.
As you move on to Babylon you are struck with the awful solitude that prevails. The land is water-bound and richer even than Egypt, for it has not one, but two gracious rivers for its dower. Once the vast plains were fed by a wonderful system of watercourses from these parent streams; the land brought forth a hundred fold, aye, three hundred fold, and there was corn and wine in abundance for every man. The Garden of Eden may well be looked for here, because "Eden" was the earliest name of the whole plain, and you will see that these ancient people had their creation and deluge stories ages before Moses was born to write the version you know so well. They had their "tree of life" the "Holy Pine-tree," in the midst of the garden, and many a fine poem and sculptured group still exists to commemorate these things.
Yet behold now the land has become a desert, and her cities heaps; Babylon is a reproach and a byword. The rude walls of the goat-herd's hut bear everywhere the royal seal of Nebuchadnezzar; for the palaces of the kings are brickfields, and a new race has built new cities with the bricks thereof. Now and then a green patch refreshes your eye; all else is wilderness, sorrowful in its terrible desolation. The sombre pile of El Heimar looms in the eastern distance; across the Euphrates rises Birs Nimrud, and between these the river wends its silent course to the sea.
It has an easy-going temper, this Euphrates; and steals sleepily enough through the sandy valley: but the Tigris is an impatient, excitable thing, and hurries by fits and starts along its narrow bed, until all at once it settles down and weds its gentle neighbour. For many a year they fought shy of each other; growing unconsciously every day nearer for all that: still, they might never have come together, but that the friendly sea lent a helping hand, discreetly creeping further and further back as they approached, and refusing to give them sanctuary until they were one.
So the match was made at last, and in the evening of their days they travel by one channel to their common goal.
Lineham, Ray S. The Street of Human Habitations: An Account of Man's Dwelling Places, Customs, Utensils, etc. in Prehistoric Times, and in Ancient Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea, Phoenicia, Persia, India, and Japan, Chapman and Hall, 1894.
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