§ II Chronology of the Ruins According to Recent Discoveries
The researches we have just described, so far as they have been carried at present, show that many of the mounds of Susa, formed of an accumulation of débris and covered with a thin layer of sand deposited by the desert winds, were inhabited from prehistoric times to the Arab period. The prehistoric remains are found at a depth of over 80 feet, below the evidences of more advanced civilizations.
After digging through the accumulated remains of forty centuries, the virgin soil is reached, and here are found worked flints, primitive pottery, and other objects similar to those found on all prehistoric sites. Above the level of the worked flints, and the rough, hand-made pottery, shaped without the aid of the wheel, another civilization is found, more advanced, although still prehistoric, which produced vases in sandstone and calcite of various sizes, and—far more important and fundamental—seals or stamps, proofs of a culture widely removed from barbarism. These seals are hemispherical in form, and pierced with a hole for suspension. The base or flat face is decorated with figures of animals engraved in rudimentary fashion by means of the drill and point. The most usual subject is a lion, or lion’s head. But nowhere at this level of the remains has the slightest trace of writing been found. The dwellings were huts, made either of beaten earth or of crude bricks.
A thick layer of cinders and other unequivocal indications, enable us to assert that this primitive civilization disappeared owing to the massacre of the inhabitants and the burning of their dwellings. At this early period, to which it is impossible to assign even an approximate date, Susa suffered from some foreign invasion, and the pillagers installed themselves in place of the indigenous inhabitants, whom they destroyed. It is, therefore, a new civilization we find above the remains of the prehistoric people, and which introduces us to the domain of actual history, the commencement of the Elam-Anzanite period.
It is to this invading race that Susa owes her first written documents. These inscriptions, although they are in a language almost unknown to us, are undoubtedly the most important that this period has hitherto yielded.
The earliest text known is engraved on a bone cylinder (fig. 242). The mere appearance of the signs strikes us with the remote antiquity to which they must be assigned; they are actually hieroglyphs. Among them apparently there can be distinguished an insect, a double comb, a quadruped, a bird, some grains of wheat, and a man carrying a double load on his shoulders. On the lower part of the cylinder two bulls are depicted, each with his head over a manger.
This object, which so far seems to be the sole representative of the earliest stage of cuneiform writing, and which leads us to question whether this mode of writing was not invented at Susa, is followed by a series of clay tablets ranging in size from 2½ to 9 inches at the sides, and with the principal face covered with writing, of which the signs are almost cuneiform. Dr. Scheil, however, says of these that apparently “we have here a system of cuneiform writing other than that of primitive Chaldæan, or at least the result of an extremely independent evolution, very different to that which has given us the signs known as the Babylonian: evidently these signs, instead of being extremely archaic are linear in character, and geometric rather than hieroglyphic.”
Dr. Scheil recognises that these texts are arithmetical, and he has already been able to distinguish the elements of Elamite numeration (fig. 243). Any one studying them from the point of view of workmanship, will notice, as Dr. Scheil again observes, that the signs are inscribed with a neatness and certainty that indicate previous long practice on the part of the scribe. Nowhere can we discern errors or rough work, such as would be the results of early attempts and experiments. Thus we arrive at the conclusion that those texts were written by the invaders, who were already in possession of this system of writing when they arrived at Susa.
It is at this period that we first find cylinders covered with representations of animals, engraved on the surface before the tablets were baked or dried in the sun. These cylinders are of greenish enamelled paste and very hard; only a small number has been discovered at present, but impressions made with some of the objects of this class agree for the greater part with the clay tablets. We give a reproduction of one of the most curious of these impressions (fig. 244). Here we can distinguish giants, leonocephalic and taurocephalic, taming lions and bulls apparently for amusement. In this instance the style is very remarkable, and recalls that of certain animals on the finest of the Chaldæan cylinders.
Of this same civilization there is also a large number of alabaster vases; these are frequently decorated with incised lines, forming geometric designs; in some instances these vases have animal forms, such as ducks, pigs, fish, or seated monkeys, types generally figured in a summary and rudimentary fashion.
Above the proto-Elamite zone the ruins become confused and belong to different periods. It is obvious that the soil of Susa was constantly overturned and pillaged. Happily the beacon light of history now begins to guide our footsteps, and enables us to classify chronologically those remains, which are discovered in disorder. The written texts, which are increasingly numerous, from this time are divided into two main classes; the first written in a Semitic dialect, the second in the Anzanite language. This shows that in the country of Elam at that remote period an ethnic dualism existed, which corresponds with the double name for the capital of Anzan and Susa—a dualism which certain sculptured representations of the human figure also exhibit from the anthropological and ethnological point of view. The Anzanite inscriptions are still only partly decipherable, notwithstanding the insight shown by Dr. Scheil in commencing a study of them.
As to the inscriptions in the Elamite language, over a thousand have been brought to the Louvre. They are on slabs of stone, on blocks which have served as sockets for doors, and yet more are inscribed with a stylus on bricks.
These have been deciphered by Dr. Scheil; they give the names of the kings by whose commands the buildings were erected, in which they were employed. With the help of these clues, and guided by some more explicit texts and by the information about Susa already afforded us in the inscriptions of Chaldæa and Assyria, it has been possible to establish the first landmarks of the history of that powerful Elamite empire, whose complete annals will shortly provide a new chapter of the history of the Ancient World.
After the mythical period, in which such kings as Humbaba and Kudur appear, whose names so far only occur in legendary poems and stories, the earliest historical texts introduce us to the princes of Elam as vassals of the Mesopotamian suzerains. Of these the first is called Ur-iti-Adad, vassal successively of the two kings of Agade, Sargani-sar-ali, and Naram-Sin, about B.C. 3750. One of his successors, Karibu-Sa-Susinak, patesi of Susa, sakkanak of Elam, boasts of having built the temple of the god Sugu “the ancient,” and of having constructed the canal of Sidur; he is a vassal of Dungi, king of Ur, and of Gudea, patesi of Sirpurla.
To the rule of the patesis at Elam succeeded that of the Sukkal-mah. This was occasioned by a change in the suzerainty, which from being Chaldæan now became Elamite.
About B.C. 2280 the king of Susa, Kudur-Nakhunta, effected the conquest of Mesopotamia and decorated his capital with the spoils of the towns of Chaldæa; notable among these was the statue of the goddess Nana, which he caused to be transported from Uruk (Erech) to Susa.
Long after, Hammurabi, king of Babylon, delivered Chaldæa from the domination of Elam, and one of his successors, Kuri-galsu, even succeeded in entering Susa as a conqueror. But later again the Susians gained their revenge; they took Babylon by assault, and carried away the statue of Bel.
A king of Susa, Shutruk-Nakhunta, boasts of having devastated Chaldæa, and of having seized the stelæ of Melishikhu; he records that he took some hundreds of towns, brought back several kings as captives, and built a large number of temples at Susa. His grandson, Shilkhak-in-Shushinak, restored these buildings, where the stelæ, the kudurru, and the statues of Chaldæan divinities were placed, with all the precious objects taken from the towns of the Tigris valley.
The names of about twenty other Susian kings are known; they belong to two or three different dynasties, and we can trace the existence of conflicting races in Susa itself. This fact is further shown by the variety of languages which are found written in cuneiform character.
By turns conquerors and conquered, the Susians passed from the rôle of oppressors to that of oppressed; raid succeeded to raid, with results as contradictory as the gusts of wind in a gale. The kings of Nineveh, who during the twelfth century B.C. became the most powerful rulers of this part of the world, were the dominating power in Chaldæa and constituted themselves protectors of the country against the incursions of the Susians. Under Sargon, king of Assyria (B.C. 722-705) and his successors there began a mighty struggle, which ended with the ruin of Susa by Assurbanipal in B.C. 647. We must here recall that strange and tragic episode of the annals of the Assyrian monarchy.
The king of Nineveh, relating his conquests in the land of Elam, records that sixteen centuries earlier Kudur-Nakhunta, king of Susa, had invaded Mesopotamia, and carried away the statues of the Chaldæan gods, more especially the image of the great goddess Nanâ, which thus remained prisoner until he, Assurbanipal, went to her rescue: “The King of Elam, Kudur-Nakhunta placed his hands on the temples of the country of Accad, and he carried away the statue of the goddess Nana: His days had been multiplied and his power was very great. The great gods permitted these things, and for the space of 1635 years this image remained in the power of the Elamites. That is wherefore I, Assurbanipal, the prince who adores the great gods, I conquered the land of Elam.... The statue of the goddess Nana had been in adversity for 1635 years; she had been carried into captivity in Elam a country which was not consecrated to her. The goddess with the gods, her fathers, proclaimed my name as sovereign of the nations, from this time forth, and she entrusted to me the task of rescuing her statue. She said: Assibanipal will cause me to come forth from Elam, a land of the enemy and will establish me again in the Temple E-anna. This divine command was pronounced in bygone days, but it was only those of my own time who explained it. Then I seized the hands of the statue of the great goddess, and, in order to rejoice her heart, I caused her to take a direct road to the Temple E-anna. The first day of the month of Kislev, I caused her to enter into the city of Uruk, and I reinstated her in the eternal tabernacle of E-anna, the temple of her choice.”
The Ninevite bas-reliefs, which accompany these curious inscriptions, effectively represent a procession of Assyrian priests and soldiers, carrying the reconquered ancient idols on their shoulders with great pomp.
At the time of the destruction by Assurbanipal, Elamite Susa contained, not only the objects of art, the statues and valuable monuments relating to the history of Elam and the cult of her gods, but also, under the title of spolia opima, all the valuables which had been brought by the kings of Elam from their expeditions into Chaldæa as trophies of victory. Assurbanipal recovered the greater part of these objects, and replaced them in the towns from which they had been taken; the booty was immense, as he himself records. But much would naturally have been effectually concealed, and this he would be forced to leave behind at the time of the sack of the town; he also left a number of objects of secondary importance, such as certain statues, stelæ, and kudurru, which had originally come from Chaldæa.
Undermining and incendiarism destroyed all that could not be laden on the backs of the soldiery and animals of the Assyrian army, and thus Assurbanipal effected the complete ruin of Susa.
This explains the circumstance that a number of monuments and objects of Chaldæan origin are found in the ruins of Susa among others indigenous to Elam.
The capital of Elam appears to have been built once more after the departure of the Assyrians, for a cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar informs us that this prince built many temples there, as well as at Babylon.
Susa never again really recovered her ancient splendour until the time of the second dynasty of the Achæmenid kings of Persia. Darius, son of Hystaspes, made it the capital of his realms, and until the rise of Alexandria, Susa remained the most important centre of art, and of Persian civilization (see Chapter V.).
At this period, Susa was once more the theatre of events similar to those which so many centuries before had agitated her existence. When the entire East, Susa, as well as Babylon, and even Sardis, had fallen into the power of the Persian Achæmenids, and when Darius and, later, Xerxes, invaded Greece in B.C. 492 and 480, the Hellenic sanctuaries were pillaged in their turn. The Persians carried away their treasures, statues, and ex-votos across Asia as far as Susa, and there placed them in their own temples as trophies of their victories. When, in his turn, Alexander in B.C. 331 invaded the East, as avenger of the Hellenic race, he laid a heavy hand on the treasures of Susa; in that capital he discovered the great works of art of Greece, more especially the bronze statues of the Tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogiton, which Xerxes had carried away from Athens: these the conquering Macedonians were delighted to restore to the Athenians. The temple of Didyma near Miletus, like all others, had been pillaged by Darius, and its treasures carried off. What must have been the astonishment of M. de Morgan when he discovered in the course of his excavations a huge bronze knuckle-bone, weighing more than 152 lb. and bearing a Greek inscription of the seventh century B.C., recording that this singular object was dedicated by a dweller in Miletus to Apollo Didymæus.
Thus we find an ex-voto from the Temple of Didyma carried to Susa by the Persians under Darius, and which has now found its way to the banks of the Seine, an object of astonishment to visitors to the Louvre. This enormous knuckle-bone is provided with two handles to facilitate transport. The upper one, worn through by long-continued friction, shows traces of the iron bar or hook passed through it for its long journey from Miletus to Susa. Thus history—Proteus with his thousand forms—repeats itself unceasingly under its many transformations; even modern times furnish us with numerous episodes similar to those just related.