III SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume I: The Beginnings of Science | ||
Notes
(p. 57). The Medes. Some difference of opinion exists among historians as to the exact ethnic relations of the conquerors; the precise date of the fall of Nineveh is also in doubt.
(p. 57). Darius. The familiar Hebrew narrative ascribes the first Persian conquest of Babylon to Darius, but inscriptions of Cyrus and of Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, make it certain that Cyrus was the real conqueror. These inscriptions are preserved on cylinders of baked clay, of the type made familiar by the excavation of the past fifty years, and they are invaluable historical documents.
(p. 58). Berosus. The fragments of Berosus have been translated by I. P. Cory, and included in his Ancient Fragments of Phamician, Chaldean, Egyptian, and Other Writers, London, 1826, second edition, 1832.
(p. 58). Chaldean learning. Recent writers reserve the name Chaldean for the later period of Babylonian history—the time when the Greeks came in contact with the Mesopotamians—in contradistinction to the earlier periods which are revealed to us by the archæological records.
(p. 59) King Sargon of Agade. The date given for this early king must not be accepted as absolute; but it is probably approximately correct.
(p. 59). Nippur. See the account of the early expeditions as recorded by the director, Dr. John P. Peters, Nippur, or explorations and adventures, etc., New York and London, 1897.
(p. 63). R. Campbell Thompson, Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon, London, 1900, p. xix.
(p. 72). Quoted in Records of the Past, vol. III., p. 143, from the Translations of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. II., p. 58.
(p. 76) Code of Khamurabi. This famous inscription is on a block of black diorite nearly eight feet in height. It was discovered at Susa by the French expedition under M. de Morgan, in December, 1901. We quote the translation given in The Historians' History of the World, edited by Henry Smith Williams, London and New York, 1904, vol. I., p. 510.
(p. 82). George S. Goodspeed, Ph.D., History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, NewYork, 1902.
(p. 82). George Rawlinson, Great
Oriental Monarchies (second edition, London, 1871), vol.
III., pp. 75 ff.
Of the books mentioned above, that of Hommel is particularly
full in reference to culture development; Goodspeed's small
volume gives an excellent condensed account; the original
documents as translated in the various volumes of Records
of the Past are full of interest; and Menant's little book is
altogether admirable. The work of excavation is still going on
in old Babylonia, and newly discovered texts add from time
to time to our knowledge, but A. H. Layard's Nineveh and its
Remains (London, 1849) still has importance as a record of
the most important early discoveries. The general histories
of Antiquity of Duncker, Lenormant, Maspero, and Meyer
give full treatment of Babylonian and Assyrian development.
Special histories of Babylonia and Assyria, in addition to
these named above, are Tiele's
Babylonisch-Assyrische Geschichte (Zwei Tiele,
Gotha, 1886-1888); Winckler's
Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens
(Berlin, 1885-1888), and Rogers' History of Babylonia and
Assyria, New York and London, 1900, the last of which,
however, deals almost exclusively with
political history. Certain phases of science, particularly with
reference to chronology and cosmology, are treated by Edward
Meyer (Geschichte des Alterthum
, vol. I., Stuttgart, 1884), and by P. Jensen
(Die Kosmologie der Babylonier
, Strassburg, 1890), but no comprehensive specific
treatment of the subject in its entirety has yet been
attempted.
III SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume I: The Beginnings of Science | ||