THE most interesting records of the religious ideas of man, as they existed shortly after the period of the flood, are found in the valley of the Euphrates. As we shall have occasion to refer to these records from time to time, we cannot do better, to begin with, than to supply our readers with a map of the district.
In the district of Babylonia there are numerous mounds which mark the sites of ancient cities, and in various of these the records now so highly valued have been discovered. The “literature” of those days “was very extensive, and the libraries, with which the country was stocked, were full of treatises on all the branches of knowledge pursued by the ancient Chaldeans. One of the most famous of these libraries was that at Agade.” This city was near Seppara or Sepharvaim, the city of the sun god.
The Akkadians are reckoned amongst the most ancient of the peoples who dwelt in Babylonia. “The primitive inhabitants of the country, the builders of its cities, the inventors of the cuneiform system of writing . . .” were “the inhabitants of Sumir or Shinar, the plain country, and the Akkadians or ‘Highlanders’ who had descended from the mountains of Elam subsequently to the first settlement of their kinspeople in Shinar.” Their literature was translated by their successors, and comes down to us in clay tablets.
The very seals or cylinders of these ancient people are also in our hands. After being removed by conquerors from their original depository or city, and after lying for thousands of years buried in the ruins of a palace library, they have been dug up to witness to the old beliefs of the world. These seals are engravings made upon such stones as agate, crystal, carnelian, jasper, and hematite. They are small, averaging about an inch and a quarter in length, and about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. These durable stones, with the handiwork of the engraver upon them, have remained hardly injured to our days.
Here is a drawing of one of these seals of the most ancient class, and prior to the time when the engraver had become proficient in his art. It is a hard, greenish-colored stone. It represents the temptation in Paradise. The tree of knowledge occupies the center, and two clusters of fruit hang down on either side of it. To these the hands of the two figures are outstretched. Behind the female figure a serpent rises up.
The old seal, so rudely cut, represents in the plainest manner the tradition of the Fall, as it was understood by the people of the plain Shinar, where the Tower of Babel stood. The following fragments of the legend, in which the various “wicked acts of the serpent” are described, point to the same belief.
“In sin one with the other the compact joined.
The command was established in the garden of the god.
The Asnau (fruit) they eat . . .
. . . Themselves they exalted―.”