Euphrates valley, the portion that comprised ancient Assyria, consists

s as level as the sea. During a large part of the year, rains are infrequent; hence agriculture is dependent mainly upon artificial irrigation. The distribution of the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates was se

avellers who visited the East. Herodotus will not tell the whole truth, for fear his veracity may be doubted. The soil is as fertile now as in the time of the hist

urn, not only extended its authority over the valley, but also made the power of its arms felt throughout the adjoining regions. We shall now trace the rise and the varied fortunes of the

umir, the Shinar of the Bible, while Upper Chald?a bore the name of Accad. The or

ANCIENT BABYL

ns. They brought with them into the valley the art of hieroglyphical writing, which later developed into the well-known

hey adopted the arts and literature of the people among whom they had settled; yet they retained their own language, which in the course of time superseded the less perfect Turanian speech of the original inhabit

il after the arrival of the Semites. Then, powerful kings, sometimes of Semitic and then again of Turanian, or

reat early cities. An inscription recently deciphered makes this king to have reigned as early as

to the Semitic, or Assyrian tongue the religious, mythological, and astronomical literature of the Accadians, and deposited the books in great librar

he great cities of Lower Babylonia, the princes of the Elamites, a people of Turanian race

unded by Sargon and his successors, and from the temples bore off in triumph to his capital, Susa, the

OF THE TIGRIS AND

ctuaries, a king of Nineveh captured the city of Susa, and finding there

Abraham has caused his name to be handed down to our own times in the records of t

cities of Chald?a for two or three centuries, their power seems to have declined; and then for several centur

e ancient Accadian cities, and became the leading city of the land. From it the who

time Assyria was simply a province or dependency of the lower kingdom; but about 1300 B.C., the Assyrian monarch Tiglathi-nin conquered Babylonia, and Assyria assumed the pl