ARCHEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL RESEARCH.

CYLINDERS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

THERE is probably no place on earth where those interested in Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities can carry on their investigations to better advantage than in the spacious rooms and galleries of the British Museum. Here are found, in the palatial Assyrian, Nineveh, and Nimroud galleries, as well as in the Assyrian central saloon, to say nothing of the transept and the Babylonian and Assyrian room on the upper floor, innumerable treasures which the pick and spade of an army of excavators, under the direction of Layard, Rawlinson, Smith, Loftus, and others equally worthy of mention, have brought to light during the past fifty years. As one walks through these vast galleries, arranged often in the same order as in their original places, and studies the delicate work on the bas-reliefs, executed with such artistic skill and which unroll to him the records of past glory and greatness, he is filled with amazement at the advanced stage of the plastic arts in the remote ages, and also with gratitude to those who have rendered such excellent service in restoring these monuments.

As might be expected, these discoveries have revolutionized the science of Old Testament criticism. No one who has examined the seals, cylinders, tablets, and other articles in the Babylonian and Assyrian room will ask whether the art of writing was known to the Semitic people at the time of the Exodus. How exceedingly shallow the following words of Ewald, the great Göttingen Hebraist, seem to us in the light of recent discoveries! And yet this great biblical scholar some fifty years ago wrote as follows in his History of Israel: "Was there a system of writing already current in the time of Joseph, or Abraham, or at least in the days of Moses? The narratives of the patriarchal ages bear no trace of a certain tradition of the use of writing in that ancient period. It cannot be proved that any written documents came down from the patriarchal times to later ages." Though there are earlier specimens of cuneiform writings than those found upon the cylinders and seals, yet the study of these will be of the greatest interest and profit.

Lest there may be some reader who has not a clear idea of what cylinders are it may be stated that there are of these at least three distinct kinds. The first may be called cylinder-seals. These, as the name indicates, are cylindrical seals, which were much used by the Babylonians, and later by the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and others, not only as amulets, charms, and ornaments, but also to ratify contracts both private and public. They were impressed upon tablets while the clay was still soft. The brick document was then hardened, either in the sun or by means of artificial heat. This practice corresponds to our impressing official documents on leather or paper with seals upon wax. These cylinders, made of amethyst, chalcedony, emerald, jasper, onyx,

and various other precious stones, vary in size from about one half an inch long to two inches or more; in diameter from one quarter of an inch to five times that dimension. The amount of carving upon them depends upon the size and purpose of the seal; some contain only the name of the owner and that of the god or gods-he worshiped, while others have in addition some legendary passage from a sacred book, as that of Asrinilu, from the great Chaldæan epic entitled "Gilgames." These cylinderseals were perforated lengthwise through the middle, a string, by means of which they were suspended from the neck, being passed through this hole. The oldest seal yet discovered is that in the De Clercq collection at Paris. It bears the name of Sargani or Sargon the First, King of Agade, who lived about 3800 B. C. The work on this is very exquisite. Babelon in speaking of this seal says, "I do not know which should astonish us the more-the degree of perfection to which the Chaldæans had carried the plastic arts, or the prodigiously distant epoch to which such monuments transport us." It is almost impossible to conceive how, in the gray dawn of antiquity, such delicate engraving could be made upon such hard materials-objects so difficult, even now, to cut or engrave.

Mr. Pinches, an eminent Assyriologist, wrote in 1885 in substance as follows: The earliest example of engraving on stone preserved in the British Museum is a pink-veined marble egg-shaped object about two and a half inches long, drilled from end to end, probably the head of a mace or staff of office. It is inscribed thus: "I, Sargon, the messenger, King of Agade, have dedicated [this] to Samas in Sippara." There is now, however, one specimen in the same case, a gate-socket of Entenna, King of Babylonia, 4200 B. C., the upper rim of which is covered with inscriptions. Just across, in case A, is a fragment of a granite bowl of Eannadu, the first king of Babylonia, or at least the first mentioned in the inscriptions. Though the engraving on this dates back to 4500 B. C., yet it is clear and distinct and quite modern-looking.

Let us return to our cylinders. Without going into details, it might be stated that "specimens of cylinder-seals have been found which apparently belong to a period about B. C. 4000; and it is known from the examples preserved in London and Paris that the art of engraving was carried on without a break from that period down to the time of the Persian conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, about B. C. 539” (Budge).

Besides these smaller cylinders used as seals and prophylactic amulets, there are also exhibited in the Museum a large collection of what may be termed historical ones. There are two prevailing types, the barrel-shaped and the polygonal. While the former belonged to the Babylonian empire and the latter to the Assyrian, it would not be safe, as has been done, to assert that the shape determined the character or nationality, for we have in one case five barrel-shaped cylinders giving a summary of the wars in the early part of Sennacherib's reign (B. C. 705–681), as well as an hexagonal one of the same king which, among other things, has an account of his war against Hezekiah and the capture of Jerusalem. Alongside of this is another hexagonal cylinder; it is that of Esar-haddon (B. C. 681-668).

What makes this of special interest is the fact that it gives in detail an account of the defeat and surrender of Manasseh. That portion of this official account which describes Sennacherib's campaign in Palestine and the defeat of Hezekiah is of such interest to every biblical student as to justify an insertion of it here. It has been thus translated: "Six and forty of the strong cities, and the strongholds and the hamlets round about them, belonging to Hezekiah the Jew, who had not submitted to my rule, . . . I besieged and captured. Two hundred thousand and one hundred and fifty souls, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without number, did I make to be brought forth therefrom, and I counted them as spoil. Hezekiah himself, like unto a bird in a cage, did I shut up within his house in Jerusalem. I cast up mounds against the city, and I turned back every man who came forth. His towns which I had captured from him I took away from his kingdom and gave them to Mitinti, King of Ashdod, to Padi, King of Ekron, and to Silbel [?], King of Gaza; and I reduced his land. I increased the sum of the tribute which he paid yearly unto my majesty. The fear of the glory of my majesty overpowered Hezekiah; and his captains and his mighty men of valor whom he had brought into Jerusalem to defend it laid down their arms. Thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver, precious stones, ivory, treasures, his daughters, the women of his palace, etc., he sent unto my palace at Nineveh."

This long extract is only a portion of what is contained on this hexagonal monument. Extensive, however, as this State document is, there are at least three in the British Museum which are much larger and, as might be expected, contain much more matter inscribed upon them. Perhaps the largest of these three measures twenty-one inches in height, has ten sides, each about two and a half inches. It would take a sheet of paper twenty-one by twenty-five inches to hold as much matter as we find upon this cylinder, which records the glories of Assur-bani-pal. In a neighboring case are exhibited three fine cylinders dug out from the ruins. of a temple at Kalah Sherghat, the so-called city of Assur. They are all inscribed with the great deeds and glories of Tiglath-pileser I, who lived about 1100 B. C. The largest of these octagonal baked-clay cylinders is fully twenty-one inches high, and has upon it a lengthy account of the campaigns and building projects of the great monarch just mentioned.

There is a very large number of these cylinders, generally of small size and always barrel-shaped, which record the operations of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. Two are of special interest; for, besides recording the restoration of the temple of Ebarra at Larsa, which had been destroyed during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, it also describes the discovery of the monuments of Burna-Buryash, B. C. 1425, and of Khammurabi (the Amraphel of Genesis), B. C. 2200, and again that he discovered in the foundations of the temple of Eulbar inscriptions of Sargon I, B. C. 3800, though other kings in different reigns had vainly sought to find them. We shall only mention four more, which were found by

Taylor imbedded in the four corners of the temple of the moon-god at Mugheir, or the biblical Ur of the Chaldees. These are not large, but very perfect, and simply record the restoration of this temple by Nabonidus.

From what has been said the reader will have surmised that these cylinders were commemorative as well as talismanic in their character. This is made the more probable from a discovery of M. Place at Khorsabad, where he disinterred a stone box from the foundations in which was inscribed on gold, silver, antimony, copper, and lead the following inscription, translated thus by Oppert: "May the great lord Assur destroy from the face of this country the name and race of him who shall injure the works of my hand or who shall carry off my treasure." Compare also what Professor Hilprecht calls "one of the oldest monuments of Semitic speech," which was found deep among the ruins of Nipur and reads: "Whosoever removes this inscribed stone, his foundation may Bel and Samas and Ninna tear up, and exterminate his seed.”

It would be easy to multiply examples; but the above will give the reader some idea of cylinders, their antiquity and use. In conclusion, it may be stated that those interested in the study of the articles above described will find some rare specimens in the museums of New York and Philadelphia, and that the University of Chicago is soon to have elegant casts of some of the finest specimens in the British Museum.

REPORT OF THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND.

THE Quarterly Statement of this organization, July, 1896, has been recently issued, and contains much interesting and suggestive matter. Dr. F. J. Bliss makes his ninth report concerning the progress of his excavations within the present city limits of Jerusalem. He has for some months past been tracing the course of an old wall, several feet below the surface, probably not dating much, if any, further back than the time of the Crusaders. His report possesses a real value as showing the vast amount of patient preliminary labor, often of an experimental and tentative character, that has preceded all important archæological discoveries, whether in classical, oriental, or other fields, or that has followed them before their value has been fully established. Of the various papers appended to the statement the best are those on "The Date of the Exodus," by Captain A. E. Haynes and Colonel C. R. Conder. Out of such discussion, as inconclusive and unsatisfactory as it may now appear, will eventually come-supplemented, as it will be in the order of Providence, from time to time by such fresh and pertinent discoveries as our increasing knowledge is able properly to assimilate-a clear light and, we believe, a sure confirmation of our Scripture records. Captain Haynes, who seems sufficiently under the influence of higher critical tendencies, nevertheless in a footnote says: "The record of a seven years' famine in Egypt during the seventeenth dynasty has been found in the tomb of a certain Baba in Upper Egypt, and has been used to support the suitability of the time of the Hyksos for the immigration of Israel to Egypt.”

MISSIONARY REVIEW.

THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY AS A MISSIONARY AGENCY.

ONE of the foremost missionary agencies of this country is the American Bible Society, and it is with great pleasure that we note its steady and rapid growth in the confidence and support of the people. In eighty years it has issued 61,705,841 volumes in nearly one hundred languages and dialects. In the first quarter of a century of its existence it issued a little less than three million copies; in the next quarter of a century it swelled its publications to nearly nineteen millions; and in the third quarter of a century, as it had the pleasure of announcing at its diamond anniversary, its issues reached about thirty-two and a half millions. In the five years since then it has sent forth seven and a half million copies. Whither have gone the volumes distributed within the last year? The answer is at hand. They have helped to evangelize and elevate the thirty thousand people engaged in mining and other branches of the iron industry in Jefferson County, Ala., two thirds of whom are negroes; the saw mill towns of the southern part of the State; and the small farmers of the northern portion. In California, they have gone among the Japanese and Chinese, Chinese copies having been obtained from the Rev. Mr. Hykes, a Methodist in charge of the Shanghai agency. Over twenty-eight thousand copies have been circulated, in thirty languages, in Chicago and other parts of Cook County, Ill. In the Indian Territory, the last vestige of the national domain held in fee simple from the United States government by the red man, the Scriptures have been circulated in thirteen Indian languages. They have gone into Louisiana, whole parishes of which State are without any evangelical church. Even New Hampshire has become so polyglot that the word has been scattered there in thirteen languages. Large numbers of copies have gone to the Spanish-speaking population of New Mexico. The agents of the society have met two hundred and forty-two thousand immigrants at New York, the eastern gate of the nation, and placed over fifty-six thousand volumes in their hands, in English, Welsh, French, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Russian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Bohemian, Polish, Slavic, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Hebrew, and Portuguese. In Pennsylvania the copies distributed have been in thirty-five languages, including such unusual ones as Icelandic, Lithuanian, Tamil, Hawaiian, Turkish, and Slovak.

Abroad, the story of the circulation of the Scriptures is abundantly interesting. In Mexico one old woman, on receiving a Bible, said, "I am eighty-seven years old, but I have never heard before such words as you read from your Bible." "Have you not heard the Gospel during a life of eighty-seven years?" was asked. "I do not know what the Gospel may be, but I like what you read," was her reply; "continue." Priestly