youtu.be/fcrTQCGQP1s Chaldean Empire/ 4th Sea land Dynasty Gerrha (Chaldean Bahrain) Prior to Gerrha or Hagar , the area belonged to the Dilmun civilization, which was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 709 BC. Gerrha was the center of an Chaldean kingdom from approximately 650 BC to circa 300 AD . The kingdom was attacked by Antiochus III the Great in 205-204 BC, though it seems to have survived. It is currently unknown exactly when Gerrha fell, but the area was under Sassanid Persian control after 300 AD. Gerrha was described by Strabo(64 BC – ca. AD 24) as inhabited by Chaldean exiles from Babylon, who built their houses of salt and repaired them by the application of salt water. Pliny the Elder (lust. Nat. vi. 32) says it was 5 miles in circumference with towers built of square blocks of salt. Various identifications of the site have been attempted, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon dAnville choosing Qatif, Carsten Niebuhr preferring Kuwait and C Forster suggesting the ruins at the head of the bay behind the islands of Bahrain. “Encyclopædia Britannica” Chaldea, also spelled Chaldaea, Assyrian Kaldu, Babylonian Kasdu, Hebrew Kasddim, land in southern Babylonia (modern southern Iraq) frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. Strictly speaking, the name should be applied to the land bordering the head of the Persian Gulf between the Arabian desert and the Euphrates delta. Chaldea is first mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (reigned 884/883–859 bc), though earlier documents referred to the same area as the “Sealand.” In 850 Shalmaneser III of Assyria raided Chaldea and reached the Persian Gulf, which he called the “Sea of Kaldu.” On the accession of Sargon II to the Assyrian throne (721), the Chaldean Marduk-apla-iddina II (the biblical Merodach-baladan), ruler of Bit-Yakin (a district of Chaldea), seized the Babylonian throne and, despite Assyrian opposition, held it from 721 to 710. He finally fled, however, and Bit-Yakin was placed under Assyrian control. With this decline of Assyrian power, a native governor, Nabopolassar, was able, in 625, to become king of Babylon by popular consent and to inaugurate a Chaldean dynasty that lasted until the Persian invasion of 539 bc. The prestige of his successors, Nebuchadrezzar II (reigned 605–562) and Nabonidus (reigned 556–539), was such that “Chaldean” became synonymous with “Babylonian.” “Chaldean” also was used by several ancient authors to denote the priests and other persons educated in the classical Babylonian literature, especially in traditions of astronomy and astrology. “The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilization” / Arthur Cotterell “Throughout the remainder of the 8th century BC Babylonian Political life was disturbed by the Chaldeans, a Semitic speaking group of people who had entered the plain earlier and who were now settled along the coast of the Persian Gulf. One tribe of Chaldeans, Yakin, produced an eminently capable leader called Merodach-baladan, who with Elamite support made numerious attempts to seize the Babylonian crown…” The Sealand of Ancient Arabia / Raymond Philip Dougherty /Yale University / Vol. XIX, 1932 “However, the existence of numerous Chaldeans, Arameans, and Sealanders outside the land of the two rivers should not be forgotten Streek regards (das gewaltige vom Meere heranruckende de Heer as composed of the people of the Sealand, i.e., the Chaldeans and the Arameans) Since the Sealand gave rise to the Neo-Babylonian [Chaldean] Empire and since there are strong reasons for association of the Sealand with Arabia, evidence of Neo-Babylonian contact with Arabia should be of special significance.” “The Babylonians” / H.W.F Saggs “… the Chaldeans as originally encountered were restricted to south Babylonia, and always remained predominant there…” Later he says: “… there is no hint of any non-Semitic linguistic background, but this does not preclude the possibility that their ancestry included elements from earlier groups who had ruled the south of the country, or from the Kassites. Some scholars suggest that they were originally of east Arabia origin; there is little positive evidence for this, but it is not impossible, and if they came in via the west coast of the Persian Gulf it might explain why they were in the main only in the south of Mesopotamia.” “Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta; Languages and Cultures in contact at the Crossroads of Civilizations in the Syro-Mesopotamian Realm. (Proceedings of the 42nd RAI)” / I. Sassmannshausen “It may be a matter of dispute whether the Babylonian society has to be considered a multicultural society. It certainly was a multiethnic society. In the Kassite period the population of Babylonia consisted, of course, mainly of Babylonians (The Babylonian designation for the Babylonians was akkadu Akkadian), but quite numerous were also Kassites and Hurrians. Other attested ethnic minorities were Western Semites (ahlamu and amurru), Assyrians, Elamites, Hittites, Lullubeans and people from Ullipi.” The Kassite period in Babylon was during 1570-1160 BC, and this scholar who presented his paper in front of the most famous in the field, mentioned some of the ethnic groups in Babylon in that period but did not mention the Chaldeans! Which proves the already known fact that the Chaldeans began to settle in southern Mesopotamia around the 10th century BC coming from the Sea Land perhaps (the Persian Gulf region). Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History / J.N. Postgate “His (Hammurabi) stele lists proudly the ancient centers of civilization, north and south, which the gods had entrusted to his rule: including Assur, Mari and an ancient Hurrian center, Ninua, the later capital of Assyria. This political success was not just another of the swings of the political pendulum, but represents a turning point. Even if more by default than otherwise, Babylon takes on the role of the single capital of the south: only the 1st Dynasty of Babylon remains as a dynastic line, and despite a murmur of resistance from Larsa, the only contenders for power in the future would be outsiders: the Sea-Land Dynasty, the Kassites and, still later, the new nomadic stock of the Aramaeans and Chaldeans.”
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 05:44:43 +0000
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