Ancient History from the Monuments. The History of Babylonia

Ancient history from the monuments: the history of Babylonia – is a work which was published in 1884 written by George Smith and edited by Archibald Henry Sayce. George Smith was a British Assyriologist. He discovered and translated into English "The Epic of Gilgamesh" - the oldest known literary work. Also Smith deciphered the Cypriot letter. Archibald Henry Sayce was a British orientalist, pioneer of Assyriology, linguist. Mr. George Smith left the History of Babylonia in such an almost complete form that the editor only had to go through it through the press, correct one or two mistakes, and make a few additions. In this work, which mixed pain and pleasure, the editor changed the words and spelling of the author only where there was an obvious oversight, adding other corrections to the footnotes. Babylonia was bounded in the north by Assyria, in the east by Susiana or Elam, in the west by the Arabian Desert, and in the south by Arabia and the Persian Gulf. The country is irrigated by the lower Euphrates and Tigris, and in fact it can be seen as a gift from these streams. Babylonia is typically a long, flat patch of alluvial soil deposited over several thousand years at the estuaries of these rivers. Due to the accumulation of new lands at the points where the Tigris and Euphrates flow into the Persian Gulf, the territory of Babylon has steadily increased from century to century. In early Chaldean times, the sea reached Abu Shahrain; in the time of Sennacherib it passed to Bab Salimiti; in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the port was moved to Teredon, and after the fall of Babylon, many miles were added to the land.