Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/539

* CHALDEE PARAPHRASE. 461 CHALDIANS. CHALDEE PARAPHRASE. See Tabcum. CHALDIANS, k;il ili'diu (Gk.Xa/.cawi, dial- daioi, Xii>.<'oi, I'haldoi, Lat. Vhttldi). A people iububitiug Aruienia before tbe arrival of the Haik. The early Assyrian kings ealled tliis tountry Nairi. It was then inhabited by petty nomadic tribes of uneertain ethnic relation. About B.C. 900 the Chaldians seem to have entered the country from the northeast, and founded a powerful kinjrdom. The name by which they designated themselves, and the land which they conquered, was that of their chief god, Chalilis. It is impossible, as yet, to deter- mine to what family of nations they belonged. But a connection may be suspected with such people as the !Mushki, Kashki, Tabal, Kummuch, and Chatti. The Assyrians, from the time of Ashurnaziri)al (SSo-StiO), called them Urartu, which may ha,ve been the name of the first tribe or district with which they became acquainted. It is possible that Arame. against whom Shal- nianezer II. (S.59-825) fought in B.C. 857 and 845, was the fust Chaldian king who succeeded in uniting under his seejitre the territory around Lake Van. In 833 Shalmanezer II. warred with a Sarduris, who is possibly to be identified with the Sarduris, son of Lutipris, of whom three in- scriptions in Assyrian have been found. These agree most closely with the Assyrian inscriptions of the time in form and character. Ispuinis, who is called Ushpina by Shamshi Adad IV. (825- 812), associated with himself his son, Mennas. It is possible that Ispuinis was the conqueror and organizer of the territory of Biaina, and that he made Tuspas the capital. Mennas is known to us chiefly through his building enterprises. The canals he constructed reveal the great architec- tural skill of the builders and their remarkable knowledge of hydraulics. They also show the great extent of territory' and large resources of the King. In 802, 702, and 785 Adad Xirani III. (812-783) made campaigns against ilennas. About eighty inscriptions in the Chaldian lan- guage of this King have been found. Argistis (785-7G0), a great conqueror, further extended the boundaries of Chaldia. He left a long in- scription on the rock of Van, and many others. In vain Shalmanezer III. (783-773) repeatedly invaded his territory. He was defeated, and the power of the Chaldian king grew apace. Sar- duris II. (7CO-730) appears to have a right to call himself "king of kings,' as he was the actual liege lord over the whole territory known as Suri (hence Syria), extending over Melitene, Comma- gene, Arpad, Cilicia, and some adjoining dis- tricts. Owing to the weakness of Assyria during the generation from Shalmanezer III. to Tig- lathpileser III., Chaldia became quite the most important power in Western Asia. In the strug- gle for empire between Chaldia and Assyria, Tig- lathpileser III. (745-728) was able in 735, by an expedition into the very heart of Chaldia, to establish the Assyrian power in Asia by greatly weakening the rival State, yet was obliged to re- tire without being able to capture the impreg- nable capital. The final struggle between Rusas I. (7.30-712) and Sargon (722-705) ended in the loss of Chaldian supremacy. The Assyrian re- ports are indeed wrong in stating that Rusas committed suicide. He was even able to extend his power somewhat after the alleged defeat, north and e.Tst. Hut in the west and the south Assyria had effectually checked the growth of Clialdia. And toward the end of Sargon's reign the Kimmeriaus fell upon Chaldia from the north. This invasion Argistis III., mentioned by Sargon in 700, or his successor, Rusas II., seems to have still been in a position to repulse. But their territory unquestionabl}' sufi'ered much. Internally these reigns are marked by great ad- ance in architecture, sculpture, and "other arts. Itusas II. built an important residence city at Toprakkaleh, near Van, called Rusachina," the ruins of which have been excavated. Erimenas is known only as the father of Rusas III., who ap- pears to have been the father of Sarduris III., mentioned in an inserijition of Assurbanipal (6S-2G) as having finally submitted to Assyrian suzerainty. If tliis is more than a vain boast, it may mean that tlie Scythians (Ashkuza), having established themselves in the territory of the !Manuai, and become allies of the Assyrians about (!30, forced their western neighbors to seek safety from reiieated raids in acknowledging Assyrian authority. It is possible that with the fall of the Sc}-thian power through the Medes, the Chal- dians also were incorporated in the Median Em- pire immediately before or soon after the de- struction of Nineveh, in 607. The invasion of the Haik, the modern Armenians, in the Sixth Century B.C. drove the Chaldians into exile. While the Assyrian fonn of the name survived in the biblical Ararat (Gen. viii. 4; .leremiah li. 27; II. Kings xix. 37; Isaiah .xx.wii. 38) and in tlie Alarodioi, who, according to Herodotus, served in the army of Xerxes, the name of Chal- dian has been preserved in the Chaldaioi of Soph- ocles, Xenophon, Strabo, and Plutarch, in the Chaldoi and the theme Chaldia of Byzantine times, and in numerous place-names. Possibly there is even a remnant of the old Chaldians in Chalt, near Baiburt. The Chaldians worshiped as their highest god Chaldis, by the side of him Ardinis, a sun-god, and Teisbas, a storm-god, as well as a host of minor deities conceived as the sons of Chaldis. Their civilization was no doubt borrowed from Assyria, but in some respects advanced beyond the point reached by the Assyrians themselves. They were probably the discoverers of the meth- ods of iron-working, for which the region became famous among the Greeks. Unlike the Assyrians, they erected their buildings of massive walls of stone. The country was intersected with fine roads and canals, showing great technical knowl- edge. Their sculptures are more lifelike than the Assyrian. They excelled in mosaics, filigree- work, and ceramics. The Chaldian language was written in cime- iform characters, borrowed from the Assyrian, but simplified by giving only one value to each sign, avoiding signs representing closed syllables, and using as a rule separate signs for the vowels, thus made to approach to a purely alphabetical system. The family to which it belongs has not been determined. It has some afiinity with the Georgian, and may belong to the same grouji as Mitanian, Hittite, and some early Asian lan- guages. Nearly two hundred native inscriptions have been discovered in all parts of modern Ar- menia, presenting some dialectical differences. They were first studied by Schullz and Hincks, ho worked out the general idea with the aid of .ssyrian ideographs. Guyard first noticed the identity of the imprecations at the end of the inscription with those found on Assyrian docu-