The Babylonian Woe

by David Astle

  [4] Ancient Egyptian Poem; Christopher Dawson: The Age of the Gods, p. 148.

  [5] For example, the folly of Britain in letting itself and the Empire be stamped into these last two so-called “Great” wars, may be compared to that of the man described by the Emperor Augustus who goes fishing with a golden hook; he has everything lose and little to gain. (Suetonius: the Twelve Caesars II, 25)

  [6] Much of this was foretold in the Revelation of St. John the Divine.

  [7] According to the review of Tragedy and Hope by Dr. Carroll Quigley; (New York, 1966.), as contained in the Naked Capitalist published by W. Cleon Skousen, Salt Lake City, 1970.

  [8] Cambridge Ancient History; Vol. I; p. 371. On first reading this unusual expression, there is temptation to think that an error has been made in the translation of the tablet. However, according to the correspondent in Zaire for the magazine known as Awake, chiefs of the natives of this country in pre-Europeanized times announced the copper mining season with the words Tuye Tukadie, Tuye Tukadie mukuba, which literally translates as “Let us go eat copper; in effect meaning “Let us go enrich ourselves to provide for our life.” (Awake, p. 25; July 8th, 1974.).

  Similarly the expression describing the sellers of land as “eaters of the silver of the field,” derives from the same root idea and implies that they enriched themselves to provide for the essentials of life by the sale of their land for silver.

  [9] Sir Charles L. Woolley: Abraham, p. 123.

  [10] With all due deference to an otherwise most eminent scholar.

  [11] Very little is known of the former relatively extensive use of glass as material to record definite numbers of the unit of exchange, or, more simply put, as money. On this subject François Lenormant commented in his book: La Monnaie dans l’Antiquité (p. 214; Tome I, Book II):

  “Nous possédons des preuves irréfragables da l’usage de monnaie de verre en Egypte des la temps du Haut-Empire (1) usage que se continua dans le même pays sous les Byzantins (2) puis sous les Arabes (3). C’est principalement de temps des Khalifes Fatimite que l’Egypte vit fabriquer le plu grand nombre de ces assignats le verre, portant l’indication d’une valeur da monnaie. Les Arabes de Sicile en firent aussi a l’imitation de ceux d’Egypte.”

  [12] Sir Charles Woolley: Abraham, p. 123; London; 1936.

  [13] Christopher Dawson: Age of the Gods, p. 130. (London; 1928.)

  [14] Actually evidence exists of Sumerian culture extending as far as the Caspian Sea even before the Dynastic Period. Reference to this subject is to be found on page 47 of The Sumerians.

  [15] On pages 124-125 of his book Abraham (London, 1936.) comment is made by Sir Charles Woolley: “a trade which involved the greater part of the then known world was carried on with remarkable smoothness by means of what we should call a paper currency based on commodity values. The fluctuations of currency values which are the bugbear of modern commerce were virtually overcome by a currency which depended ultimately on the staple necessity of life but was qualified by the use of a medium possessed of intrinsic value; the commercial traveller had to use his wits and exercise his judgement as to the form in which he cashed his credit notes.”

  Further comment was made by Sir Charles Woolley and Jacquetta Hawkes in Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization (pp. 615-616; London; 1963): The difficulty was solved by what might be called Letters of Credit facilitated by the existence of established agents on the trade routes. The traveller started with a consignment of grain, might sell it in some town on his road, receiving a signed tablet with the value expressed in copper, possibly, or in silver with which he could buy there or elsewhere something to the same value which he could sell at a profit farther along on his journey. his tablets payable on demand by the agents to whom he was accredited were the ancient equivalent of a Paper currency.”

  [16] E.J.C. McKay: Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro p 582. (Govt. India. Delhi; 1938.)

  [17] Sir Charles Woolley: Excavations at Ur; p. 112.

  [18] In the words of Sir Charles L. Woolley on page 193 of Excavations at Ur: “ Raw materials were imported sometimes from over the sea, to be worked up in the Ur factories; the Bill of Lading of a merchant ship which came up the canal from the Persian Gulf to discharge its cargo on the wharves of Ur details gold, copper ore, hardwood, ivory, pearls, and precious stones.”

  [19] John Bright: A History of Israel, p. 44; London; 1960.

  [20] Sir Charles Leonard Woolley; The Sumerians, p. 25 New York; 1965.

  [21] The Goyim of Genesis; Chapter XIV; verse I.

  [22] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, p. 23; London; 1966.

  [23] The Laws of Hammurabai; No. 7; (G.R. Driver & John C. Miles: Ancient Codes and Laws of the Near East, Vol. II, p. 15. Oxford, 1952.).

  [24] According to professor W.F. Albright (The Amarna Letters from Palestine. Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 11; pp. 14-17.): “There was also a large and apparently increasing class of stateless and reputedly lawless people in Palestine and Syria to whom the appellation Apiru was given, it has now become certain that they were a class of heterogenous ethnic origin, and that they spoke different languages, often alien to the people in whose documents they appear.”

  Further on in the same work, after pointing out the distinct differences between the desert tribes (Bedawin), the grooms, and the SA.GAZ troops (‘Apiru’), using an old text relative to the Hittite armed forces as the source of his information (about 1500 B.C.), professor Albright further points out that the word Apiru must mean dusty ones in N. West Semitic, and that it still appears in Syriac conveying the same meaning. “Characteristic of all these terms is the common fact that the bearer of the designation trudges in the dust behind donkeys, mules or chariots. In 1961 I collected the then available archaeological and documentary material bearing on the caravan trade of the twentieth to nineteenth centuries B.C., and the organization of donkey caravans; I found far-reaching correlations with early patriarchal tradition in Genesis.” (p. 17). The complex problem of the significance of the ‘Apiru’ (or Habiru) is not rendered less so by the fact that it recurs in cuneiform texts from different parts of Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor; all of which date from between the dynasty of Agade, and the 11th century B.C. Thus it would appear that the restless ‘Apiru’ of later times, mercenary soldier, bandit, or smuggler, was the descendant of the donkey caravaneers who maintained the trade between the cities of the known world previous to the collapse of the main cities in Babylonia before the arms of the Gutim, the Hittites, and the Elamites at different times, and which resulted in the extinction of a great deal of the donkey caravan trade by the 18th century B.C., and left the followers of that trade uncertain of where to settle or what occupation to follow.

  In the Tel Amarna Tablets, Vol II, Samuel A.B. Mercer refers to the use of the name Habiru at Babylon in the time of Hammurabai, (p.840); he further records that a list of Hittite gods, headed List of the Gods of the Habiru, was found at Bog-Haz Koi by Winckler, (p. 841). The secret societies of a group known as the Haburah seem to have existed beyond the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. According to Jost (I. History of the Jews; p. 210) Vespasian appointed a Rabbi John Ben Zakkai, chief of the Haburah as ruler of Jamnia. As Haburah derives from habor: to join, there may not be significant connection between Habiru or ‘Apiru’ and the more modern Haburah.

  [25] Sir Charles Woolley: Excavations at Ur, p. 158.

  [26] Ibid., p. 72.

  [27] “Mes-Kalan-Dug, ‘the good Hero of the Land,’ Prince of Ur, buried probably as early as 3500 B.C., took with him to the next world a wealth of golden vessels and weapons such as no commoner would have ventured to posses.”: Charles Seltsman, in Creek Coins (p. 2.).

  [28] Paul Einzig: Primitive Money, p. 214. Oxford; 1949.

  [29] In the Amarna Letters from Palestine, (p. 16), Professor W.F. Albright records that one of the letters from the Tel Amarna archives reports that Zemredda of Lachish had been killed by slaves who had become �
�Apiru.’ Further Professor Albright records that “in thirteen century documents from Ugarit, we hear of men of Ugarit, including slaves, who had escaped to the ‘Apiru’ in Hittite territory.”

  [30] James Mellaart: Catal Huyuk; London; 1967.

  [31] These words “the Ancient Orient” so aptly supplying loose definition to that world that lived under the political system that governed most of the cities of the Ancient Near East, derive from professor Heichelheim’s Ancient Economic History.

  [32] Kingston-Higgins: Survey of Primitive Money, p. 189. London; 1949.

  [33] Paul Einzig: Primitive Money, p. 29-81. Also Kingston-Higgins.

  [34] Kingston-Higgins also refers to shell money in the Neolithic caves of Annam (p. 139). Also at Mohenjo-Daro. (p. 1). For shell money at Mohenjo-Daro see E.J.C. McKay; p. 582. Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro.

  [35] Cambridge Ancient History. p. 51; Vol. I.

  [36] London Illustrated News. p. 24, March 7th, 1970; The Boys of Sungir; Dr. Otto Bader.

  [37] James Henry Breasted: A History of Egypt, p. 44.

  [38] According to Flinders-Petrie, scarabs first appear in Egypt during the fourth Dynasty and continue right through to the end (of Pharaonic rule) with no important break. History of Egypt. p. 52; Vol. I; London, 1897.

  [39] A Andreades: History of The Bank of England, p. 389-401. See also The Federal Reserve System, a pamphlet originally published by the Board of governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1939, and republished by Omni Publications of Hawthorne, California.

  [40] According to N.K. Sandars in the introduction to his translation of the Epic of Gilgamish (p. 14.): “The temples were served by a perpetual priesthood in whose hands, at one time, was almost the whole wealth of the state; and amongst whom were the archivists and teachers, the scholars and mathematicians. In very early times the whole temporal power was theirs, as servants of the god whose estates they managed.”

  [41] Sir Charles L. Woolley: Further Excavations at Ur, p. 158.

  [42] Plato was reputed to have been sold as a slave by Dionysus, ruler of Syracuse, for 20 minae. Diodorus: xv.7; Plutarch: Dionysos, 5.

  [43] Rostovtsev: A Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, Vol. I, p. 233.

  [44] William L. Westerman: The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity, p. 65.

  [45] Mikhail Ivanovitch Rostovtsev: A Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World; Vol. I; p. 227.

  [46] Mikhail Ivanovitch Rostovtsev: A Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World; pp. 218, Vol. I.

  [47] Oskar Seffert: A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, p. 91.

  [48] Mikhail I. Rostovtsev: A Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, Vol. I. p.227.

  [49] Strabo: XIV, v. 570, (Napoleon III: Julius Caesar Vol. I, p. 241; London; 1865).

  [50] William L. Westerman: The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity; American Philosophical Society; Philadelphia.

  [51] The siege of Potidaea, a relatively minor engagement of a long war, cost the Athenians 2000 of these talents. (Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, Book II, Ch. 7.).

  [52] Andreades: Annales d’Histoire Economique et Sociale, p. 350, Paris, 1929.

  [53] According to François Lenormant in his book La Monnaie dans l’Antiquité, pp. 215-216, Book II, Tome I: “Cedrenus prétend que les Romaines a une époque très ancienne auraient en des monnaies de bois; mais cette tradition doit très probablement être relegnée dans la domaine des fables avec la monnaie Romains de terre cuite dont parle Suidas. Pourtant ils se pourrait que cette dernier indication se rapportait a quelques espèce d’assignat momentamente en usage et qui n’aurait ermané des autorités publiques. On trouve fréquemment a Athènes des moulages en terre cuites de monnaies d argent ou d’or de diverses contrées, appartenant principalement a la période, qui s’étend du milieu de V siècle avant J.C. entres outres de statères de Cyzique. Le savant Numismatist Sicilien, M. Antonio Salinas pendant son séjour en Grèce, a recueilli un grand nombres de ces monuments, soit en originaux, soit en moulage, et soit en dessins. La destination de cette classe spéciale d’objets qui se rattachent forcement a la numismatique, est très obscure. Mais on peut conjecturer que de telles pseudo-monnaies de terre cuites, moulées sur des espèces existantes, ont du avoir une circulation fiduciaire, mais d’une caractère tout prive comme celles des billets de crédit. dont la loi autorise dans certains pays l’émission par des institutions particulière.”

  [54] Heinrich Schlieman: Mycenae, pp. 157; 241; 242. Blom; New York, 1967 (reprint)

  [55] It is also interesting to note that amongst so much precious metal was also found a large number of oyster shells and unopened oysters; also weapons of obsidian. Although Heinrich Schlieman was convinced he had found the grave of Agamemnon who had lead the heroes to before the walls of Troy, the obsidian weapons and the oyster shells indicated that this grave belonged to a much earlier age again than that of Agamemnon; an age perhaps even previous to that in Which occurred those disturbances that brought down into ruin so much of the ancient world, of which Sumeria, Crete, Mycenae, Egypt and the Empire of the Hittites were but part.

  At the time of Schlieman’s diggings at Mycenae, practically nothing was known of the extensive use of shell money in ages long gone by, but as a result of the extensive studies of recent years, particularly those of Paul Einzig (Primitive Money; London 1949.), and of Mrs. Kingston-Higgins (A Survey of Primitive Money, London; 1949.), it is quite clear that the oyster shells found in the Mycenaean graves were reference days more ancient again than those of Agamemnon and the Heroes. They belonged to a day already nearly forgotten, when shells were money, and money, not only amongst simple societies, but also amongst some highly organized societies was shells. In the I Chiag, one of the earliest books of the Chinese, 100,000 dead shell fish are given as the equivalent of riches. The famous dictionary of the Emperor Kang Hsi (1662 A.D. - 1723 A.D.) based on the Shuo Wen of Hsu Shin who died about A.D. 120, says pei denotes sea creatures that live in shells. The character pei was included in most characters relating to wealth. It is included in many such characters in the latest Chinese dictionaries.

  [56] Henry J. Breasted: p. 142.

  [57] F.W. Madden: Coins of the Jews, pp. 9-10.

  [58] Chron. I. xxxi. 25.

  [59] 2. Kings. V.5.

  [60] Isaiah. xlvi.6.

  [61] Job. xxviii. 15.

  [62] Genesis, xxiv. 22.

  [63] Genesis. xiv. 22.

  [64] Alexander del Mar: A History of Monetary Systems in Various States, p. 38.

  [65] James H. Breasted: A History of Egypt, pp. 97-98. Of the latter years of the Old Kingdom remarks made by the scholarly writer of the articles on Egypt in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th Edn.): “The sixth Dynasty was probably a family of a different part of Egypt. It has left many records which indicate less centralization at Memphis than those of earlier Sovereigns; and mark the beginning of wars for predatory purposes and extension of territory. This change is accompanied by a less careful style of sculpture and less pains in the excavation of tombs as though the Egyptians were gaining a larger horizon, or, it may be, exchanging religion for ambition.”

  However, speculation more to the point might very well be as to whether or not the Egyptians of this period were making an exchange of the deep harmony in living as had obtained under the true and natural order under which they had lived so long, for that disorder in life which necessarily derived from the ferment known as “Progress”; one of the essential factors by which private (and hence irresponsible) money creative power maintains its total hegemony, once its control is established amongst a people.

  [66] Exodus. xii, 35. Exodus iii, 22. (King James Version).

  [67] Deuteronomy. xiv, 24-26. (King James Version)

  [68] Such a period may very well have been the several centuries preceding the collapse of the caravan trade in Mesopotamia, in the 18th century B.C.

  [69] In the words of Professor F.W. Albright writing o
f the findings of his studies relative to the caravan trade and the organization of the donkey caravans of the twentieth and nineteenth centuries B.C.: “It became particularly obvious that the previously enigmatic occupational background of Abraham becomes intelligible only when we identify the terms Ibri ‘Hebrew,’ (previously ‘Abiru) with ‘Apiru, later ‘Abiru, literally ‘person from across or beyond.’” (The Amarna Letters from Palestine; Cambridge Ancient History; Vol. II, p. 17.)

  [70] T.B.L. Webster: From Mycenae to Homer, p. 22; London; 1964.

  [71] Jacquetta Hawkes: Dawn of the Gods, p. 226. New York; 1969.

  [72] Ibid.

  [73] T.B.L. Webster: From Mycenae Homer, p. 22.

  [74] John Chadwick: The Decipherment of Linear “B”; Cambridge; 1958.

  [75] Henry J. Breasted: A History of Egypt, p. 214.

  [76] T.B.L. Webster: From Mycenae to Homer, p. 18.

  [77] Henry J. Breasted: A History Egypt, pp. 284-321.

  [78] Henry J Breasted: A History of Egypt, p. 217.

  [79] Ibid. p. 292.

  [80] According to J.B. Bury (History of Greece, p. 744; Random House edn.), Alexander’s total army numbered no more than 30,000 foot and 5000 horse. The Greek hoplite centre of Darius, against which was thrown the full weight of the relatively puny Macedonian phalanx, itself numbered 30,000 men.

  [81] Encyclopaedia Britannica; 9th Edn.; Vol. XXII; p. 823.

  [82] Henry J. Breasted: A History of Egypt, pp. 293, 305.

  [83] Henry J. Breasted: A History of Egypt. p. 298. New York; 1956.

  [84] Ibid. p. 307.

  [85] Ibid. p. 304.

  [86] Ibid. p. 491.

  [87] Ibid. p. 485.

  [88] Ibid. p. 491.

  [89] Ibid. p. 529.

  [90] Kings. 10, 29.

  [91] Six hundred years later these cities of Arvad and Symyra seemed also to have attracted the special attention of Assyria. In this case they were friend and ally set up in opposition to the other Arameo-Phoenician cities.

  [92] Henry J. Breasted: A History of Egypt, pp. 97-98.