The Chaldean tribes in Babylonia during the 1st millennium BC.
Chaldea (/kælˈdiːə/) refers to a region probably located in the marshy land of southernMesopotamia. It is mentioned, with varying meaning, inNeo-Assyrian cuneiform, theHebrew Bible, and in classical Greek texts. TheHebrew Bible uses the termכשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated asChaldaeans in theGreek Old Testament.
During a period of weakness in theEast Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes ofWest Semitic-speaking migrants[1] arrived in the region fromthe Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BC. The earliest waves consisted ofSuteans andArameans, followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect the powerful kingdom and empire ofAssyria inUpper Mesopotamia, which repelled these incursions.
These nomadic Chaldeans settled in the far southeastern portion of Babylonia, chiefly on the left bank of theEuphrates. Though for a short time the name commonly referred to the whole of southern Mesopotamia in Hebraic literature, this was a geographical and historical misnomer as Chaldea proper was in fact only the plain in the far southeast formed by the deposits of theEuphrates and theTigris, extending about 640 kilometres (400 mi) along the course of these rivers and averaging about 160 km (100 mi) in width. There were several kings of Chaldean origins who ruled Babylonia.[2]: 178 From 626 BC to 539 BC, a ruling dynasty in later times referred to as the "Chaldean dynasty", named after their possible Chaldean origin,[2]: 4 ruled the kingdom at its height under theNeo-Babylonian Empire, although the final ruler of this empire,Nabonidus (556–539 BC) (and his son and regentBelshazzar) was a usurper ofAssyrian ancestry.
Despite the similarity in name, Chaldea is not to be confused with the modernChaldean Catholic Church or its adherents, who are predominantly ethnicAssyrians. Members of the Assyrian community have noted thatMandaeans hold a stronger connection to the region, while the theory of Chaldean origin arose around the time of a rise of Chaldean nationalism within the Assyrian community.[3]
Name
The nameChaldaea is alatinization of theGreekKhaldaía (Χαλδαία), ahellenization ofAkkadianmāt Kaldu orKašdu, suggesting an underlying /kaɬdu/.[4] The termChaldea appears inHebrew in theBible asKaśdim (כַּשְׂדִּים),[5] whileChaldeans are HebrewKaśdim (כַּשְׂדִּים) andAramaicKaśdā'in (כַּשְׂדָּאִין).[6][7][8]
Genesis 22:22 listsKesed (כֶּשֶׂד, reconstructed /kaɬd/[9]), perhaps a singular form ofKasdim, as son ofAbraham's brotherNahor (and brother of Kemuel the father of Aram), residing inAram Naharaim.Jubilees 11:7 claims that "Ur son of Kesed built the city of Ur-Kasdim, and he named it after himself and his father".
In the early period, between the early 9th century and late 7th century BC,mat Kaldi was the name of a small sporadically independent migrant-founded territory under the domination of theNeo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) in southeastern Babylonia, extending to the western shores of thePersian Gulf.[5]
The expression mat Bit Yâkin is also used, apparently synonymously.Bit Yâkin was the name of the largest and most powerful of the five tribes of the Chaldeans, or equivalently, their territory.[12]The original extension ofBit Yâkin is not known precisely, but it extended from the lower Tigris into theArabian Peninsula.Sargon II mentions it as extending as far asDilmun or "sea-land" (littoral Eastern Arabia).[13] "Chaldea" ormat Kaldi generally referred to the low, marshy, alluvial land around the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates,[14] which at the time discharged their waters through separate mouths into the sea.
The king of Chaldea was also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia and Assyria were regularly styled simply king ofBabylon orAssur, the capital city in each case. In the same way, what is now known as the Persian Gulf was sometimes called "the Sea of Bit Yakin", and sometimes "the Sea of the Land of Chaldea".
"Chaldea" came to be used in a wider sense, of Southern Mesopotamia in general, following the brief ascendancy of the Chaldeans during 608–557 BC. This is especially the case in theHebrew Bible, which was substantially composed during this period (roughly corresponding to the period ofBabylonian captivity). TheBook of Jeremiah makes frequent reference to the Chaldeans (King James VersionChaldees followingLXXΧαλδαίοι; inBiblical Hebrew asKasdîmכַּשְׂדִּים).Book of Habakkuk 1:6 calls them "that bitter and hasty nation" (הַגֹּוי הַמַּר וְהַנִּמְהָר).Book of Isaiah 23:13DRB states, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, theAssyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have brought it to ruin.”
Ancient Chaldeans
Unlike theEast SemiticAkkadian-speakingAkkadians,Assyrians andBabylonians, whose ancestors had been established in Mesopotamia since at least the 30th century BC, the Chaldeans were not a native Mesopotamian people, but were late 10th- or early 9th-century BCWest SemiticLevantine migrants to the southeastern corner of the region, who had played no part in the previous three millennia of Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-BabylonianMesopotamian civilization and history.[16][17][page needed]
The ancient Chaldeans seem to have migrated into Mesopotamia sometime between c. 940 and 860 BC, a century or so after other newSemitic arrivals, theArameans and theSuteans, appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. According to Ran Zadok, they first appear inwritten record in cylinder inscriptions of the King ofMari Aššur-ketta-lēšir II (late 12th-early 11th century BC), which record them reaching Mesopotamia as early as the 11th century BC.[18] They later appear in the annals of the Assyrian kingShalmaneser III during the 850s BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of semi-nomadic foreign peoples from invading and settling in the land.[19]
Though belonging to the same West Semitic speaking ethnic group and migrating from the same Levantine regions as the earlier arriving Aramaeans, they are to be differentiated; the Assyrian kingSennacherib, for example, carefully distinguishes them in his inscriptions.
The Chaldeans were for a time able to keep their identity despite the dominant native Assyro-Babylonian (Sumero-Akkadian-derived) culture although, as was the case for the earlierAmorites,Kassites andSuteans before them, by the timeBabylon fell in 539 BC, perhaps before, the Chaldeans ceased to exist as a specificethnic group.[20]
During theNeo-Assyrian Empire,Imperial Aramaic became thelingua franca of the empire under the rule of theAssyrian kingTiglath-Pileser III in the mid-8th century BC. As a result, in late periods both the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects ofAkkadian became marginalized, and Aramaic took its place across Mesopotamia, including among the Chaldeans, and later, also thesouthern Levant. One form of this once widespread Aramaic language was used in some books of theHebrew Bible (theBook of Daniel and theBook of Ezra). The use of the name "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee) to describe it, first introduced byJerome of Stridon (d. 420),[22] became common in earlyAramaic studies, but thatmisnomer was later corrected, when modern scholars concluded that theAramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible was not closely related to the ancient Chaldean language.[23]
The region that the Chaldeans eventually made their homeland was in relatively poor southeastern Mesopotamia, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They appear to have migrated into southernBabylonia from the Levant at some unknown point between the end of the reign ofNinurta-kudurri-usur II (a contemporary ofTiglath-Pileser II) circa 940 BC, and the start of the reign ofMarduk-zakir-shumi I in 855 BC, although there is no historical proof of their existence prior to the late 850s BC.[24]
For perhaps a century or so after settling in the area, these semi-nomadic migrant Chaldean tribes had no impact on the pages of history, seemingly remaining subjugated by the nativeAkkadian speaking kings of Babylon or by perhaps regionally influential Aramean tribes. The main players in southern Mesopotamia during this period were Babylonia and Assyria, together withElam to the east and theAramaeans, who had already settled in the region a century or so prior to the arrival of the Chaldeans.
The very first written historical attestation of the existence of Chaldeans occurs in 852 BC,[25] in the annals of the Assyrian kingShalmaneser III, who mentions invading the southeastern extremes of Babylonia and subjugating oneMushallim-Marduk, the chief of theAmukani tribe and overall leader of the Kaldu tribes,[26] together with capturing the town ofBaqani, extracting tribute fromAdini, chief of theBet-Dakkuri, another Chaldean tribe.
Shalmaneser III had invaded Babylonia at the request of its own king,Marduk-zakir-shumi I, who, being threatened by his own rebellious relations, together with powerful Aramean tribes pleaded with the more powerful Assyrian king for help. The subjugation of the Chaldean tribes by the Assyrian king appears to have been an aside, as they were not at that time a powerful force or a threat to the native Babylonian king.
Chaldean leaders had by this time already adopted Assyro-Babylonian names, religion, language, and customs, indicating that they had become Akkadianized to a great degree.
The Chaldeans remained quietly ruled by the native Babylonians (who were in turn subjugated by their Assyrian relations) for the next seventy-two years, only coming to historical prominence for the first time in Babylonia in 780 BC, when a previously unknown Chaldean namedMarduk-apla-usur usurped the throne from the native Babylonian kingMarduk-bel-zeri (790–780 BC). The latter was a vassal of the Assyrian kingShalmaneser IV (783–773 BC), who was otherwise occupied quelling a civil war in Assyria at the time.
This was to set a precedent for all future Chaldean aspirations on Babylon during theNeo-Assyrian Empire; always too weak to confront a strong Assyria alone and directly, the Chaldeans awaited periods when Assyrian kings were distracted elsewhere in their vast empire, or engaged in internal conflicts, then, in alliance with other powers stronger than themselves (usuallyElam), they made a bid for control over Babylonia.
Shalmaneser IV attacked and defeated Marduk-apla-user, retaking northern Babylonia and forcing on him a border treaty in Assyria's favour. The Assyrians allowed him to remain on the throne, although subject to Assyria.Eriba-Marduk, another Chaldean, succeeded him in 769 BC and his son,Nabu-shuma-ishkun in 761 BC, with both being dominated by the new Assyrian kingAshur-Dan III (772–755 BC). Babylonia appears to have been in a state of chaos during this time, with the north occupied by Assyria, its throne occupied by foreign Chaldeans, and continual civil unrest throughout the land.
The Chaldean rule proved short-lived. A native Babylonian king namedNabonassar (748–734 BC) defeated and overthrew the Chaldean usurpers in 748 BC, restored indigenous rule, and successfully stabilised Babylonia. The Chaldeans once more faded into obscurity for the next three decades. During this time both the Babylonians and the Chaldean and Aramean migrant groups who had settled in the land once more fell completely under the yoke of the powerful Assyrian kingTiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), a ruler who introducedImperial Aramaic as thelingua franca of the empire. The Assyrian king at first madeNabonassar and his successor native Babylonian kingsNabu-nadin-zeri,Nabu-suma-ukin II andNabu-mukin-zeri his subjects, but decided to rule Babylonia directly from 729 BC. He was followed byShalmaneser V (727–722 BC), who also ruled Babylon in person.
WhenSargon II (722–705 BC) ascended the throne of the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC after the death ofShalmaneser V, he was forced to launch a major campaign in his subject states ofPersia,Mannea andMedia inAncient Iran to defend his territories there. He defeated and drove out theScythians andCimmerians who had attacked Assyria's Persian andMedian vassal colonies in the region. At the same time,Egypt began encouraging and supporting the rebellion against Assyria inIsrael andCanaan, forcing the Assyrians to send troops to deal with the Egyptians.
These events allowed the Chaldeans to once more attempt to assert themselves. While the Assyrian king was otherwise occupied defending his Iranian colonies from theScythians andCimmerians and driving the Egyptians from Canaan,Marduk-apla-iddina II (the BiblicalMerodach-Baladan) of Bit-Yâkin, allied himself with the powerfulElamite kingdom and the native Babylonians, briefly seizing control of Babylon between 721 and 710 BC. With the Scythians and Cimmerians vanquished, the Medes and Persians pledging loyalty, and theEgyptians defeated and ejected from southern Canaan,Sargon II was free at last to deal with the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Elamites. He attacked and deposed Marduk-apla-adding II in 710 BC, also defeating his Elamite allies in the process. After defeat by the Assyrians, Merodach-Baladan fled to his protectors in Elam
In 703, Merodach-Baladan very briefly regained the throne from a native Akkadian-Babylonian rulerMarduk-zakir-shumi II, who was a puppet of the new Assyrian king,Sennacherib (705–681 BC). He was once more soundly defeated atKish, and once again fled to Elam where he died in exile after one final failed attempt to raise a revolt against Assyria in 700 BC, this time not in Babylon, but in the Chaldean tribal land of Bit-Yâkin. A native Babylonian king namedBel-ibni (703–701 BC) was placed on the throne as a puppet of Assyria.
The next challenge to Assyrian domination came from theElamites in 694 BC, withNergal-ushezib deposing and murderingAshur-nadin-shumi (700–694 BC), the Assyrian prince who was king of Babylon and son of Sennacherib. The Chaldeans and Babylonians again allied with their more powerful Elamite neighbors in this endeavour. This prompted the enraged Assyrian kingSennacherib to invade and subjugate Elam and Chaldea and to sack Babylon, laying waste to and largely destroying the city. Babylon was regarded as a sacred city by all Mesopotamians, including the Assyrians, and this act eventually resulted in Sennacherib's being murdered by his own sons while he was praying to the godNisroch inNineveh.
Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) succeeded Sennacherib as ruler of the Assyrian Empire. He completely rebuilt Babylon and brought peace to the region. He conquered Egypt,Nubia andLibya and entrenched his mastery over the Persians, Medes, Parthians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Arameans, Israelites, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Urartians, Pontic Greeks, Cilicians, Phrygians, Lydians, Manneans and Arabs. For the next 60 or so years, Babylon and Chaldea remained peacefully under direct Assyrian control. The Chaldeans remained subjugated and quiet during this period, and the next major revolt in Babylon against the Assyrian empire was fermented not by a Chaldean, Babylonian or Elamite, but byShamash-shum-ukin, who was an Assyrian king of Babylon, and elder brother ofAshurbanipal (668–627 BC), the new ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Shamash-shum-ukin (668–648 BC) had become infused with Babylonian nationalism after sixteen years peacefully subject to his brother, and despite being Assyrian himself, declared that the city of Babylon and notNineveh orAssur should be the seat of the empire.
In 652 BC, he raised a powerful coalition of peoples resentful of their subjugation to Assyria against his own brotherAshurbanipal. The alliance included the Babylonians,Persians, Chaldeans,Medes,Elamites, Sultans, Arameans,Israelites,Arabs andCanaanites, together with some disaffected elements among the Assyrians themselves. After a bitter struggle lasting five years, the Assyrian king triumphed over his rebellious brother in 648 BC, Elam was utterly destroyed, and the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Chaldeans, Arabs, and others were savagely punished. An Assyrian governor namedKandalanu was then placed on the throne of Babylon to rule on behalf of Ashurbanipal. The next 22 years were peaceful, and neither the Babylonians nor Chaldeans posed a threat to the dominance of Ashurbanipal.
However, after the death of the mightyAshurbanipal (and Kandalanu) in 627 BC, theNeo-Assyrian Empire descended into a series of bitter internal dynastic civil wars that were to be the cause of its downfall.
Eurasia around 600 BC, showingNeo-Babylonian Empire (Chaldean Empire) and its neighbors
Ashur-etil-ilani (626–623 BC) ascended to the throne of the empire in 626 BC but was immediately engulfed in a torrent of fierce rebellions instigated by rival claimants. He was deposed in 623 BC by an Assyrian general (turtanu) namedSin-shumu-lishir (623–622 BC), who was also declared king of Babylon.Sin-shar-ishkun (622–612 BC), the brother of Ashur-etil-ilani, took back the throne of empire from Sin-shumu-lishir in 622 BC, but was then himself faced with unremitting rebellion against his rule by his own people. Continual conflict among the Assyrians led to a myriad of subject peoples, fromCyprus to Persia andThe Caucasus to Egypt, quietly reasserting their independence and ceasing to pay tribute to Assyria.
Nabopolassar, a previously obscure and unknown Chaldean chieftain, followed the opportunistic tactics laid down by previous Chaldean leaders to take advantage of the chaos and anarchy gripping Assyria and Babylonia and seized the city of Babylon in 620 BC with the help of its native Babylonian inhabitants.
Sin-shar-ishkun amassed a powerful army and marched into Babylon to regain control of the region. Nabopolassar was saved from likely destruction because yet another massive Assyrian rebellion broke out in Assyria proper, including the capital Nineveh, which forced the Assyrian king to turn back in order to quell the revolt. Nabopolassar took advantage of this situation, seizing the ancient city ofNippur in 619 BC, a mainstay of pro-Assyrianism in Babylonia, and thus Babylonia as a whole.
However, his position was still far from secure, and bitter fighting continued in the Babylonian heartlands from 620 to 615 BC, with Assyrian forces encamped in Babylonia in an attempt to eject Nabopolassar. Nabopolassar attempted a counterattack, marched his army into Assyria proper in 616 BC, and tried to besiege Assur andArrapha (modernKirkuk), but was defeated by Sin-shar-ishkun and chased back into Babylonia after being driven from Idiqlat (modernTikrit) at the southernmost end of Assyria. A stalemate seemed to have ensued, with Nabopolassar unable to make any inroads into Assyria despite its greatly weakened state, and Sin-shar-ishkun unable to eject Nabopolassar from Babylonia due to constant rebellions and civil war among his own people.
Nabopolassar's position, and the fate of the Assyrian empire, was sealed when he entered into an alliance with another of Assyria's former vassals, theMedes, the now dominant people of what was to become Persia. The MedianCyaxares had also recently taken advantage of the anarchy in the Assyrian Empire, while officially still a vassal of Assyria, he took the opportunity to meld theIranian peoples; theMedes,Persians,Sagartians andParthians, into a large and powerful Median-dominated force. The Medes, Persians, Parthians, Chaldeans and Babylonians formed an alliance that also included theScythians andCimmerians to the north.
While Sin-shar-ishkun was fighting both the rebels in Assyria and the Chaldeans and Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia,Cyaxares (hitherto a vassal of Assyria), in alliance with the Scythians and Cimmerians launched a surprise attack on civil-war-beleaguered Assyria in 615 BC, sackingKalhu (the BiblicalCalah/Nimrud) and takingArrapkha (modernKirkuk). Nabopolassar, still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia, was not involved in this major breakthrough against Assyria. From this point however, the alliance of Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Sagartians, Scythians and Cimmerians fought in unison against Assyria.
Despite the sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued. Throughout 614 BC the alliance of powers continued to make inroads into Assyria itself, although in 613 BC the Assyrians somehow rallied to score a number of counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians. This led to a coalition of forces ranged against it to unite and launch a massive combined attack in 612 BC, finally besieging and sacking Nineveh in late 612 BC, killingSin-shar-ishkun in the process.
A new Assyrian king,Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC), took the crown amidst the house-to-house fighting in Nineveh, and refused a request to bow in vassalage to the rulers of the alliance. He managed to fight his way out of Nineveh and reach the northern Assyrian city ofHarran, where he founded a new capital. Assyria resisted for another seven years until 605 BC, when the remnants of the Assyrian army and the army of theEgyptians, whose26th Dynasty had formed a brief allied coalition with the Assyrians, were defeated atKarchemish. Nabopolassar and his Median, Scythian and Cimmerian allies were now in possession of much of the hugeNeo-Assyrian Empire. The Egyptians had belatedly come to the aid of Assyria, which they would have hoped to support as a secure buffer between Egypt and the new powers of Babylon, Medes and Persians, having already been raided by the Scythians.
Nabopolassar was not able to enjoy his success for long, dying in 604 BC, only one year after the victory at Karchemish. He was succeeded by his son, who took the nameNebuchadnezzar II, after the unrelated 12th century BC native Akkadian-Babylonian kingNebuchadnezzar I, indicating the extent to which the migrant Chaldeans had become infused with native Mesopotamian culture.
Nebuchadnezzar II and his allies may well have been forced to deal with remnants of Assyrian resistance based in and aroundDur-Katlimmu, as Assyrian imperial records continue to be dated in this region between 604 and 599 BC.[28] In addition, the Egyptians remained in the region an attempt to revive the Asian colonies of the ancient Egyptian Empire.
Nebuchadnezzar II was to prove himself to be the greatest of the Chaldean rulers, rivaling another non-native ruler, the 18th century BCAmorite kingHammurabi, as the greatest king of Babylon. He was a patron of the cities and a spectacular builder, rebuilding all of Babylonia's major cities on a lavish scale. His building activity at Babylon, expanding on the earlier major and impressive rebuilding of the Assyrian kingEsarhaddon, helped to turn it into the immense and beautiful city of legend. Babylon covered more than 8 km2 (3 sq mi), surrounded by moats and ringed by a double circuit of walls. The Euphrates flowed through the center of the city, spanned by a beautiful stone bridge. At the center of the city rose the giantziggurat calledEtemenanki, "House of the Frontier Between Heaven and Earth," which lay next to the Temple ofMarduk. He is also believed by many historians to have builtThe Hanging Gardens of Babylon (although others believe these gardens were built much earlier by an Assyrian king in Nineveh) for his wife, aMedian princess from the green mountains, so that she would feel at home.
A capable leader, Nebuchadnezzar II conducted successful military campaigns; cities likeTyre,Sidon andDamascus were subjugated. He also conducted numerous campaigns inAsia Minor against theScythians,Cimmerians, andLydians. Like their Assyrian relations, the Babylonians had to campaign yearly in order to control their colonies.
In 601 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II was involved in a major but inconclusive battle against theEgyptians. In 599 BC, he invaded Arabia and routed the Arabs atQedar. In 597 BC, he invadedJudah, capturedJerusalem after thesiege of Jerusalem (597 BC) and deposed its kingJehoiachin, carrying the Israelites intocaptivity in Babylon. Egyptian and Babylonian armies fought each other for control of the Near East throughout much of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and this encouraged kingZedekiah of Judah to revolt. After an eighteen-month siege, Jerusalem was captured in 587 BC, thousands of Jews were deported to Babylon, and Solomon's Temple was razed to the ground.
Nebuchadnezzar successfully fought the PharaohsPsammetichus II andApries throughout his reign, and during the reign of PharaohAmasis in 568 BC it is rumoured that he may have briefly invaded Egypt itself.
By 572, Nebuchadnezzar was in full control of Babylonia, Chaldea,Aramea (Syria),Phonecia, Israel,Judah,Philistia,Samarra,Jordan, northern Arabia, and parts ofAsia Minor. Nebuchadnezzar died of illness in 562 BC after a one-year co-reign with his son,Amel-Marduk, who was deposed in 560 BC after a reign of only two years.
End of the Chaldean dynasty
Neriglissar succeeded Amel-Marduk. It is unclear as to whether he was in fact an ethnic Chaldean or a native Babylonian nobleman, as he was not related by blood to Nabopolassar's descendants, having married into the ruling family. He conducted successful military campaigns against theHellenic inhabitants ofCilicia, which had threatened Babylonian interests. Neriglissar reigned for only four years and was succeeded by the youthfulLabashi-Marduk in 556 BC. Again, it is unclear whether he was a Chaldean or a native Babylonian.
Labashi-Marduk reigned only for a matter of months, being deposed byNabonidus in late 556 BC. Nabonidus was certainly not a Chaldean, but an Assyrian fromHarran, the last capital of Assyria, and proved to be the final native Mesopotamian king of Babylon. He and his son, the regentBelshazzar, were deposed by the Persians underCyrus the Great in 539 BC.
When the Babylonian Empire was absorbed into the PersianAchaemenid Empire, the name "Chaldean" lost its meaning in reference to a particular ethnicity or land, but lingered for a while as a term solely and explicitly used to describe a societal class of astrologers and astronomers in southern Mesopotamia. The original Chaldean tribe had long ago became Akkadianized, adopting Akkadian culture, religion, language and customs, blending into the majority native population, and eventually wholly disappearing as a distinct race of people, as had been the case with other preceding migrant peoples, such as the Amorites, Kassites, Suteans and Arameans of Babylonia.
The Persians considered thisChaldean societal class to be masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms ofincantation, sorcery,witchcraft, and the magical arts. They spoke of astrologists and astronomers asChaldeans, and it is used with this specific meaning in theBook of Daniel (Dan. i. 4, ii. 2 et seq.) and by classical writers, such asStrabo.
The disappearance of the Chaldeans as an ethnicity and Chaldea as a land is evidenced by the fact that the Persian rulers of theAchaemenid Empire (539–330 BC) did not retain a province called "Chaldea", nor did they refer to "Chaldeans" as a race of people in their written annals. This is in contrast to Assyria, and for a time Babylonia also, where the Persians retained the names Assyria and Babylonia as designations for distinctgeo-political entities within the Achaemenid Empire. In the case of the Assyrians in particular, Achaemenid records show Assyrians holding important positions within the empire, particularly with regards to military and civil administration.[29]
Legacy
The term Chaldean was still in use at the time ofCicero (106–43 BC) long after the Chaldeans had disappeared. In one of his speeches he mentioned "Chaldeanastrologers",[30] and he spoke of them more than once in hisDe Divinatione.[31] Other classical Latin writers who speak of them as distinguished for their knowledge of astronomy and astrology arePliny the Elder,Valerius Maximus,Aulus Gellius,Cato the Elder,Lucretius, andJuvenal.[32]Horace in hisCarpe diem ode speaks of the "Babylonian calculations" (Babylonii numeri), thehoroscopes of astrologers consulted regarding the future.[33]
In thelate antiquity, a variant of Aramaic that was used in some books of theBible was misnamed asChaldean byJerome of Stridon.[22] That inaccurate usage continued down the centuries inWestern Europe, and it was still customary during the nineteenth century, until the misnomer was corrected by scholars. InWest Asian, Greek and Hebraic sources, however, the term for the language spoken in Mesopotamia was commonly "Assyrian" and later also "Syriac".[23] Accordingly, in the earliest recorded "Western" mentions of the Christians of what is nowIraq and nearby countries, "Chaldean" is used with reference to their language. In 1220/1,Jacques de Vitry wrote that "they denied thatMary was theMother of God and claimed thatChrist existed in two persons. They consecratedleavened bread and used the 'Chaldean' (Syriac) language".[34] In the fifteenth century the term "Chaldeans" was first applied specifically toAssyrians living inCyprus who entered a union withRome, and no longer merely with reference to their language but the name ofa new church.
Impact on Assyrian identity
After an absence from history for many years, the name was revived during the formation of theChaldean Catholic Church. The church was not founded and populated by the long extinct Chaldean tribes of southeastern Mesopotamia, but founded in northern Mesopotamia by a breakaway group of ethnicAssyrians who had been members of theChurch of the East before entering communion with Rome.[35][36]
The naming by Rome is believed to be due to a misinterpretation of the termUr Kasdim, the supposed north Mesopotamian birthplace of Abraham in Hebraic tradition asUr of the Chaldees, and a reluctance to use the earlier terms, such as Assyrians, East Assyrians, East Syrians and Nestorians, due to their connotations with the Church of the East andSyriac Orthodox Church.[37] In modern times, Chaldea has been associated with attempts to declare Chaldeans as a separate ethnicity from Assyrians, through the belief that their descent is based in southern Babylonia. While some religious leaders of the Chaldean Catholic Church and activists in the West have advocated for a separate identity based on this notion, historians and international organizations generally treat Chaldeans as ethnic Assyrians, owing to genetic, linguistic, geographic, and modern historical factors.
However, across the rest of Mesopotamia (particularly the North) after Chaldea fell, the terms "Assyrian", and its derivativeSyrian remained the commonethnic term for theAramaic-speaking inhabitants. These were used by the people themselves and their Persian, Armenian, Arab, Greek, Georgian and Kurdish neighbours both before and after the advent of Christianity in Iraq, Northeast Syria, Southeast Turkey and Northwest Iran. TheAssyrian continuity in these regions is well documented.[38][39]
References
^Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "West Semitic". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
^bit is the "house of" tribal denominator,Yâkin (Ia-kin) is presumably the name of a king of the Arabian Sealand. Sargon mentionsYakini as the name of theMarduk-Baladan's father. G. W. Bromiley (ed.),The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1995),p. 325.
^Raymond Philip Dougherty,The Sealand of Ancient Arabia, Yale University Press, 1932, 66ff.
^Trevor Bryce,The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: From the Early Bronze Age to the Fall of the Persian Empire (2009),p. 130.
^Boldt, Andreas (2017).Historical Mechanisms: An Experimental Approach to Applying Scientific Theories to the Study of History. Taylor & Francis. p. 154.ISBN9781351816489.
Zadok, Ran (2017). "A Cylinder Inscription of Aššur-ketta-lēšir II". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.).Now It Happened in Those Days: Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 309–340.ISBN978-1575067612.
