4＝D). The Syriac version of the Old Testament (2nd cent. A.D.?)
uses Bêth Nahrin. This may or may not imply the belief that
Nahrīn is a plural. Eventually that belief was general, as is proved
by the substitution of the normal feminine plural (for the supposed
masculine) in the alternative form Bēth Nahrawātha (e.g. Wright,
Chron. Joshua Styl. §§ 49, 50). Bēth is probably the Syriac equivalent
of the Assyrian Bit as in Bīt-Adīni (see below, § 3 viii.), as is
shown by such names as Bēth ʽArbāyē, “district of Arabians,”
Bēth Armāyē, “district of Aramaeans.” The Parapotamia of
Strabo xvi. 2, 11, would be a suitable Greek equivalent. Mesopotamia
seems to imply the view that bēth is the preposition “amid,” which
has the same form,[1] but need not imply the meaning “between,”
that is, the idea that there were precisely two rivers. There is
evidence of the use of this form as early as the Septuagint translation
of the Pentateuch (3rd cent. B.C.). It is natural to suppose
it was adopted by the Greeks who accompanied Alexander’s expedition.
Xenophon does not use it.
As early as the time of Ephraem (d. A.D. 373) the use of the Syriac Gĕzirthā, “island,” had come in, and over a century earlier Philostratus reported (Life of Apollonius, i. 20) that the Arabs designated Mesopotamia as an island.[2] This term in the form al-Gazīra became, and still is, the usual Arabic name.
The absence of any equivalent names in Babylonian or Assyrian documents is noteworthy,[3] especially as the Babylonians spoke of the “Sea-Country” (māt Tāmtim). The name was not distinctive enough from the point of view of Babylonia, which belonged to the same water system. Tiglath-pileser I. (Octagon Prism, 6, 40, 42 seq.) sums up the results of the military operations of his first five years as reaching from the Lower Zab Riviera to the Euphrates Riviera (ebirtan Puratti, well rendered “Parapotamia” by Winckler[4]) and Ḫatte-land; but this is obviously not a proper name in the same sense as Naharin.[5] That probably originated in the maritime district of Syria.
Whilst the names we have mentioned are derived from physical geography, there are related names the meaning and origin of which are not so clear. Tethmosis III. is said, in a tomb which contains a picture of “the chief of Kheta,” to have “overthrown the lands of My-tn” (Breasted, Anc. Rec. ii. § 773), which lands are mentioned also in his hymn of victory (Breasted, Anc. Rec. ii. § 659). Amenophis II. receives tribute from the “chiefs of My-tn” (Breasted, Anc. Rec. ii. § 804). In the bilingual Hittite inscription of Tarqudimme the land is called “the land of the city of Metan,” just as in the Hittite documents the Hittite country in Asia Minor is called “the land of the city of Khatti.” Metan is clearly the same as Mitanni, over against Khatti, mentioned e.g. by Tiglath-pileser I. (vi. 63), which is the same as Mitanni, several letters from which are in the Amarna collection. Since a Mitanni princess of these letters is called in Egyptian scarabs a princess of Naharin, it is clear that Mitanni and Naharin are more or less equivalent, whilst in the Amarna letters even Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, seems to use in the same way the name Khanigalbat. A shorter form of this name is Khani, which it is difficult not to connect with Khana, the capital of which at one time was Tirqa, on the Euphrates, below the Khābūr (see § 4). The slowly accumulating data have not yet made it possible to determine precisely the probably varying relations of these various names. The great astrological work uses a term of still wider signification, Subartu, eventually Suri (written Su. Edin; see especially Winckler’s discussion in Or. Lit.-Zeit., 1907). This represented one of the four quarters of the world in the early Babylonian view, the other three being Akkad (i.e. Babylonia) in the “north,” Elam in the “south,” and Amurru in the “west.” It appears to have denoted the territory above Babylonia stretching from Anshan in the south-east north-westwards, across the Tigris-Euphrates district, indefinitely towards Asia Minor. At an early time it seems to have formed along with Anshan a distinct kingdom.
Strabo (xvi. 746) makes the south limit of Mesopotamia the Median wall; Pliny (v. 24 § 21) seems to extend it to the Persian Gulf. The Latin term naturally varied in meaning with the changing extent of Roman authority. For example, under Trajan Mesopotamia reached the gulf and was bounded by Assyria and Armenia. In modern times it is often Extent. used for the whole Euphrates-Tigris country. That would provide a useful name for an important geographical unit, but is too misleading. In view of historical and geographical facts there is much to be said for applying the name Mesopotamia to the country drained by the Khābūr, the Belīkh, and the part of the Euphrates connected therewith. It would thus include the country lying between Babylonia on the south and the Armenian Taurus highlands on the north, the maritime Syrian district on the west, and Assyria proper on the east. That is practically the sense in which it is treated in this article.[6] We may begin, however, with the definition of Jezīra by the Arabic geographers, who take it as representing the central part of the Euphrates-Tigris system, the part, namely, lying between the alluvial plains in the south and the mountainous country in the north. Measured on the Euphrates, this would be from the place where the river, having bored its way through the rocks, issues on to the high plain a little above Samsāṭ (Samosata) only 1500 ft. above the sea, to somewhere about Hīt (Is＝Id), where, probably less than 150 ft. above the sea, it begins to make its way through the alluvial deposits of the last few millenniums. In these 750 m. it has descended less than 1400 ft. Measured on the Tigris Mesopotamia would stretch from somewhere between Jezīret-ibn-ʽOmar and Mōṣul to somewhere below Tekrīt.
In the tract defined, physical changes unconnected with civilization have been slight as compared with those in Babylonia; the two great rivers, having cut themselves deep channels, could not shift their courses far.
i. Natural Divisions.—The stretch from Samsāṭ and, Jezīret-ibn-ʽOmar to the alluvial plain seems to divide itself naturally into three parallel belts, highland watershed district, undulating plains and steppe. (1) The Taurus foothill barrier that shuts off the east to west course of the Euphrates and Tigris culminates centrally in the rugged volcanic Ḳaraja-Dāgh Geography. (6070 ft.) which blocks the gap between the two rivers, continued eastwards by the mountainous district of Ṭūr-ʽAbdīn (the modern capital Midyāt is at a height of 3500 ft.) and westwards by the elevated tract that sends down southwards the promontory of J. Tektek (c. 1950 ft.). (2) At the line where this east to west wall ends begins the sea of undulating plains where there is enough rain for abundant wheat and barley. (3) From the alluvial flats upwards toward these undulating plains is an extensive stretch of steppe land almost destitute of rain. Not far above the transition from the barren steppe is a second mountain wall (125 m. between extremities) roughly parallel with the first, consisting of the Sinjār chain (about 3000 ft., limestone, 50 m. long, 7 m. broad), continued westwards after a marshy break by the volcanic Tell Kōkab (basalt, about 1300 ft.), and then the ʽAbd al-ʽAzīz range (limestone), veering upwards towards its western end as if to meet the Tektek promontory from the north.
ii. Drainage.—The water system is thus determined. West of Tektek drains into the Belīkh, east of Tektek into the Khābūr. All this drainage, collected into two rivers, the Belīkh and the Khābūr, is towards the left bank of the Euphrates, for the Mesopotamian watershed seems to be only some 15 m. or less from the Tigris until, south of the Sinjār range, it lies farther west, and the Tharthar river is possible. The Belīkh (Balich, Bilechas, Βαλίσσος[7]), a stream some 30 ft. wide, has its main source some 50 m. north in the ʽAin Khalīl ar-Raḥmān, but receives also the waters of the united Nahr al-Ḳūt (in its upper course formerly the Daisān, Σκίρτος) from Edessa and Köpru Dāgh, and the Jullāb from Tektek Dāgh about as much farther north. The Khābūr (Chabur, Chabōras[8]), 80–100 ft. wide, before its last 40 m. reach in a south-west direction, has a 70 m. reach due north and south from Tell Kōkab (about 1300 ft.), near which are united the Jaghjagh (earlier, Hirmās, 20 ft. in width), which has come 50 m. from Naṣībīn in the north-east, bringing with it the waters of the many streams from the Ṭūr ʽAbdīn highlands; the north ʽĀwij, which at certain seasons brings much water due south from Mārdīn, and the main stream of the Khābūr, which has come 60 m. from Ras al-ʽAin in the north-west, after flowing 50 m. by way of Wērānshahr from Karaja Dāgh in the north. The Tharthār (Assyrian Tartar, in Tukulti-Ninib, II.’s inscription) begins in the Sinjār range and runs southwards, to lose itself in the desert a little above the latitude of Hīt. So it was two generations before Ahab (Annales de Tukulti Ninip, V. Scheil, 1909). The Arabian geographers represent the Tharthār as connected at its upper end (by a canal?) with the Khābūr system.
- ↑ There may be further evidence of the prevalence of the interpretation “amid” if the difficult baināith athrawātha of Cureton, Anc. Syr. Doc. p. 112, l. 21, is correctly rendered in Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syr. 469, “Mesopotamia,” and if we may assume a reading Nahrawātha for Athrawātha.
- ↑ Compare the use of the adjective, Ephr. Op. Gr. ii. 403 (cf. B. O. i. 145, 168, 169), and the noun, B. O. ii. 108, 109.
- ↑ Mesopotamian personal names like Na-ha-ra-a-u occur (cf. Johns, Deeds and Documents, iii. 127); but these may be connected with a divine name Nachor.
- ↑ Auszug vorderas. Gesch. 34; on the meaning see Alt.-orient. Forsch. iii. 349.
- ↑ It seems worth considering, however, whether ebir nari (see Johns, Assyr. Doomsday Book, 69; Winckler, Alt.-or. Forsch. 212; Hommel, Anc. Heb. Trad., index) is not in origin practically a Begriff equivalent to Naharin.
- ↑ In general the Tigris is considered to belong to Assyria or Babylonia, and all west of the Euphrates to Arabia or Syria.
- ↑ Cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, v. 250–253.
- ↑ Ibid. xi. 253–265.
