Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

CHALDAEA

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 805 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

CHALDAEA . The expressions "Chaldaea" and "Chaldaeans" are frequently used in the Old Testament as equivalents for " Babylonia " and " Babylonians." Chaldaea was really the name of a See also:

country, used in two senses. It was first applied to the extreme See also:southern See also:district, whose See also:ancient See also:capital was the See also:city of See also:Bit Yakin, the See also:chief seat of the renowned Chaldaean See also:rebel Merodach-baladan, who harassed the See also:Assyrian See also:kings See also:Sargon and See also:Sennacherib. It is not as yet possible to See also:fix the exact boundaries of the See also:original See also:home of the Chaldaeans, but it may be regarded as having been the See also:long stretch of alluvial See also:land situated at the then See also:separate mouths of the See also:Tigris and See also:Euphrates, which See also:rivers now combine to flow into the See also:Persian Gulf in the See also:waters of the majestic Shalt el `Arab. The name " Chaldaea," however, soon came to have a more extensive application. In the days of the Assyrian See also:king Rammannirari III. (812–783 B.c.), the See also:term See also:mat Kaldu covered practically all Babylonia. Furthermore, Merodach-baladan was called by Sargon H. (722–705 B.C.) " king of the land of the Chaldaeans " and " king of the land of Bit Yakin " after the old capital city, but there is no satisfactory See also:evidence that Merodach-baladan had the right to the See also:title " Babylonian." The racial distinction between the Chaldaeans and the Babylonians proper seems to have existed until a much later date, although it is almost certain that the former were originally a Semitic See also:people. That they differed from the See also:Arabs and Aramaeans is also seen from the distinction made by Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.) between the Chaldaeans and these races. Later, during the See also:period covering the fall of See also:Assyria and the rise of the Neo-Babylonian See also:empire, the term mat Kaldu was not only applied to all Babylonia, but also embraced the territory of certain See also:foreign nations who were later included by See also:Ezekiel (See also:xxiii. 23) under the expression "Chaldaeans." As already indicated, the Chaldaeans were most probably a Semitic people.

It is likely that they first came from See also:

Arabia, the supposed original home of the Semitic races, at a very See also:early date along the See also:coast of the Persian Gulf and settled in the neighbourhood of Ur (" Ur of the Chaldees," Gen. xi. 28), whence they began a See also:series of encroachments, partly by warfare and partly by See also:immigration, against the other Semitic Babylonians. These aggressions after many centuries ended in the Chaldaean supremacy of Nabopolassar and his successors (c. 626 ff.), although there is no See also:positive See also:proof that Nabopolassar was purely Chaldaean in See also:blood. The sudden rise of the later Babylonian empire under See also:Nebuchadrezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, must have tended to produce so thorough an amalgamation of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, who had theretofore been considered as two kindred branches of the same original Semite stock, that in the course of See also:time no perceptible See also:differences existed between them. A similar amalgamation, although in this See also:case of two peoples originally racially distinct, has taken See also:place in See also:modern times between the Manchu See also:Tatars and the See also:Chinese. It is quite evident, for example, from the Semitic See also:character of the Chaldaean king-names, that the See also:language of these Chaldaeans differed in no way from the See also:ordinary Semitic Babylonian See also:idiom which was practically identical with that of Assyria. Consequently, the term "Chaldaean " came quite naturally to be used in later days as synonymous with " Babylonian." When subsequently the Babylonian language went out of use and Aramaic took its place, the latter See also:tongue was wrongly termed " See also:Chaldee " by See also:Jerome, because it was the only language known to him used in Babylonia. This See also:error was followed until a very See also:recent date by many scholars. The derivation of the name " Chaldaean " is extremely uncertain. See also:Peter See also:Jensen has conjectured with slight See also:probability that the Chaldaeans were Semitized Sumerians, i.e. a non-Semitic tribe which by contact with Semitic influences had lost its original character. There seems to be little or no evidence to support such a view.

See also:

Friedrich See also:Delitzsch derived the name " Chaldaean " = Kasdim from the non-Semitic See also:Kassites who held the supremacy over practically all Babylonia during an extended period (c. 1783—1200 B.C.). This theory seems also to be extremely improbable. It is much more likely that the name " Chaldaean " is connected with the Semitic See also:stem kasddu (conquer), in which case Kaldi-Kagdi, with the well-known interchange of 1 and s, would mean " conquerors." It is also possible that Kaddu-Kaldu is connected with the proper name Chesed, who is represented as having been the See also:nephew of See also:Abraham (Gen. xxii. 22). There is no connexion whatever between the See also:Black See also:Sea peoples called " Chaldaeans " by See also:Xenophon (Anab. vii. 25) and the Chaldaeans of Babylonia. In See also:Daniel, the term " Chaldaeans" is very commonly employed with the meaning " astrologers, astronomers," which sense also appears in the classical authors, notably in See also:Herodotus, See also:Strabo and Diodorus. In Daniel i. 4, by the expression " tongue of the Chaldaeans," the writer evidently meant the language in which the celebrated Babylonian See also:works on See also:astrology and See also:divination were composed. It is now known that the See also:literary idiom of the Babylonian See also:wise men was the non-Semitic Sumerian; but it is not probable that the See also:late author of Daniel (c. 168 B.c.) was aware of this fact.

The word " Chaldaean" is used in Daniel in two senses. It is applied as elsewhere in the Old Testament as a See also:

race-name to the Babylonians (See also:Dan. iii. 8, v. 30, ix. 1); but the expression is used oftener, either as a name for some See also:special class of magicians, or as a term for magicians in See also:general (ix. I). The See also:transfer of the name of the people to a special class is perhaps to be explained in the following manner. As just shown, " Chaldaean " and "Babylonian" had become in later times practically synonymous, but the term " Chaldaean" had lived on in the secondary restricted sense of " wise men." The early Kaldi had seized and held from very ancient times the region of old See also:Sumer, which was the centre of the See also:primitive non-Semitic culture. It seems extremely probable that these Chaldaean Semites were so strongly influenced by the foreign See also:civilization as to adopt it eventually as their own. Then, as the Chaldaeans soon became the dominant people, the priestly See also:caste of that region See also:developed into a Chaldaean institution. It is reasonable to conjecture that southern Babylonia, the home of the old culture, supplied Babylcn and other important cities with priests, who from their descent were correctly called " Chaldaeans." This name in later times, owing to the racial amalgamation of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, lost its former See also:national force, and became, as it occurs in Daniel, a distinctive appellation of the Babylonian priestly See also:dass. It is possible, though not certain, that the occurrence of the word kale(See also:priest) in Babylonian, which has no etymological connexion with Kaldu, may have contributed paronomastically towards the popular use of the term "Chaldaeans " for the Babylonian Magi.

End of Article: CHALDAEA

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
CHALCONDYLES I (or CHALCOCONDYLAS), LAONICUS 		[next]
CHALDEE

Site © 2006 - Net Industries