Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey Sarzec.

The harem in which they were shut up by custom, rarely opened its doors:
the people seldom caught sight of them, their relatives spoke of them
as little as possible, those in power avoided associating them in any
public acts of worship or government, and we could count on our fingers
the number of those whom the inscriptions mention by name. Some of them
were drawn from the noble families of the capital, others came from the
kingdoms of Chaldaea or from foreign courts; a certain number never rose
above the condition of mere concubines, many assumed the title of queen,
while almost all served as living pledges of alliances made with rival
states, or had been given as hostages at the concluding of a peace on
the termination of a war.* As the kings, who put forward no pretensions
to a divine origin, were not constrained, after the fashion of the
Pharaohs, to marry their sisters in order to keep up the purity of their
race, it was rare to find one among their wives who possessed an equal
right to the crown with themselves: such a case could be found only in
troublous times, when an aspirant to the throne, of base extraction,
legitimated his usurpation by marrying a sister or daughter of his
predecessor.

* Political marriage-alliances between Egypt and Chaldaea
were of frequent occurrence, according to the Tel el-Amarna
tablets, and at a later period between Chaldaea and Assyria;
among the few queens of the very earliest times, the wife of
Nammaghani is the daughter of Urbau, vicegerent of Lagash,
and consequently the cousin or niece of her husband, while
the wife of Rimsin appears to be the daughter of a nobleman
of the name of Rimnannar.

The original status of the mother almost always determined that of her
children, and the sons of a princess were born princes, even if their
father were of obscure or unknown origin.* These princes exercised
important functions at court, or they received possessions which
they administered under the suzerainty of the head of the family;
the daughters were given to foreign kings, or to scions of the most
distinguished families. The sovereign was under no obligation to hand
down his crown to any particular member of his family; the eldest son
usually succeeded him, but the king could, if he preferred, select his
favourite child as his successor even if he happened to be the youngest,
or the only