Chaldean contribution aside from the hanging gardens?

(Chal·de´a), Chaldean (Chal·de´an).

Originally the land and people occupying the southern portion of the Babylonian alluvial plain, the rich delta area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. At one time these rivers may have emptied into the Persian Gulf separately, the cities of Eridu and Ur being seaports. But over the years the river silts may have gradually filled in the bay, pushing the coastline to the SE and allowing the Tigris and Euphrates to join together before emptying into the sea. In early times the region's most important city was Ur, the hometown of Abraham, from which he and his family departed at God's command before 1943 B.C.E. As the influence of the Chaldeans spread northward, the whole territory of Babylonia became known as "the land of the Chaldeans." Isaiah in his prophecies anticipated this Chaldean rise to power and their subsequent fall. (Isa 13:19; 23:13; 47:1, 5; 48:14, 20) Particularly was this domination manifest during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. when Nabopolassar, a native of Chaldea, and his successors, Nebuchadnezzar II, Evil-merodach (Awil-Marduk), Neriglissar, Labashi-Marduk, Nabonidus, and Belshazzar, ruled the Third World Power, Babylon. (2Ki 24:1, 2; 2Ch 36:17; Ezr 5:12; Jer 21:4, 9; 25:12; 32:4; 43:3; 50:1; Eze 1:3; Hab 1:6) That dynasty came to its end when "Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed." (Da 5:30) Darius the Mede was "made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans."-Da 9:1;

From early times the Chaldeans were noted for their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. In the days of Daniel a special cult of prognosticators who considered themselves skilled in the so-called science of divination were called Chaldeans.-Da 2:2, 5, 10; 4:7; 5:7, 11.

"Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world. India, Syria, Persia and Egypt have all yielded numberless examples . . . The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times and among non-Christian peoples may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship."-Encyclopædia Britannica (1946), Vol. 6, p. 753.

The shape of the [two-beamed cross] had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ."-An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, 1962), W. E. Vine, p. 256.