L. W. King

“ On the Stele of the Vultures, Eannatum and his soldiers are sculptured with thick hair flowing from beneath their helmets and falling on their shoulders. But they have shaven faces, and, in view of the fact that on the same monument all the dead upon the field of battle and in the burial mounds have shaven heads, like those of the Sumerians assisting at the burial and the sacrificial rites, we may regard the hair of Eannatum and his warriors as wigs, worn like the wigs of the Egyptians, on special occasions and particularly in battle. ”

“ In the earlier stages of its history the character of the local god, like that of his city, must have been far more simple and primitive than it appears to us as seen in the light of its later development. The authority of each god did not extend beyond the limits of his own people's territory. Each city was content to do battle on his behalf, and the defeat of one was synonymous with the downfall of the other. ”

“ The sculptor slowly freed himself from the stiff conventions of his Sumerian teachers, and, while borrowing their technical skill, he transformed the work of their hands. Such a cylinder-seal as that of Ibni-sharru, Shar-Ganni-sharri's scribe, with its design of kneeling heroes watering oxen, [89] is a marvellous product of the engraver's art; while the delicate modelling of the figures upon Narâm-Sin's stele, their natural attitudes, and the decorative arrangement of the composition as a whole, are not approached on any earlier monument. ”

“ In his dream he beheld the god Ningirsu, who appeared to him in visible form and came near him and stood by his head. And the god encouraged his patesi and promised him victory over his enemies. He was to go forth to battle and Babbar, the Sun-god who makes the city bright, would advance at his right hand to assist him. Thus encouraged by Ningirsu, and with the knowledge that he was carrying out the orders of his city-god, Eannatum marshalled his army and set out from Lagash to attack the men of Umma within their own territory. ”

“ There is a peculiar fascination in tracking any highly developed civilization to its source, and in watching its growth from the rude and tentative efforts of a primitive people to the more elaborate achievements of a later day. And it is owing to recent excavation that we are now in a position to elucidate the early history of the three principal civilizations of the ancient world. The origins of Greek civilization may now be traced beyond the Mycenean epoch, through the different stages of Aegean culture back into the Neolithic age. ”

“ Among the various Semitic kingdoms and small principalities which were founded and endured for a time in this portion of Western Asia, that of Akkad won the pre-eminent place. In the mountainous regions to the east and north of Elam the immigrants doubtless dominated the country, but they found a population in a state of culture little more advanced than their own, and, if subject to no other influence, they must have remained in a condition of semi-barbarity. But in Babylonia the case was different. Here the vigorous nature of the nomad found a rich soil to support its growth and development. ”

“ Professor Meyer would identify the god of the waters with Anu, though there is more to be said for M. Heuzey's view that he is Enki, the god of the deep. We are not here concerned, however, with the identity of the deities, but with the racial type they represent. It will be seen that they all have hair and beards and wear the Semitic plaid, and form a striking contrast to Gudea with his shaven head and face, and his fringed Sumerian mantle. ”

“ He pursued the men of Umma into their own territory, and succeeded in capturing the city itself before its demoralized inhabitants had had time to organize or strengthen its defence. Urlumma he captured and slew, and he thus put an end to an ambitious ruler, who for years had undoubtedly caused much trouble and annoyance to Lagash. Entemena's victory was complete, but it was not won without some loss among his own forces, for he heaped up burial-mounds in five separate places, which no doubt covered the bodies of his own slain. ”

“ Of the prehistoric period in Babylonia we know little, but it may be assumed that, already at the time of the Sumerian immigration, rude settlements had been formed around the cult-centres of local gods. This, at any rate, was the character of each town or city of the Sumerians themselves during the earliest periods to which we can trace back their history. At Fâra, the most primitive Sumerian site that has yet been examined, we find the god Shuruppak giving his own name to the city around his shrine, and Ningirsu of Lagash dominates and directs his people from the first. ”

“ The hole for receiving the handle of the weapon, though deep, is not continued to the top of the stone, which is carved in low relief with a representation of a lion-headed eagle with wings outspread and claws extended. Looked at from above, this fantastic animal appears as an isolated figure, but it is not to be separated from the lions running round the side of the mace-head. In fact, we may see in the whole composition a development of the symbol which formed the arms of the city of Lagash, and was the peculiar emblem of the city-god Ningirsu. ”

“ Other city-gods, who afterwards became powerful deities in the Babylonian pantheon, are already in existence, and have acquired in varying degrees their later characters. Enki of Eridu is already the god of the deep, the shrine of Enzu or Nannar in the city of Ur is a centre of the moon-cult, Babbar of Larsa appears already as a sun-god and the dispenser of law and justice, while the most powerful Sumerian goddess, Ninni or Nanâ of Erech, already has her shrine and worshippers in the city of her choice. ”

“ That a Semitic element existed in the composition of the ancient Egyptian language is established beyond dispute; and this fact was combined with the Egyptian legends of their origin on the Red Sea coast, and with the situation of the predynastic and early dynastic cemeteries in Upper Egypt, in support of the theory that Semitic tribes, already imbued with Sumerian culture, had reached the Nile from the shore of the Red Sea by way of the Wâdi Hammamât. According to this view the Neolithic and predynastic population of Egypt was of a different race to the early dynastic Egyptians. ”

“ As Hammurabi ascribed the origin of his laws to the Sun-god, whom he represents upon his stele as reciting them to him, so Urukagina regards his reforms as due to the direct intervention of Ningirsu, his king, whose word it was he caused to dwell in the land; [47] and it was not with his people but with Ningirsu that he drew up the agreement to observe them. [48] Like Hammurabi, too, Urukagina boasts that he is the champion of the weak against the strong; and he tells us that in place of the servitude, which had existed in his kingdom, he established liberty. ”

“ Foreign invasions might result in the fall of dynasties, and her kings might be drawn from other cities and lands, but Babylon continued to be the centre of their rule. Moreover, after the fresh wave of immigration which resulted in the establishment of her First Dynasty, the racial character of Babylonia became dominantly Semitic. Before the new invaders the Sumerians tended to withdraw southwards into the coastal districts of the Persian Gulf, and from here, for a time, an independent dynasty, largely of Sumerian origin, attempted to contest with Babylon her supremacy. ”

“ The art of inlaying was widely practised by the Sumerians, who not only treated metal in this way, but frequently attempted to give more expression or life to stone statues by inlaying the white of the eye with mother-of-pearl or shell, and representing the pupil and iris by lapis-lazuli or bitumen. A similar method was employed to enrich votive stone figures of animals, and to give a varied and polychrome effect to vases carved in stone. The finest example of this class of work is a libation-vase of Gudea made of dark green steatite, which was dedicated by him to his patron deity Ningishzida. ”

“ It is fortunate that some of these early Sumerian date-lists have been recovered, and we are furnished by them with an outline of Sumerian history, which has the value of a contemporary record. [2] They have thrown light upon a period of which at one time we knew little, and they have served to remove more than one erroneous supposition. Thus the so-called Second Dynasty of Ur was proved by them to have been non-existent, and the consequent reduplication of kings bearing the names of Ur-Engur and Dungi was shown to have had no foundation in fact. ”

“ The city of Nippur stands in a peculiar relation to others in Sumer and Akkad, as being the central shrine in the two countries and the seat of Enlil, the chief of the gods. Niffer, or Nuffar, is the name by which the mounds marking its site are still known. They have been long deserted, and, like the sites of many other ancient cities in Babylonia and Assyria, no modern town or village is built upon them or in their immediate neighbourhood. ”

“ To the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian scribes Sargon appears as a king of Agade, or Akkad, and the father of Narâm-Sin, who succeeded him upon his throne. It is clear, therefore, that the name of the earlier king of Kish has been borrowed for the king of Akkad, whose real name, Shar-Gani-sharri, has disappeared in the tradition. Are we to imagine that the great achievements, which later ages ascribed to Sargon of Akkad, were also borrowed along with his name from the historical Sargon of Kish? ”

“ Here, again, the sea was a barrier to further progress westwards, and the Asiatic coast of the Aegean forms the western limit of Asiatic influence. Until the passing of the Hittite power, no attempts were made by Aegean sea-rovers or immigrants from the mainland of Greece to settle on the western coast of Asia Minor, [65] and it is not therefore surprising that Aegean [Pg 348] culture should show such scanty traces of Babylonian influence.
Of the part which the Sumerians took in originating and moulding the civilization of Babylonia, it is unnecessary to treat at greater length. ”

“ Such evidence as we possess from the linguistic side is also not in favour of the view which would regard the Semites as in occupation of the whole of Babylonia before the Sumerian immigration. If that had been the case we should naturally expect to find abundant traces of Semitic influence in the earliest Sumerian texts that have been recovered. But, as a matter of fact, no Semitism occurs in any text from Ur-Ninâ's period to that of Lugal-zaggisi with the single exception of a Semitic loan-word on the Cone of Entemena. ”

“ They, or the Semitic kings of some other northern city, may have continued to exercise a general suzerainty over the whole of Babylonia, but the records of Lagash seem to show that the larger and more distant cities were left in the enjoyment of practical independence. The mere existence of a suzerain, however, who had inherited the throne or empire of Shar-Gani-sharri and Narâm-Sin, must have acted as a deterrent influence upon any ambitious prince or patesi, and would thus have tended to maintain a condition of equilibrium between the separate states of which that empire had been composed. ”

“ From Urukagina's own inscriptions we have seen reason to believe that he did not obtain the throne by right of succession, but by force; he never refers to his own father, and the antagonism to the patesiate, which characterizes his texts, suggests that his reign marks a complete break in the succession. [36] We may therefore conclude that Urukagina of the obelisk is a different personage to Urukagina, the king, and the former's father, Engilsa, would in that case have ruled as a patesi of Lagash at a period subsequent to the sack of that city by Lugal-zaggisi. ”

“ In Babylonia the cylinder-seal is already highly developed when found on the earliest Sumerian sites, and it would appear that the Sumerian immigrants brought it with them into the country, along with their system of writing and the other elements of their comparatively advanced state of civilization. Whether they themselves had evolved it in their original home, or had obtained it from some other race with whom they came into contact before reaching the valley of the Euphrates, it is still impossible to say. The evidence from Susa has not yet thrown much light upon this point. ”

“ Although the earliest Sumerian settlements in Southern Babylonia are to be set back in a comparatively remote period, the race by which they were founded appears at that time to have already attained to a high level of culture. We find them building houses for themselves and temples for their gods of burnt and unburnt brick. They are rich in sheep and cattle, and they have increased the natural fertility of their country by means of a regular system of canals and irrigation-channels. ”