The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]

It seems therefore that the lay dynasty arose mainly from the priesthood of these temples, for the kings are universally found in closest relation to the city deities, in whose honour they built or restored the temples, and down to their last day the priestly dignity ranked foremost in the title of the Babylonian kings.c

ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF BABYLON: THE SUMERIANS

It is coming to be a common agreement among Assyriologists that the original peoples of Babylon were of a race that was not Semitic. Just what it was these scholars are not yet prepared to say; although the inclination of belief is that it was an Indo-European race and most likely of the Turanian family. An attempt has recently been made to connect the aborigines with the Ugro-Finnish branch of the Ural-Altaic family, but with what success it is still too soon to say. But whatever these people, the Sumerians, may have been, they occupied the land of Babylonia until dislodged by a great wave of Semitic migration. This fact has not gone unchallenged, and from the ranks of Philology there has come a strong contention for a Semitic origin of the Babylonians, and the assertion that the Sumerian texts “do not represent a real language, but a kind of cipher written according to an artificial system of grammar.” And throughout the following discussion, written by Professor Hommel, it must not be forgotten that Professor Halévy, the originator of the theory of the Sumerian texts summarised above, still champions his contention and adduces evidence for it that seems to him conclusive.a

It has often been observed that southern Babylonia was originally the proper home of the Sumerians, while as early as the beginning of the fourth millennium before the Christian era the Semitic Babylonians were already settled in northern Babylonia, and, as is proved by the Naram-Sin inscription and several dating from the time of Sargon, his father (circa 3800 B.C.) had already acquired the Sumerian character (and, by inference, the Sumerian civilisation). In the case of southern Babylonia, the discoveries at Telloh have put us in possession of a number of sculptures—some of them in relief, others severed heads of statues, dating from the period between circa 4000 B.C., or earlier, and circa 3000. These present two different types. One is characterised by a rounded head with slightly prominent cheek bones, always beardless, and usually with clean-shaven crown. To this type certainly belong the representations of vanquished foes on the archaic sculpture, known as the Vulture stele, though the primitive method of representing the brow and nose by a single slightly curved line gives a merely superficial resemblance to the Semitic cast of countenance. The other is a longer-skulled (dolichocephalous) type, with thick, black hair and long, flowing beard.

It is certainly by no mere accident that the heads of the Telloh statues, most of which are supposed to represent kings, are of the first-mentioned (Sumerian) type, while the bronze votive offerings, which likewise bear the name of Gudea, are carried, as is evident at a glance, by Semites. And as there were Semites among the subjects of Gudea, where the Sumerians were the dominant race, so we find the same Semitic type clearly marked in the figures round the stem of a vase; while the party of musicians, who are seen approaching with submissive gestures on the fragment of a bas-relief, which probably also dates from the reign of Gudea, must likewise be of Semitico-Babylonian descent.

Fortunately, ancient Babylonian art gives us the opportunity, not merely of studying the wholly non-Semitic language of the earliest inhabitants of Babylonia in lengthy bilingual original inscriptions such as many of the statues of Gudea bear, but of seeing with our own eyes the bodily semblance of this singular people, and so observing the striking correspondence of non-Semitic elements in speech and facial type. In this connection we would draw attention to an ancient Babylonian statue of a female figure, now in the Louvre at Paris. We may confidently assume that the woman represented is a Sumerian and not a Semitic Babylonian; and it may thus be regarded as a splendid counterpart to the Gudea statues, which by the whole character of workmanship it calls to mind. Whether we have here a queen or some other lady of high rank (the supposition that she is a goddess appears to be excluded by the absence of the head-dress goddesses are wont to wear) cannot, of course, be determined with certainty. It is only natural that various mixed types should have developed in course of time, especially in northern Babylonia; and many of the faces we meet with—on the seal-cylinders more particularly—may be representations of such.