The archæology of the cuneiform inscriptions

by A. H. Sayce

But I am far from saying that it was through Ur that the civilization of Sumer came to be handed on to its Semitic neighbours. On the contrary, such facts as there are point in a different direction. Western Semites, whom linguistically we may call Arabs or Aramæans, or Canaanites or Hebrews, doubtless mingled with the Sumerian population of Ur, and adopted more or less of its manners and civilization, but it was further north, in the Babylonian Eden itself, that the Semite first came under the influence of the higher culture, and soon outstripped his masters in the arts of life.

The entrance of the Semitic element into Babylonia is at present one of the most obscure of problems. All we can be sure of are certain main facts. First of all, as we have seen, the early culture of Babylonia, including so integral a part of it as the script, was of Sumerian origin. So, too, were the great cities and sanctuaries of the country, as well as the system of irrigation engineering which first made it habitable. Sumerian long continued to be the language of theology and law; indeed a large part of the Babylonian pantheon of later days was frankly non-Semitic. As was inevitable under such conditions, the Assyrian language contained an immense number of words—many of them compound—which were borrowed from the older language, and its idioms and grammar equally showed signs of Sumerian influence. I have sometimes been tempted, from a scientific point of view, to speak of Semitic Babylonian as a mixed language.

On the other hand, if the elements of Babylonian civilization were Sumerian, the superstructure was Semitic. When the Semites entered into the heritage of Sumerian culture, the cuneiform script must have still been in a very inchoate and immature state. Its pictorial ancestry must still have been clear, and no scruples were felt about altering or adding to the characters. The phonetic application of the characters, which was still in its initial stage in the Sumerian period, was developed and carried to perfection by the Semitic scribes, and a very considerable proportion of their values and ideographic meanings is of Semitic derivation. The theological system was transformed, and a new literature and a new art came into existence. As Sumerian words had been borrowed by the Semites, so, too, Semitic words were borrowed by the Sumerians, and it is possible that examples of them may occur in some of the oldest Sumerian texts known to us.[84] The Babylonians of history, in short, were a mixed people; and their culture and language were mixed like our own.

This, then, is one main fact. A second is that the Semitic element first comes to the front in the northern part of Babylonia. It is in Akkad, and not in Sumer, that the first Semitic Empire—that of Sargon the Elder, B.C. 3800—had its seat, and old as that empire is, it presupposes a long preceding period of Semitic settlement and advance in power and civilization. The cuneiform system of writing is already complete and has ceased to be Sumerian, archive-chambers of Semitic literature are founded, and Semitic authority is firmly established from Susa in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. Art is no longer Sumerian, and in the hands of the Semitic subjects of Sargon and his son Naram-Sin has reached a perfection which in certain directions was never afterwards surpassed. The engraved seal-cylinders of the period are the finest that we possess. Naturally the Semitic language has superseded the Sumerian in official documents, and the physical type as represented on the monuments is also distinctly Semitic. At the beginning of the fourth millennium before our era, the civilization and culture of Northern Babylonia have thus ceased to be Sumerian, and the sceptre has fallen into the hands of a Semitic race.

But there is a third fact. The displacement of the Sumerian by the Semite was the case only in Northern Babylonia. In the south, in the land of Sumer, the older population continued to be dominant. Sumerian dynasties continued to rule there from time to time, and the old agglutinative language continued to be spoken. When a West-Semitic dynasty governed the country about B.C. 2200, state proclamations and similar official documents had still to be drawn up in the two languages, Semitic Babylonian and Sumerian. Sumerian did not become extinct till a later day. Indeed, after the fall of the empire of Sargon of Akkad there seems to have been a Sumerian reaction. While Susa was lost to the Semites and became the capital of a non-Semitic people who spoke an agglutinative language, the power of the Sumerian princes in Southern Babylonia appears to have revived. At all events even the dynasty which followed that of the West-Semites bore Sumerian names.[85] It was only under the foreign domination of the Kassites, apparently, who governed Babylonia for nearly 600 years, that the Sumerian element finally became merged in the Semitic and the Babylonian of later history was born.

THE SEAL OF SHARGANI-SHAR-ALI (SARGON OF AKKAD): GILGAMES WATERS THE CELESTIAL OX.

BAS-RELIEF OF NARAM-SIN.

The last fact is that while what we call Assyrian is Semitic Babylonian with a few dialectal variations, it stands apart from the other Semitic languages. A scientific comparison of its grammar with those of the sister-tongues leads us to believe that it represents one of the two primeval dialects of the Semitic family of speech, the other dialect being that which subsequently split up into the varying dialects of Canaanite or Hebrew, Arabic, South-Arabic and Aramæan—or, adopting the genealogical form of linguistic relationship, Assyro-Babylonian would have been one daughter of the primitive parent-speech, while the other daughter comprised the remaining Semitic languages.[86] There are two conclusions to be drawn from this; one is that the Babylonian Semites must have separated from their kinsfolk and come under Sumerian influence at a very early period, the other that they moved northward, along the banks of the Tigris into Assyria.