[87]The earliest tablets, of the Protoliterate period, seem to be written in Sumerian. They use the Sumerian sexagesimal system (with units for 10, 60, 600, and 3600) and refer to Sumerian gods like Enlil. But Sumerian has no clearly recognized affinity to other tongues.
It is important to realize that the term “Sumerian,” strictly speaking, can be used only for this language. There is no physical type which can be called by that name. From Al Ubaid times until the present day, the population of Mesopotamia has consisted of men predominantly belonging to the Mediterranean or Brown race, with a noticeable admixture of broad-headed mountaineers from the north-east. This is, for instance, true of the Early Dynastic period, as the skulls from Al Ubaid and Kish show. Skeletons of the earliest known inhabitants of the plain, found at Eridu and Hassuna, have been briefly discussed by C. S. Coon in Sumer, V (1949), 103-6; VI (1950), 93-6. They represent “rather heavy-boned prognathous and large-toothed mediterraneans.” The much-discussed problem of the origin of the Sumerians may well turn out to be the chase of a chimera.
[88]A. J. Wilson in Geographical Journal, LIV (London, 1925), 235 ff.
[89]W. K. Loftus, Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana (London, 1857), 7-8. On 17 May 1950 the correspondent of The Times reported from Baghdad that “after a break in the Tigris bund ... about 2000 mud houses have already collapsed.”
[90]“Tell Uqair,” by Seton Lloyd and Fuad Safar, in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, II (1943), 131-58.
[91]It is sometimes said that the Sumerians, descending from a mountainous region, desired to continue the worship of their gods on “High Places” and therefore proceeded to construct them in the plain. The point is why they considered “High Places” appropriate, especially since the gods worshipped there were not sky gods only but also, and predominantly, chthonic gods. Our interpretation takes its starting-point from “the mountain,” not as a geographical feature, but as a phenomenon charged with religious meaning. Several current theories have taken one or more aspects of “the mountain” as a religious symbol into account and we do not exclude them, but consider them, on the whole, subsidiary to the primary notion that “the mountain” was seen as the normal setting of divine activity.—The whole material referring to the temple towers, and the various interpretations which have been put forward, are conveniently presented in André Parrot, Ziggurats et Tour de Babel (Paris, 1949).
[92]The basic work on the subject of early Mesopotamian writing is Adam Falkenstein, Archaische Texte aus Uruk (Leipzig, 1936).
[93]A few words may be added here about the early development of writing; although true pictograms—images of the objects ([Fig. 13])—occur, many of the most common objects are rendered by simpler tokens: either highly abbreviated (and hence conventional) pictures, such as a figure with two curved lines across one end (No. 4), which represented the horned head of an ox (the sign means “ox”), or, more often, purely arbitrary signs, such as a circle with a cross—the commonest sign of all—meaning “sheep.” The system, therefore, is a collection of abstract tokens eked out with pictograms. The range of notions which could be expressed was enlarged by certain combinations. The sign for “woman” combined with that for “mountain” meant “slave-girl,” since slaves were foreigners generally brought from Persia. The sign for “sun” could also mean “day” or “white.” That for “plough” could mean either the tool or its user, the ploughman. Even so the script was of limited usefulness. It could not render sentences, for it could not indicate grammatical relations. Its signs were ideograms which listed notions; and that was what the script was, first of all, required to do. But even within the Protoliterate period a further step was taken towards writing as the graphic rendering of language. We find that the arrow sign, for instance, was soon regarded, not as a rendering of the notion “arrow,” but as a rendering of the sound “ti,” which means arrow. For the arrow sign was also used to render the notion “life” which likewise sounded “ti.” This shows that the rendering of speech rather than notions had become possible. The development of writing consisted of a series of makeshifts and compromises introduced piecemeal when the shortcomings of the system being used became noticeable. Some signs acquired a variety of sound values. Some were used to clarify the sense of other groups, although they themselves were not pronounced at all. (These are called determinatives.) Thus “ti” when it meant “arrow” (and certain other implements) was accompanied by a sign which by itself read “gish” and meant “wood,” but which, used as a determinative, merely indicated that an implement of wood was referred to. Similarly, place-names were accompanied by the sign “ki,” meaning “earth,” divine names by the star sign, and so on. Nevertheless, the fact that phonetic values became attached to most of the signs made the rendering of grammatical endings, and, in short, of true speech, possible.
[94]From Protoliterate times onwards, officials, and later also private persons, owned seals with which they could mark merchandise or documents. The shape of these seals was peculiar and remained characteristic for Mesopotamia until the end of its independent existence in Hellenistic times. They were small stone cylinders carrying on their circumference an engraved design which could be impressed on a tablet or on the clay sealing of a jar or bale of goods. Since the purpose of the seal design was the making of an individual and recognizable impression, its engraving at all times challenged the inventiveness of the Mesopotamian artists, who responded with outstanding success. (In our illustrations the rolled-out impressions, not the seals themselves, are shown. But see Figs. [35]-9.)
[95]The inlays consisted of terra cotta plaques set in among the clay cones which covered the walls. The carved figures were executed in stone and fixed to the wall with copper wire through loops drilled in their backs ([Fig. 18]).