FIG. 34.
HEAD OF AN ARCHAIC LIMESTONE FIGURE FROM ASHUR.
The primitive character of the sculpture is apparent, and the inlaying of the eyes with shell is characteristic of early work in Babylonia. The figure is possibly that of a female.
(After Mitt. der Deutsch. Orient-Gesellschaft, No. 54, p. 9.)
This assumption does not rest entirely on evidence supplied by the royal names, but finds indirect confirmation in recent archæological research. The excavations on the site of Ashur, the earliest Assyrian capital, tend to show that the first settlements in that country, of which we have recovered traces, were made by a people closely akin to the Sumerians of Southern Babylonia.[38] It was in the course of work upon a temple dedicated to Ishtar, the national goddess of Assyria, that remains were found of very early periods of occupation. Below the foundation of the later building a still older temple was found, also dedicated to that goddess. Incidentally this building has an interest of its own, for it proved to be the earliest temple yet discovered in Assyria, dating, as it probably does, from the close of the third millennium b.c. Still deeper excavation, below the level of this primitive Assyrian shrine, revealed a stratum in which were several examples of rude sculpture, apparently representing, not Semites, but the early non-Semitic inhabitants of Southern Babylonia.
The extremely archaic character of the work is well illustrated by a head, possibly that of a female figure,[39] in which the inlaying of the eyes recalls a familiar practice in early work from Babylonia. But the most striking evidence was furnished by heads of male figures, which, if offered for sale without a knowledge of their provenance, would undoubtedly have been accepted as coming from Tello or Bismâya, the sites of the early Sumerian cities of Lagash and Adab. The racial type presented by the heads appears to be purely Sumerian, and, though one figure at least is bearded, the Sumerian practice of shaving the head was evidently in vogue.[40]