A History of Sumer and Akkad / An account of the early races of Babylonia from prehistoric times to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy

by L. W. King

Although no direct contact between Babylonia and Egypt has been proved during the earlier historical periods, the opinion has been very generally held that the Egyptian civilization was largely influenced in its first stages by that of Babylonia. The use of the stone cylinder-seal by the Egyptians certainly furnished a very cogent argument in favour of the view that some early cultural connection must have taken place; and, as the cylinder-seal was peculiarly characteristic of Babylonia during all periods, whereas its use was gradually discontinued in Egypt, the inference seemed obvious that it was an original product of Babylonia, whence it had reached Egypt in late predynastic or early dynastic times. This view appeared to find support in other points of resemblance which were noted between the early art and culture of the two countries. Mace-heads of bulbous or "egg-shaped" form were employed by the early inhabitants of both lands. The Egyptian slate carvings of the First Dynasty were compared with the early bas-reliefs and engraved seals of the Sumerians, and resemblances were pointed out both in subject-matter and in the symmetrical arrangement of the designs. The employment of brick, in place of stone, as a building material, was regarded as due to Babylonian influence; and the crenelated walls of Early Egyptian buildings, the existence of which was proved not only by pictured representations on the slate carvings, but also by the remains of actual buildings such as the mastaba-tomb of King Aha at Nakâda, and the ancient fortress of Abydos, known as the Shunet ez-Zebîb, were treated as borrowed from Sumerian originals. That irrigation was practised on the banks of the Nile as well as in the Euphrates valley, and that wheat was grown in both countries, were cited as additional proofs that Babylonia must have exercised a marked influence on Egyptian culture during the early stages of its development.

In order to explain such resemblances between the early cultures of Sumer and Egypt, it was necessary to seek some channel by which the influence of the former country could have reached the valley of the Nile; and a solution of the problem was found in the theory of a Semitic invasion of Upper Egypt towards the end of the predynastic period. 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. The former were regarded as indigenous to the country, speaking a language possibly akin to the Berber dialects of North Africa. With little or no knowledge of metal, they were pictured as offering a stubborn but unsuccessful resistance to their Semitic conquerors. The latter were assumed to have brought with them a copper age culture, ultimately derived from the Sumerians of Babylonia. Crossing from southern Arabia by the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb, and making their way northward along the western shore of the Red Sea, they would have reached the Nile in the neighbourhood of Koptos. Here they would have formed their first settlements, and, after subduing the older inhabitants of Upper Egypt, they would have pushed their way northwards along the valley of the Nile.[1]

There is no doubt that the union of Upper and Lower Egypt into a single monarchy, traditionally ascribed to Mena, the legendary founder of the first Egyptian dynasty, did result from a conquest of the North by the South. Mena himself was regarded as sprung from a line of local rulers established at This, or Thinis, in the neighbourhood of Abydos, and also as the founder of Memphis at the head of the Delta, whither he transferred his throne. Further traces of the conquest of the North by the South have been preserved in the legends concerning the followers of Horus, the patron deity of the first kings of Upper Egypt. The advance of the Sky-god of Edfu with his Mesniu or "Smiths,"[2] who are related to have won battle after battle as they pressed northwards, is amply confirmed by the early dynastic monuments that have been recovered by excavation. The slate carving of Narmer, on which is portrayed the victory of Horus over the kingdom of the Harpoon near the Canopic branch of the Nile, may well represent one of the last decisive victories of the Horus-worshippers, as they extended their authority northwards to the sea.[3] Of the historical character of this conquest of Lower Egypt by the kings of the South, which resulted in the union of the whole country under a single monarchy, there are now no two opinions. The point, about which some uncertainty still exists, concerns the racial character of the conquerors and the origin of their higher culture, by virtue of which their victories were obtained.

On the hypothesis of a Semitic invasion, the higher elements in the early culture of Egypt are, as we have seen, to be traced to a non-Egyptian source. The Semitic immigrants are assumed to have introduced, not only the use of metal, but also a knowledge of letters. The Sumerian system of writing has been regarded as the parent of the Egyptian hieroglyphic characters; and comparisons have been made between the names of Sumerian and Egyptian gods.[4] The suggestion has also been put forward that the fashion of extended burial, which in Egypt gradually displaced the contracted position of the corpse, was also to be traced to Babylonian influence.

It must be admitted that, until quite recently, this view furnished a very plausible explanation of the various points of resemblance noted between the civilizations of the two countries. Moreover, the evidence obtained by excavation on early sites certainly appeared to show a distinct break between the predynastic and early dynastic cultures of Egypt. To account for what seemed so sudden a change in the character of Egyptian civilization, the theory of a foreign invasion seemed almost inevitable. But the publication of the results of Dr. Reisner's excavations at Naga-ed-Dêr and other early cemeteries in Upper Egypt,[5] has rendered it necessary to revise the theory; while the still more recent diggings of M. Naville at Abydos prove that the changes, in certain districts, were even more gradual than had been supposed.

Put briefly, Dr. Reisner's conclusion is that there was no sudden break of continuity between the Neolithic and early dynastic cultures of Egypt. His extensive and laborious comparison of the predynastic burials with those of the First and Second Dynasties, has shown that no essential change took place in the Egyptian conception of the life after death, or in the rites and practices which accompanied the interment of the body. In early dynastic as in Neolithic times the body of the dead man was placed in a contracted position on its left side and with the head to the south, and the grave was still furnished with food, arms, tools, and ornaments. Moreover, the changes observable in the construction of the grave itself, and in the character of the objects within it, were not due to the sudden influence of any alien race, but may well have been the result of a gradual process of improvement in the technical skill of the Egyptians themselves.

The three most striking points of difference beween the products of the predynastic and dynastic periods centre round the character of the pottery and vessels for household use, the material employed for tools and weapons, and the invention of writing. It would now appear that the various changes were all gradually introduced, and one period fades into another without any strongly marked line of division between them. A knowledge of copper has always been credited to the later predynastic Egyptians, and it is now possible to trace the gradual steps by which the invention of a practical method of working it was attained. Copper ornaments and objects found in graves earlier than the middle predynastic period are small and of little practical utility, as compared with the beautifully flaked flint knives, daggers, and lances, which still retained the importance they enjoyed in purely Neolithic times. At a rather later stage in the predynastic period copper dagger-blades and adzes were produced in imitation of flint and stone forms, and these mark the transition to the heavy weapons and tools of copper, which in the early dynastic period largely ousted flint and stone implements for practical use.

The gradual attainment of skill in the working of copper ore on the part of the early Egyptians had a marked effect on the whole status of their culture. Their improved weapons enabled them by conquest to draw their raw materials from a far more extended area; and the adaptation of copper tools for quarrying blocks of stone undoubtedly led to its increased employment as a stronger and more permanent substitute for clay. The use of the copper chisel also explains the elaborate carvings upon the early dynastic slates, and the invention of the stone borer brought about the gradual displacement of pottery in favour of stone vessels for household purposes. Thus, while metal-casting and stone-working improved, they did so at the expense of the older arts of flint-knapping and the manufacture of pottery by hand, both of which tended to degenerate and die out. Dr. Reisner had already inferred that for ceremonial purposes, as distinct from the needs of everyday life, both flint implements and certain earlier types of pottery continued to be employed. And M. Naville's diggings at Abydos, during the season of 1909-10, seem to prove that the process was even slower and less uniform than had been thought possible. In fact, according to the excavators, it would appear that in certain districts in Egypt a modified form of the predynastic culture, using the characteristic red and black pottery, survived as late as the Sixth Dynasty; while it is known that in Nubia a type of pottery, closely akin to the same prehistoric ware, continued in use as late as the Eighteenth Dynasty.[6] However such survivals are to be explained, the beginning of the dynastic period in Egypt does not appear to present a break in either racial or cultural continuity. Indeed, a precisely parallel development may be traced between the early dynastic period, and that represented by the Third and Fourth Dynasties, when there is no question of any such break. As the stone vessels of the first two dynasties had proved themselves superior to hand-made pottery for practical purposes, so they in turn were displaced by wheel-made pottery.[7] These changes may be traced to gradual improvements in manufacture; arts such as mat-weaving and bead-making, which were unaffected by the new inventions, continued to be practised without change in the early dynastic as in the predynastic periods.

Recent archaeological research thus leaves small room for the theory that Egyptian culture was subjected to any strong foreign influence in early dynastic times, and its conclusions on this point are confirmed by anatomical evidence. The systematic measurement and comparison of skulls from predynastic and dynastic burials, which have been conducted by Dr. Elliot Smith of the Khedivial School of Medicine in collaboration with the Hearst Expedition, has demonstrated the lineal descent of the dynastic from the predynastic Egyptians. The two groups to all intents and purposes represent the same people, and in the later period there is no trace of any new racial element, or of the admixture of any foreign strain. Thus the theory of an invasion of Egypt by Semitic tribes towards the close of the predynastic period must be given up, and, although this does not in itself negative the possibility of Sumerian influence having reached Egypt through channels of commercial intercourse, it necessitates a more careful scrutiny of the different points of resemblance between the cultures of the two countries on which the original theory was founded.

One of the subjects on which the extreme upholders of the theory have insisted concerns the invention of the Egyptian system of writing, which is alleged by them to have been borrowed from Babylonia. But it must be noted that those signs which correspond to one another in the two systems are such as would naturally be identical in any two systems of pictorial writing, developed independently but under similar conditions. The sun all the world over would be represented by a circle, a mountain by a rough outline of a mountain peak, an ox by a horned head, and so on. To prove any connection between the two systems a resemblance should be established between the more conventionalized signs, and here the comparison breaks down completely. It should further be noted that the Egyptian system has reached us in a far more primitive state than that of Babylonia. While the hieroglyphic signs are actual pictures of the objects represented, even the earliest line-characters of Sumer are so conventionalized that their original form would scarcely have been recognized, had not their meaning been already known. In fact, no example of Sumerian writing has yet been recovered which could have furnished a pattern for the Egyptian scribe.