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

Moreover, the appearance of writing in Egypt was not so sudden an event as it is often represented. The buff-coloured pottery of predynastic times, with its red line decoration, proves that the Eygptian had a natural faculty for drawing men, animals, plants, boats and conventional designs. In these picture-drawings of the predynastic period we may see the basis of the hieroglyphic system of writing, for in them the use of symbolism is already developed. The employment of fetish emblems, or symbols, to represent the different gods,[8] is in itself a rough form of ideographic expression, and, if developed along its own lines, would naturally lead to the invention of a regular ideographic form of writing. There is little doubt that this process is what actually took place. The first impetus may have been given by the necessity for marks of private ownership, and by the need for conveying authority from the chief to his subordinates at a distance. Symbols for the names of rulers and of places would thus soon be added to those for the gods, and when a need was felt to commemorate some victory or great achievement of the king, such symbols would naturally be used in combination. This process may be traced on the earlier monuments of the First Dynasty, the records on which are still practically ideographic in character. A very similar process doubtless led to the invention of the cuneiform system, and there is no need to assume that either Egypt or Babylonia was indebted to the other country for her knowledge of writing.

We obtain a very similar result in the case of other points of resemblance which have been cited to prove a close connection between the early cultures of the two countries. Considerable stress has been laid on a certain similarity, which the Egyptian slate carvings of the dynastic period bear to examples of early Sumerian sculpture and engraving. It is true that composite creatures are characteristic of the art of both countries, and that their arrangement on the stone is often "heraldic" and symmetrical. But the human-headed bull, the favourite monster of Sumerian art, is never found upon the Egyptian monuments, on which not only the natural beasts but also the composite creatures are invariably of an Egyptian or African character. The general resemblance in style has also been exaggerated. To take a single instance, a comparison has frequently been made between the Stele of the Vultures and the broken slate carving in the British Museum, No. 20791.[9] On the former vultures are depicted carrying off the limbs of the slain, and on the latter captives are represented as cast out into the desert to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey. But the style of the two monuments is very different, and the Egyptian is far more varied in character. In addition to a single vulture, we see a number of ravens, a hawk, an eagle, and a lion, all attracted by the dead; and the arrangement of the composition and the technique itself are quite unlike Sumerian work. There is also no need to trace the symmetrical arrangement of other of the Egyptian compositions to Babylonian influence, for, given an oval plaque to decorate while leaving a circular space in the centre, a symmetrical arrangement would naturally arise.[10]

Another Egyptian characteristic, also ascribed to Babylonian influence, is the custom of extended burial with mummification, which only begins to be met with during the Third and Fourth Dynasties. Since the dead are portrayed on the Stele of the Vultures as arranged in the extended position beneath the burial-mound,[11] it was formerly assumed that this was the regular Sumerian practice; and the contracted forms of burial, which had been found at Warka, Mukayyar, Surghul, Niffer and other Babylonian sites, were usually assigned to very late periods. The excavations at Fâra and Abû Hatab have corrected this assumption, and have proved that the Sumerian corpse was regularly arranged for burial in the contracted position, lying on its side.[12] The apparent exception to this rule upon the Stele of the Vultures may probably be regarded as characteristic only of burial upon the field of battle. There it must often have been impossible to furnish each corpse with a grave to itself, or to procure the regular offerings and furniture which accompanied individual interment. The bodies were therefore arranged side by side in a common grave, and covered with a tumulus of earth to ensure their entrance into the under world. But this was clearly a makeshift form of burial, necessitated by exceptional circumstances, and was not the regular Sumerian practice of the period.[13] Whatever may have given rise to the Egyptian change in burial customs, the cause is not to be sought in Babylonian influence.

A further point, which has been cleared up by recent excavation on early Babylonian sites, concerns the crenelated form of building, which was formerly regarded as peculiarly characteristic of Sumerian architecture of the early period and as having influenced that of Egypt. It is now known that this form of external decoration is not met with in Babylonia before the period of Gudea and the kings of Ur. Thus, if any borrowing took place, it must have been on the Babylonian side. The employment of brick as a building material may also have been evolved in Egypt without any prompting from Babylonia, for the forms of brick employed are quite distinct in both countries. The peculiar plano-convex brick, which is characteristic of early Sumerian buildings, is never found in Egypt, where the rectangular oblong form was employed from the earliest period.[14] Thus many points of resemblance, which were formerly regarded as indicating a close cultural connection between the two countries, now appear to be far less striking than was formerly the case.[15] Others, again, may be explained as due to Egyptian influence on Babylonian culture rather than as the result of the reverse process. For example, the resemblance that has been pointed out between Gudea's sculpture in the round and that of the Fourth Dynasty in Egypt may not be fortuitous. For Gudea maintained close commercial relations with the Syrian coast, where Egyptian influence at that time had long been effective.

There remains to be considered the use of the bulbous mace-head and of the stone cylindrical seal, both of which are striking characteristics of the early Egyptian and Sumerian cultures. It is difficult to regard these classes of objects, and particularly the latter, as having been evolved independently in Egypt and by the Sumerians. In Babylonia the cylinder-seal is already highly developed when found on the earliest Sumerian sites, and it would appear that the Sumerian immigrants brought it with them into the country, along with their system of writing and the other elements of their comparatively advanced state of civilization. Whether they themselves had evolved it in their original home, or had obtained it from some other race with whom they came into contact before reaching the valley of the Euphrates, it is still impossible to say. The evidence from Susa has not yet thrown much light upon this point. While some stone seals and clay sealings have been found in the lowest stratum of the mound, they are not cylindrical but in the form of flat stamps. The cylindrical seal appears, however, to have been introduced at Susa at a comparatively early period, for examples are said to have been found in the group of strata representing the "Second Period," at a depth of from fifteen to twenty metres below the surface. The published material does not yet admit of any certain pronouncement with regard to the earliest history of the cylinder-seal and its migrations. In favour of the view that would regard it as an independent product of the early Egyptians, it may be noted that wood and not stone was the commonest material for cylinders in the earliest period.[16] But if the predynastic cylinder of Egypt is to be regarded as ultimately derived from Asia, the connection is to be set at a period anterior to the earliest Sumerian settlements that have yet been identified.

Thus the results of recent excavation and research, both in Egypt and Babylonia, have tended to diminish rather than to increase the evidence of any close connection between the early cultures of the two countries. Apart from any Babylonian influence, there is, however, ample proof of a Semitic element, not only in the language, but also in the religion of ancient Egypt. The Egyptian sun-worship, which forms so striking a contrast to the indigenous animal-cults and worship of the dead, was probably of Semitic origin, and may either have reached Upper Egypt from Southern Arabia,[17] or have entered Lower Egypt by the eastern Delta. The latter region has always formed an open door to Egypt, and the invasion of the Hyksos may well have had its prototype in predynastic times. The enemies, whose conquest is commemorated on several of the early dynastic slate-carvings, are of non-Egyptian type; they may possibly have been descendants of such Semitic immigrants, unless they were Libyan settlers from the west. In the historic period we have evidence of direct contact between Syria and Egypt at the time of the Third Dynasty, for the Palermo Stele records the arrival in Egypt of forty ships laden with cedar-wood in Sneferu's reign. These evidently formed an expedition sent by sea to the Lebanon, and we may assume that Sneferu's predecessors had already extended their influence along the Syrian coast.[18] It is in Syria that we may also set the first contact between the civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia in historic times. The early Sumerian ruler Lugal-zaggisi boasts that he reached the Mediterranean coast, and his expedition merely formed the prelude to the conquest of Syria by Shar-Gani-sharri of Akkad.[19] It has indeed been suggested that evidence of Egyptian influence, following on the latter's Syrian campaign, is to be seen in the deification of early Babylonian kings.[20] And although this practice may now be traced with greater probability to a Sumerian source,[21] there can be little doubt that from Shar-Gani-sharri's reign onwards Syria formed a connecting-link between the two great civilizations on the Euphrates and the Nile.

Far closer than her relations with Egypt were the ties which connected Babylonia with the great centre of civilization which lay upon her eastern frontier. In the course of this history reference has frequently been made to the contact which was continually taking place from the earliest historical period between Elam and the Sumerian and Semitic rulers of Sumer and Akkad. Such political relationships were naturally accompanied by close commercial intercourse, and the effects of Sumerian influence upon the native culture of Elam have been fully illustrated by the excavations conducted at Susa by the "Délégation en Perse."[22] Situated on the river Kerkha, Susa occupied an important strategic position at the head of the caravan routes which connected the Iranian plateau with the lower valley of the Tigris and Euphrates and the shores of the Persian Gulf. The river washed the foot of the low hills on which the town was built, and formed a natural defence against attack from the west. The situation of the city on the left bank of the stream is an indication that even in the earliest period its founders sought to protect themselves from the danger of sudden raids from the direction of Sumer and Akkad. The earliest Sumerian records also reflect the feelings of hostility to Elam which animated their writers. But from these scattered references it would appear that the Elamites at this time were generally the aggressors, and that they succeeded in keeping their country free from any political interference on the part of the more powerful among the Sumerian city-states. It was not until the period of Semitic expansion, under the later kingdom of Kish and the empire of Akkad, that the country became dominated by Babylonian influence.

We could not have more striking evidence of the extent to which Elam at this time became subject to Semitic culture than in the adoption of the Babylonian character and language by the native rulers of the country. We are met with the strange picture of native patesis of Susa and governors of Elam recording their votive offerings in a foreign script and language, and making invocations to purely Babylonian deities.[23] The Babylonian script was also adopted for writing inscriptions in the native Elamite tongue, and had we no other evidence available, it might be urged that the use of the Semitic language for the votive texts was dictated by purely temporary considerations of a political character. There is no doubt, however, that the Semitic conquest of Elam was accompanied, and probably preceded, by extensive Semitic immigration. Even at the time of the Dynasty of Ur, when Elam was subject to direct Sumerian control, the Semitic influence of Akkad had become too firmly rooted to be displaced, and it received a fresh impetus under the later rulers of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The clay tablets of a commercial and agricultural character, dating from the period of Adda-Pakshu,[24] are written in the Babylonian character and language,[25] like those found at Mal-Amîr to the east of Susa.[26] The latter do not date from a period earlier than about 1000 B.C., and they throw an interesting light on the permanent character of Babylonian influence in the country. The modified forms of the Babylonian characters, which were employed by the Achaemenian kings for the Elamite column of their trilingual inscriptions, are to be traced to a comparatively late origin. The development of the writing exhibited by the Neo-Anzanite texts may be connected with the national revival which characterized the later Elamite monarchy.

The evidence furnished by the inscriptions found at Susa and other sites in Elam is supported by the archaeological discoveries in proving that, from the time of the Semitic kings of Kish and Akkad, the cultural development of Elam was to a great extent moulded by Babylonia. But the later products of native Elamite workmanship that have been recovered are no slavish copies of Babylonian originals, and the earlier examples of sculpture and engraving are of a character quite distinct from anything found on Babylonian soil.[27] Moreover, in the casting of metal and in the jewellers' art Elam certainly in time excelled her neighbour,[28] and, even in the later periods, her art presents itself as of vigorous growth, influenced it is true by that of Babylonia, but deriving its impetus and inspiration from purely native sources. It is also significant that the earlier the remains that have been recovered the less do they betray any trace of foreign influence.