THE DECAY OF PICTURE-WRITING
This illustrates the decay of pictures into signs, and shows very clearly how the cuneiform writing was developed from the earlier hieroglyphics. It will be noticed that the word originally rendered by a crude drawing of the object—“fish,” for example—retains even in its final cuneiform style some resemblance to the tail of a fish. The cuneiform lettering was necessary to the Babylonians, as clay was the most abundant material in their land and could best be marked upon in lines without curves.
The religion of the Sumerians was like that of other Turanian races. These peoples have an aversion to the idea of a personal god, to which the Semitic peoples cling. The Samoyede believes in a multitude of local spirits, the Chinese have their impersonal Heaven and the host of gnomes or earth spirits. Thus also the Sumerian thought of all objects as having a zi or spirit, good or evil, which needed to be appeased by the weak or commanded by the sorcery of the strong. Shamanism was the type of religion; and books of exorcisms and magic spells were in permanent use. The importance of the principalities naturally led to their local spirits being of general importance; and hence the political changes brought Sin the moon god of Ur, or Utuki the sun god of Sippar and Larsa, or Marduk of Babylon, into a leading position, and led toward the Semitic type of deities. How far this change was due to the beginning of Semitic influence we cannot now say. Other native gods were less personal, such as Ana the sky, Enlila the earth, and Ea the sea.
THE SUMERIAN TYPE OF BABYLONIAN
The fact that the shaven type of face appears in all the monuments back to 4500 B.C. indicates that the Sumerians were shaven as they were the older of the two main races in Babylonia.
THE SEMITIC TYPE OF BABYLONIAN
Men with full beards are not represented on Babylonian monuments until 3750 B.C.; hence it is clear that such figures represented people of the Semitic type. This portrait is from a sculpture of King Hammurabi.