TYPES OF RACES. The physical type of the people is shown to us by the early monuments, though we hardly yet know enough of the early history to understand them fully. Two main types stand out entirely apart, the shaven and the full-haired. And when it is seen that the shaven type is that of all the earliest human figures, dating from 4500 B.C. and extending down to even 2100 B.C., while the full-haired type is not found on men before 3750 B.C., it is clear that the shaven is the Sumerian and the bearded is the Semitic type. The remarkable point is that the gods are represented with long hair tressed up and long beards from 4400 B.C.; and as early as we can go back there is never a figure of a beardless god. The reason probably is that personal gods were of Semitic origin, their worship was borrowed, and hence their forms. If so, we must see a large Semitic influence already acting on the earliest known Sumerian art. The variations of type may perhaps lead to some further distinctions. The full, curly, square-ended beard and long hair are usual for the gods, as seen under Eannatum (4400), Urenlil (4000), Gudea (3300), and Hammurabi (2100). The same beard, but with the hair done up into a disc (as on the Tello heads and Hammurabi), is worn by the King Anubanini (3600). The long and rather pointed beard is seen on Naramsin (3750), and Hammurabi (2100). The short, square beard is seen on the god, under Eannatum (4400), and on men about Naramsin’s age [see the seal of Ubilishtar]. The shaven type has a wide face, with a large prominent aquiline nose, best seen in the head from Tello. This type is that of all the human figures on the scenes of Urnina (4500), Eannatum (4400), and Urenlil (4000); and in the figures of the Scribe Kalhi (cylinder, 3750), Gudea (stele, 3300), the heads of the same age from Tello, and the later head of beautiful work at Berlin. The general conclusions may be that the beard was worn and admired by Semites, who elaborated a very full type for the gods; and that the Semitic influx, though ruling under Naramsin at Sippara, north of Babylon, was yet subordinate at the later date of Gudea, in the Sumerian south.
THE FAMILIAR BEARDED TYPE OF ASSYRIAN GODS AND MEN
Although the full-haired faces are later in appearing on the monuments of Babylonia, all figures of gods are shown as possessed of full beards and a wealth of hair. A familiar example is here reproduced. It is supposed that the Semitic race in Assyria was the first to personalise the deities, and hence the resemblance of the images to the features of the Semites.
SEMITIC AGE. We now turn to the later stage of the civilisation, as it flourished under the mixed race of Sumerians and Semites, partaking of the culture of the older race and the higher moral tone of the less advanced people. The Sumerians, as we have noted, had pushed down from the Median highlands into the growing plain of Babylonia, while the earlier Semites remained to the north in Assyria, and to the west in Naharaina and Syria. Sooner or later a fusion was inevitable; as we have seen already, the gods were of a Semitic type at a very early time, and gradually the union took place during three thousand years, until in the later times the product was unified in one strong civilisation which spread its strength far and wide to the Crimea, to Egypt, and to the deserts of Central Asia.
BUILDING. The old skill and abilities found a wide scope in this larger frame of life. The fundamental craft of brickwork was carried on to a vast extent. Every city had its great pile of an artificial hill of bricks, built in stages to support the temple of its god high above all. Immense walls surrounded the cities; those of Babylon were some nine miles around, and are stated to have been 85 ft. high and 340 ft. thick, surrounded by a moat lined with burnt brick laid in bitumen. Not only was brickwork used on this great scale in the Babylonian plain where stone was a luxury, but the force of example was so strong that the Assyrian, in his highland home, kept up the same scale of brickbuilding as his teachers, and used brick for his palaces and temples when stone would have been much more easily available.
In Babylonia, as in Egypt, the supply of material for brickmaking on a large scale is a serious question. For the great walls of cities, obviously a surrounding ditch was an advantage; but for the materials of houses, temples, and ziggurats, great pits had to be dug, or older buildings pulled down. At Nippur it was found that the later builders had torn down a long piece of the disused city wall and dug out a great pit below and around it. So in Egypt the outskirts of every village has its perilous hole where the bricks are made, which, in course of time, becomes a stagnant pond, and every ancient temple, with its fortifying wall, was built out of a large pit at its side which became the sacred lake of the temple.
A TEMPLE PLATFORM, OR ZIGGURAT, OF BABYLONIA
This restoration of the Temple of Bel at Nippur, from the designs of Hilprecht and Fisher, gives a good idea of the massive character of Assyrian architecture. The portion marked (1) consists of a stage tower with a shrine at top and a long stairway leading thereto; (2) is the temple proper; (3) house for “honey, cream and wine”; (4) “place for the delight of Bur-sin”; (5) is the inner wall and (6) the massive outer walls.