Other
scholars have detected signs of their origin in their language and
system of writing, and, from the fact that they spoke an agglutinative
tongue and at the earliest period arranged the characters of their
script in vertical lines like the Chinese, it has been urged that
they were of Mongol extraction. Though a case may be made out for this
hypothesis, it would be rash to dogmatize for or against it, and it is
wiser to await the discovery of further material on which a more certain
decision may be based. But whatever their origin, it is certain that the
Sumerians exercised an extraordinary influence on all races with
which, either directly or indirectly, they came in contact. The ancient
inhabitants of Elam at a very early period adopted in principle
their method of writing, and afterwards, living in isolation in the
mountainous districts of Persia, developed it on lines of their own. [*
See Chap. V, and note.] On their invasion of Babylonia the Semites
fell absolutely under Sumerian influence, and, although they eventually
conquered and absorbed the Sumerians, their civilization remained
Sumerian to the core. Moreover, by means of the Semitic inhabitants of
Babylonia Sumerian culture continued to exert its influence on other
and more distant races. We have already seen how a Babylonian element
probably enters into Egyptian civilization through Semitic infiltration
across the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb or by way of the Isthmus of Suez,
and it was Sumerian culture which these Semites brought with them.
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