In like manner, through the Semitic Babylonians, the Assyrians, the
Kassites, and the inhabitants of Palestine and Syria, and of some
parts of Asia Minor, Armenia, and Kurdistan, all in turn experienced
indirectly the influence of Sumerian civilization and continued in a
greater or less degree to reproduce elements of this early culture.
It will be seen that the influence of the Sumerians furnishes us with
a key to much that would otherwise prove puzzling in the history of the
early races of Western Asia. It is therefore all the more striking to
recall the fact that but a few years ago the very existence of this
ancient people was called in question. At that time the excavations in
Mesopotamia had not revealed many traces of the race itself, and its
previous existence had been mainly inferred from a number of Sumerian
compositions inscribed upon Assyrian tablets found in the library
of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh. These compositions were furnished with
Assyrian translations upon the tablets on which they were inscribed,
and it was correctly argued by the late Sir Henry Rawlinson, the late M.
Oppert, Prof. Schrader, Prof. Sayce, and other scholars that they were
written in the language of the earlier inhabitants of the country whom
the Semitic Babylonians had displaced. But M. Halevy started a theory to
the effect that Sumerian was not a language at all, in the proper sense
of the term, but was a cabalistic method of writing invented by the
Semitic Babylonian priests.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166