Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

2SUMERIANS—BABYLONIANS—ASSYRIANS 351in liturgies, etc.i down even to the time of the Persian conquest)and their writing, adopted by the Babylonians andAssyrians, which runs, unlike the Hebrew, from left to right,disprove Sumerian descent from Shem.It is impossible at present to fix a definite period for theirimmigration. The dates assigned vary from 7000 to 4000 B.C.The statement, however, that " Aryans, Turanians, Semiteswere all in a nomadic condition, when the early Sumeriansettlers in Lower Babylonia betook themselves to agriculture,builded great cities, and established a stable government,"seems hardly exaggerated, even though it postulates a veryancient era.The second, the Semitic Babylonians, starting possiblyfrom South Arabia by way of the Syrian coast, reached thelower part of the Tigris and Euphrates about 3800 B.C. 3 Itwas not, however, until some thousand years afterwards, thatthey effected a conquest of the Sumerians.Like other defeated peoples, such as the Canaanites withthe Jews, the Irish with the English, " Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,"they grafted their policy on that of their victors,and perpetuated many of their racial characteristics andcustoms, as well as their religion. " The Semitic invadersseem to have been completely converted. In fact Babylonianreligion has scarcely anything characteristically Semitic init." 4The third, the Assyrians proper, an offshoot from Babylonia,are found (before 2300 b.c.) pushing their way north along theTigris, on whose western bank they founded their first cityand earliest capital—Asur. Wars between them and Babyloniamark the history of centuries. Their definite suzerainty over^ The Sumerians made extensive use of music, especially in their religiousceremonies ; they were the founders, according to Langdon, of liturgicalmusic, which unfortunately it is impossible to reconstruct, as the notesthemselves have not survived.^ The Sumerian language was not well adapted to express peculiarlySemitic sounds.3 Petrie {Egypt and Israel (London, ign), p. 15): "The Turanian raceakin to the modern Mongols, known as Sumerians, had civilised the Euphratesvalley for some thousands of years and produced a strong commercial andmathematical culture. The wandering Semite had at last been drawn intothis settled system of life."* S. Langdon, Babylonian Magic, Bologna, 1914.