A History of Sumer and Akkad. L. W. King
and cheeks are shaved a long beard falls from below his chin.[45] He is girt around the waist with a plain garment, which is not of the later Semitic type, but the treatment of the hair and beard is obviously not Sumerian. The same bearded type of god is found upon early votive tablets from Nippur,[46] and also on a fragment of an archaic Sumerian relief from Tello, which, from the rudimentary character of the work and the style of the composition, has been regarded as the most ancient example of Sumerian sculpture known. The contours of the figures are vaguely indicated in low relief upon a flat plaque, and the interior details are indicated only by the point. The scene is evidently of a mythological character, for the seated figure may be recognized as a goddess by the horned crown she wears. Beside her stands a god who turns to smite a bound captive with a heavy club or mace. While the captive has the shaven head and face of a Sumerian, the god has abundant hair and a long beard.[47]
Fig. 14.—Fig. 15. Votive tablets from Nippur, engraved with scenes of worship.—Cf. Hilprecht, Explorations, p. 475, and Old Bab. Inscr., II., pl. xvi.
Man forms his god in his own image, and it is surprising that the gods of the Sumerians should not be of the Sumerian type. If the Sumerian shaved his own head and face, why should he have figured his gods with long beards and abundant hair and have clothed them with the garments of another race? Professor Meyer's answer to the question is that the Semites and their gods were already in occupation of Sumer and Akkad before the Sumerians came upon the scene. He would regard the Semites at this early period as settled throughout the whole country, a primitive and uncultured people with only sufficient knowledge of art to embody the figures of their gods in rude images of stone or clay. There is no doubt that the Sumerians were a warrior folk, and he would picture them as invading the country at a later date, and overwhelming Semitic opposition by their superior weapons and method of attack. The Sumerian method of fighting he would compare to that of the Dorians with their closed phalanx of lance-bearing warriors, though the comparison is not quite complete, since no knowledge of iron is postulated on the part of the Sumerians. He would regard the invaders as settling mainly in the south, driving many of the Semites northward, and taking over from them the ancient centres of Semitic cult. They would naturally have brought their own gods with them, and these they would identify with the deities they found in possession of the shrines, combining their attributes, but retaining the cult-images, whose sacred character would ensure the permanent retention of their outward form. The Sumerians in turn would have influenced their Semitic subjects and neighbours, who would gradually have acquired from them their higher culture, including a knowledge of writing and the arts.
Fig. 16—Sumerian deities on an archaic relief from Tello.—Déc., pl. 1, Fig. 1.
It may be admitted that the theory is attractive, and it certainly furnishes an explanation of the apparently foreign character of the Sumerian gods. But even from the archaeological side it is not so complete nor so convincing as at first sight it would appear. Since the later Sumerian gods were represented with full moustache and beard, like the earliest figures of Semitic kings which we possess, it would naturally be supposed that they would have this form in the still earlier periods of Sumerian history. But, as we have seen, their lips and cheeks are shaved. Are we then to postulate a still earlier Semitic settlement, of a rather different racial type to that which founded the kingdom of Kish and the empire of Akkad? Again, the garments of the gods in the earliest period have little in common with the Semitic plaid, and are nearer akin to the plainer form of garment worn by contemporary Sumerians. The divine headdress, too, is different to the later form, the single horns which encircle what may be a symbol of the date-palm,[48] giving place to a plain conical headdress decorated with several pairs of horns.
Fig. 17—Fig. 18—Fig. 19—Earlier and later forms of divine headdresses. Figs. 17 and 18 are from the obverse of the Stele of the Vultures, fragments C and B; Fig. 19, the later form of horned headdress, is from a sculpture of Gudea.—Déc., pl. 4, and pl. 26, No. 9.
Thus, important differences are observable in the form of the earlier Sumerian gods and their dress and insignia, which it is difficult to reconcile with Professor Meyer's theory of their origin. Moreover, the principal example which he selected to illustrate his thesis, the god of the central shrine of Nippur, has since been proved never to have borne the Semitic name of Bêl, but to have been known under his Sumerian title of Enlil from the beginning.[49] It is true that Professor Meyer claims that this point does not affect his main argument;[50] but at least it proves that Nippur was always a Sumerian religious centre, and its recognition as the central and most important shrine in the country by Semites and Sumerians alike, tells against any theory requiring a comparatively late date for its foundation.
Such evidence as we possess from the linguistic side is also not in favour of the view which would regard the Semites as in occupation of the whole of Babylonia before the Sumerian immigration. If that had been the case we should naturally expect to find abundant traces of Semitic influence in the earliest Sumerian texts that have been recovered. But, as a matter of fact, no Semitism occurs in any text from Ur-Ninâ's period to that of Lugal-zaggisi with the single exception of a Semitic loan-word on the Cone of Entemena.[51] In spite of the scanty nature of our material, this fact distinctly militates against the assumption that Semites and Sumerians were living side by side in Sumer at the time.[52] But the occurrence of the Semitic word in Entemena's inscription proves that external contact with some Semitic people had already taken place. Moreover, it is possible to press the argument from the purely linguistic side too far. A date-formula of Samsu-iluna's reign has proved that the Semitic speech of Babylonia was known as "Akkadian,"[53] and it has therefore been argued that the first appearance of Semitic speech in the country must date from the establishment of Shar-Gani-sharri's empire with its capital at Akkad.[54] But there is little doubt that the Semitic kingdom of Kish, represented by the reigns of Sharru-Gi, Manishtusu and Urumush, was anterior to Sargon's empire,[55] and, long before the rise of Kish, the town of Akkad may well have been the first important centre of Semitic settlement in the north.
FRAGMENT OF SUMERIAN SCULPTURE REPRESENTING SCENES OF WORSHIP BEFORE THE GODS.—In the Louvre; Déc. en Chald., pl. 23.
It would thus appear that at the earliest period of which remains or records have been recovered, Semites and Sumerians were both settled in Babylonia, the one race in the north, the other southwards nearer the Persian Gulf. Living at first in comparative isolation, trade and war would gradually bring them into closer contact. Whether we may regard the earliest rulers of Kish as Semites like their later successors, is still in doubt. The character of Enbi-Ishtar's name points to his being a Semite; but the still earlier king of Kish, who is referred to on the Stele of the Vultures, is represented on that monument as a Sumerian with shaven head and face.[56] But this may have been due to a convention in the sculpture of the time, and it is quite possible that Mesilim and his successors were Semites, and that their relations with the contemporary