VIII.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 2/5 



plains is purer and more archaic than the northern Akkad,' which 

 is largely affected by foreign elements ; and the Akkads themselves 

 believed that their first settlements lay about the shores of the 

 Persian Gulf, which formerly extended much farther inland than 

 at present. 



Ail this favours a Semitic source of Babylonian culture, the 

 germs of which might well have been supplied by the proto- 

 Minseans of South Arabia, a region already regarded by some as 

 possibly the seat of the first civilisation in the world 1 . On this 

 assumption the honour of having laid the founda- 



Relations to 



tions of all human progress would have to be the Semites 

 transferred from the Mongol to the Semite, and 

 Prof. E. D. Cope 2 now comes forward with a theory dethroning 

 both Mongol and Semite in favour of the Aryan. He argues 

 that Enshagsagana, the oldest known Akkadian king 3 (4500 B.C. 

 Hilprecht), shows a fine symmetrical figure, large, straight eyes, 

 a large, straight or slightly curved nose, thin lips, and most 

 significant a long head. Still it might be asked, was he a proto- 

 Semite? But, apart from physical differences, he spoke a 



1 Prof. Sayce thinks that "from Southern Arabia" may have come the 

 dynasty to which belonged Khammurabi (the Amraphel of Genesis), and 

 "which made Babylon for the first time the capital of a united Babylonia" 

 (Academy, Aug. i, 1896, p. 84). Khammurabi (Hummurabi) flourished about 

 2000 B.C. and he claimed lineal descent from Ur-bau and Dungi, who had 

 reigned at Ur over the united kingdoms of Summer and Akkad (Lowlands and 

 Highlands) about 2800 B.C. 



2 The Oldest Civilized Man, in The American Naturalist for August, 1896. 

 It may be stated that with this view L. Wilser is inclined to agree (Globns, 



70, P- 355)- 



3 He called himself "lord" of Kengi, the name by which Babylonia was 

 known in pre-Semitic times, its religious centre being the great temple 

 of Nippur, dedicated to Mul-lil, whom the Semites later transformed into 

 their god Bel. To Nippur succeeded Erech, the " city " in a preeminent 

 sense, whose theocratic ruler (patesi), Lugal-zaggisi, son of Ukus, subdued the 

 whole of Kengi, and established his sway over all the land from the Persian 

 Gulf to the Mediterranean. Erech yielded in its turn to Ur (the Ur of 

 Genesis), which under Lugal-kigubnidudu became the capital of Chaldaea. 

 Then followed a revival of the glories of Nippur under Sargon I., founder of 

 the first great Semitic empire, and about 1000 years later (2800 B.C.?) the 

 restoration of Ur under Ur-Bau (Ur-Gar) and his son Dungi, who reduced 

 Syria and Palestine. 



18 2 



