EARLY CIVILIZATIONS 7 



spondingly valuable. With the introduction of inscriptions of all 

 sorts, including drawings, pictures, hieroglyphics, and writings 

 of every kind, upon tablets, monuments, walls, caves, clay cylin- 

 ders, papyri, parchments, and the like, from about the eighth or 

 tenth century B.C., we enter upon the historical period. From that 

 time forward we have more or less of the raw material from which 

 we may reconstruct the beginnings, not only of civilization and 

 art, but also of literature and science. 



SOME ANCIENT LANDS AND PEOPLES. From the standpoint 

 of European history, and especially the history of science, the most 

 important peoples of antiquity were the Babylonians, Assyrians, 

 Egyptians, and Phoenicians. The Babylonians and Assyrians 

 occupied the fertile valley of the Tigris and Euphrates ; the Egyp- 

 tians, that of the Nile ; and the Phoenicians the eastern slopes of 

 the Mediterranean basin (modern Syria). The first three peoples 

 were chiefly agricultural ; the last, chiefly seafaring, mercantile, and 

 industrial. 



BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. These, lying almost side by side, 

 may be considered together, although Babylonia furnishes the 

 older and the more important civilization. Babylon and Nineveh 

 were the chief cities of the two countries, the former in Mesopo- 

 tamia on the Euphrates, the latter above and to the northeast, and 

 much nearer the mountains, on the Tigris. 



In that part of Asia which borders upon Africa, to the north of 

 Arabia and the Persian Gulf, in an almost tropical region at the foot 

 of the Armenian highlands, defended by mountains on the east and 

 bounded by desert on the west, opens the broad valley of the Tigris 

 and the Euphrates rivers which, flowing from the same mountains 

 and in the same direction and maintaining for a long distance a parallel 

 but independent course, join at last and fall together into the Persian 

 Gulf. In the month of April these two rivers, swollen by the melted 

 snows in the mountains of Armenia, overflow, sinking again to the 

 level of their beds in June. The country around them therefore was 

 very similar to the Nile valley. A large number of canals joined the 

 Tigris to the Euphrates, and distributed the water rendered by the 

 tropical climate necessary for agriculture. 



