264 proceedings: anthropological society 



ruled over the whole land from Babylon as the capital. Of the Sumerian 

 cities only Lagash and Nippur have been thoroughly excavated. These 

 have yielded most important finds. The Sumerians had a pointed, 

 narrow nose with a straight ridge and narrow nostrils. The cheek 

 bones were high, the mouth small, the lips narrow and finely rounded. 

 The lower jaw was very short, the pointed chin not extending far for- 

 ward. The eyes were ahnond shaped. The forehead was rather low, 

 and extended far back from the root of the nose. The face was flat, 

 and the head short. The head and face were shaved. The people 

 were apparently short in stature and thick-set. There is a general 

 agreement that the Sumerians were neither Semites nor Indo-Euro- 

 peans. A majority of scholars would class them among the Mongolians. 

 Sumerian is an agglutinative language. The only garment worn by 

 the Sumerians was a rough woolen skirt fastened around the waist by 

 a girdle. Agriculture was a common occupation. Great crops of 

 cereals, such as wheat, barley, millet, and vetches, were grown. The 

 chief fruit tree was the date palm. Many persons were employed 

 as fishers, hunters, weavers, fullers, dyers, brickmakers, potters, smiths, 

 carpenters, boat-builders, goldsmiths, jewelers, sculptors, and carvers 

 in wood and ivory. The learned professions included priests, teachers, 

 librarians, scribes, publishers, notaries, physicians, astronomers, and 

 musicians. The country was divided up into a large number of city 

 states ruled by kings. The oldest Sumerian art is very crude. The 

 highest artistic development was reached about the age of Gudea, circa 

 2600 B.C. The Sumerians were very rehgious. The three chief 

 divinities were Anu, god of the sky, Enlil, god of the earth, and Enki, 

 god of the water. The Sumerian religion was a kind of nature wor- 

 ship. The temples consisted of a complex of buildings, the most promi- 

 nent part of which was the temple tower, a solid strucutre in the shape 

 either of a square or of a parallelogram rising in platforms, one above 

 the other. The temples seem to have had departments for religion, 

 business, administration, law, education, and a library. The priests 

 were the learned men of the time. There were orders of priests and 

 priestesses. The inscriptions of the Sumerians mainly consist of his- 

 torical records, laws, contracts, epics, and various kinds of religious 

 texts. The oldest records of a paradise, a fall, and a flood are found 

 in Sumerian tablets. 



Daniel Folkiviar, Secretary. 



