1895.] 0« [Briiiton. 



the valley of the Tigris and its affluent, the upper Zab, nearly to 

 the 37th parallel of north latitude and southward to its mouth. 

 This was, and has ever been, their easternmost ethnic limit. 

 The mighty wall of the Zagros mountains, which is described 

 by travelers to look like an enormous buttress rising from the 

 river plain to uphold the tableland of Persia,* and which ex- 

 tends with little interruption under various names in a south- 

 easterly direction from the 38th to the 30th parallel, checked 

 their further advance. 



While the broad outlines of the locations of these stocks in 

 western Asia are clear enough, there were a number of small 

 nations near the border lines about whom much doubt still ob- 

 tains. Some writers claim that they did not belong even to the 

 European or White race, but to another branch of the species. 



In examining them I shall begin with 



The PROTO-BABYLONIANS.f 



The region near the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates 

 (at that time emptying separately into the Persian Gulf) was 

 occupied six thousand years ago by the Sumeriaus and Accadi. 

 ans on the west, the Elamites and Ansanians on the east, the 

 Kashites adjoining the latter to the northwest, and the Proto- 

 Medes, adjacent to these, in the eastern highlands. 



What we know of the relationship of these tribes has been 

 derived from a comparison of the remnants of their languages, 

 and that this has not led to positive results will be clear from 

 the following comparison of opinions : 



. 1. The Sumerians, Elamites, Kashites and Proto-Medes spoke 

 dialects of one language, probably related to the Alarodian or 

 Georgian stock (Hommel, Jensen, Billerbeck)4 



2. The Elamites, Kashites and Proto-Medes were of one 

 speech, while the Sumerians belonged to a totally different stock 

 (Eb. Schrader, Weisbach, McCurdy). § 



*Bellew, From the Indus to the Euphrates, p. 7. The observations of this author on the 

 disposition of the mountain chains of Persia as desectlng the lines of early migration 

 and acting as barriers in some instances, are well worth study. 



t For valuable suggestions and references in this part of my subject I am under obliga- 

 tions to Profs. H. V. Hilprecht and Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania. 



I Hommel, Zeitschrift fiir Keilschriflforschung, Bd. i, s. 161, 330; Billerbeck, Susa, s. 26 ; 

 Jensen, Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, 1891. 



'i Schrader, " Zur Frage nach dem Ursprunge der altbabylonischen Cultur," in the Abh 

 K. P. Akad., Berlin, 18S1 ; Weisbach, Die Achdmeniden Inschri/ten zweiter Art (Leipzig, 

 1890). 



