668 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
ian clay document from Nippur is completely free from the mystical 
and irrational elements which characterize later Babylonian medicine. 
Sumerian medics had their medicines, but obviously they found it 
useful to add psychotherapeutic treatment. 
One is surprised to read recent, lengthy books on the history of 
human civilization and the great inventions of mankind in which 
the authors ignore or persistently belittle the basic contributions of 
western Asia and especially those of the Sumerians. It is quite arbi- 
trary to state that the Sumerians lived before philosophy began, or that 
their knowledge was not real “science.” ‘The early speculations of 
the Sumerians, embodied in their myths, on the essence, cause, and 
nature of things, are the foundation and beginning of philosophy. 
It is natural that, like all beginnings, these ideas are primitive. But 
it should be gratefully recognized that the Sumerians not only 
invented and developed the whole series of metal tools which artist 
and craftsman use even today for creative work—the adzes, chisels, 
saws, awls, drills, and many others—but they also created the basic 
abstract tools and categories of scientific work for today’s Western 
scholar. Early Sumerian tablets contain enumerations of fishes, birds, 
domestic animals, and plants which the ancient writers observed and 
grouped. The categories they created laid the groundwork for such 
branches of science as zoology and botany. The basic operations 
in mathematics, including algebra, and our system of metrology are 
a legacy from the Sumerians. They taught us to measure length by 
foot, weight by pound, land by acre. They evolved the sexagesimal 
system, they divided the circle into 3860 degrees, the day into hours, 
and the hour into 60 minutes. The tablets show that they knew and 
used the theorems later attributed to Euclid and Pythagoras long 
before the birth of these great Greeks. For a wealth of fascinating 
details the reader is referred to the bibliography following this article, 
which for technical reasons cannot be complete, but many of the books 
mentioned will give further references to other books and periodicals 
in the field. 
Ficure 44.—Procession of women. Seal cylinder. 
