SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 



important chapter of human history was brought to 

 light. It became apparent that the Greek ideas con- 

 cerning Mesopotamia, though vague in the extreme, 

 were founded on fact. No one any longer questions 

 that the Mesopotamian civilization was fully on a par 

 with that of Egypt; indeed, it is rather held that supe- 

 riority lay with the Asiatics. Certainly, in point of 

 purely scientific attainments, the Babylonians passed 

 somewhat beyond their Egyptian competitors. All 

 the evidence seems to suggest also that the Babylonian 

 civilization was even more ancient than that of Egypt. 

 The precise dates are here in dispute ; nor for our pres- 

 ent purpose need they greatly concern us. But the 

 Assyrio-Babylonian records have much greater his- 

 torical accuracy as regards matters of chronology than 

 have the Egyptian, and it is believed that our knowl- 

 edge of the early Babylonian history is carried back, 

 with some certainty, to King Sargon of Agade, 5 for 

 whom the date 3800 B.C. is generally accepted; while 

 somewhat vaguer records give us glimpses of periods 

 as remote as the sixth, perhaps even the seventh or 

 eighth millenniums before our era. 



At a very early period Babylon itself was not a cap- 

 ital and Nineveh had not come into existence. The 

 important cities, such as Nippur and Shirpurla, were 

 situated farther to the south. It is on the site of these 

 cities that the recent excavations have been made, 

 such as those of the University of Pennsylvania ex- 

 peditions at Nippur, 8 which are giving us glimpses into 

 remoter recesses of the historical period. 



Even if we disregard the more problematical early 

 dates, we are still concerned with the records of a civ- 



59 



