RECENT DISCOVERIES IN THE REALM OE ASSYRIOLOGY, ETC. 129 



head, unpromiuent cheekbones, pouting lips, and a round 

 chin. The head, with the thick-brimmed hat, seems to me 

 to show distinctly the Akkadian type, whilst the other is 

 distinctly Semitic. Nevertheless it may be regarded as 

 certain that in both cases there is some admixture of 

 foreign blood — Semitic Babylonian in the one case, and 

 Akkadian in the other. In the case of a smaller head from a 

 statuette of baked clay, in which the nose is of truly Roman 

 or German-Jewish dimensions, the general type (which is 

 rather ludicrous) may be regarded as the accidental pro- 

 duction of a not over-skilled modellist, this feature not being 

 so noticeable in the case of the small bronze statuettes ot 

 Gudea holding the cone or firestick. Again, it may be noted 

 that all the kings and viceroys of this period have most 

 pronounced non-Semitic names; indeed, we do not know 

 how to render some of them into Semitic Babylonian at all, 

 audit is therefore to be expected that we should come across 

 ethnic types indicating difference of race such as is shown in 

 the case of the head with the thick-brimmed hat. 



It is also remarkable that these two heads are quite 

 beardless, and agree, in this, with the royal figures on the 

 cylinder-seals : yet in the East the beard is considered such a 

 very important thing. The gods worshipped by these 

 people, however, are invariably bearded, like the bronze 

 statuettes of Gudea. Is it possible that the early non-Semitic 

 inhabitants of Babylonia shaved their beards until they 

 reached a certain age % — it would seem so. 



Of course the more noble of these two types — the 

 Akkadian — was destined to disappear in the course of 

 centuries ; nevertheless, it left its impress not only on the 

 outward form of the Babylonian nation, and through that, 

 on the, Assyrian, but also on the temperament of the two 

 nations. They both exhibit all the energy of a mixed race, 

 the Babylonians in the arts of peace, the Assyrians in those 

 of war — both excelling, though, also in branches which were 

 not their respective specialities; for the Assyrian, though 

 Avarlike in the extreme, was learned and artistic; and the 

 Babylonian, though a trader, could also act the brave warrior 

 and the learned man and author, and was not without a 

 certain kindheartedness mingled with his shrewdness and 

 closeness in money-matters, as we shall see farther on. 



Let us turn, however, to the long and interesting inscrip- 

 tions with which these statues are covered, for it is there that 

 Ave shall probably find the best picture of the life of the 

 people of Mesopotamia at that early period. The picture 



