CHIEFLY FROM NIPPUIL 249 



mined by the character of dam alone, must be classified as older than the royal in- 

 scriptions of Tello. 



2. The form of mu employed in Urukagina's cylinder does not occur in any other 

 inscription of Tello. The cylinders are therefore to be regarded as older than the 

 other monuments, if it can be shown that this peculiar form of mu represents a more 

 ancient stage of writing 1 and did not originate from an accidental prolongation of 

 certain lines in mu by a careless scribe. 2 



3. The very pronounced forms cut in stone vases (as, e. g., found in JSTo. 98, 3 ; 

 101, 4 ; 92, 5, and first of all in No. 94, 4) force us to eliminate the element of acci- 

 dent. But, besides, it can be proved by an analysis of the character mu itself that the 

 regular Old Babylonian sign is only a later historical development of a more ancient 

 form. The correct interpretation of the original picture will, at the same time, enable 

 us to catch an interesting glimpse of certain prehistoric conditions in ancient Shumer. 

 According to Houghton, 3 a close relation exists between the character for mu and hu 

 (Briinnow, I. c, 2014) and the first part of the character for nam (ibid., 2087). I trust 

 no Assyriologist of recent date has ever taken this attempt at solving a palseographic 

 problem very seriously. The sign for nam has no connection with the other two char- 

 acters and is no compound ideogram, but, in its original form, represents a flying bird 

 with a long neck. 4 Since in Babylonia, as in other countries of the ancient world, the 

 future was foretold by observing the flight of birds, this picture became the regular 

 ideogram for "fate, destiny" (shimtu) in Assyrian. The original picture for mu, on 

 the other hand, is no bird, but an arrow whose head formerly pointed downward, and 

 whose cane shaft bears the same primitive marks or symbols of crossed lines as are 

 characteristic of the most ancient form of arrow used in the religious ceremonies of 

 the North American Indians. 5 As the shaft was represented by a single line in Baby- 



1 This argument 19 conclusive, as the theory, according to which later writers occasionally imitate older forms of 

 cuneiform (or linear) characters, in the sense generally understood by Assyriologists, is without any foundation and 

 against all the known facts of Babylonian palaeography. Cf. my remarks in Part I, pp. 12f. 



2 Jensen's hesitation, so far as founded upon the form of the character ka, can be abandoned, as the form of this 

 character is surely far older than Gudea. 



3 In the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology VI, pp. 464f. 



4 This fact becomes evident from a study of the oldest forms in the inscriptions of Tello and Nippur. The original 

 picture is still found on the most ancient Babylonian document in existence, unfortunately scarcely known among 

 Assyriologists. It is (or was) in the possession of Dr. A. Blau and was published by Dr. W. Hayes Ward in the 

 Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, October, 1883. The bird represented is therefore no "swallow " (Horn- 

 mel, Sumerische Leseslucke, p. 6, No. 67), but a large bird with a long neck, such as a goose or a similar water bird 

 found on the Babylonian swamps. Later our picture was also used as the ideogram for " swallow," designating her 

 as the flying bird par excellence, as the bird nearly always in motion when seen at day time. 



6 As I learned through the courtesy of Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 

 the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. After a correspondence on this subject it became evident that we had 



