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They are written in Sumerian, the language spoken by the non-Semitic people whom the Semitic Babylonians conquered and displaced; and they include a very primitive version of the Deluge story and Creation myth, and some texts which throw new light on the age of Babylonian civilization and on the area within which it had its rise.
At the very outset of a brief survey of the history of the Babylonians, a problem confronts us of primary importance. Are there any traces of other settlers besides the Semitic Babylonians in the earliest period of the history of the Euphrates Valley? Those who cling to the theory of a non-Semitic origin of the cuneiform syllabary will, of course, be ready to answer in the affirmative.
The ideas expressed by the ideographic values of the signs give no evidence of having been produced in non-Semitic surroundings; and, whatever the origin of the system may be, it has been so shaped by the Babylonians, so thoroughly adapted to their purposes, that it is to all practical purposes Semitic.
The lines of development, however, were different in different communities. +794+. In Greece the conception of Aphrodite was worked out in a non-Semitic way in two directions.
Again, together with these supposed non-Semitic types, other figures have been found which, as Professor Hommel also admits, show the ordinary Semitic features.
This theory, however, tempting as it is by its simplicity, cannot be accepted in this unqualified form. Advancing knowledge has made it certain that the ancient civilization, including the religion, is Semitic in character. The assumption therefore of a purely non-Semitic culture for southern Babylonia is untenable.
There are non-Semitic races, the Phoenicians for example, which have spoken a Semitic language; there are Semitic races which have not spoken one.
It should be remarked that the new universal power is not only non-Semitic for the first time in well-certified history, but controlled by a very pure Aryan stock, much nearer kin to the peoples of the West than any Oriental folk with which they have had intimate relations hitherto.
Secondly, even in the oldest inscriptions found, there occur Semitic words and Semitic constructions which prove that the inscriptions were composed by Semites. As long, therefore, as no traces of purely non-Semitic inscription are found, we cannot go beyond the Semites in seeking for the origin of the culture in this region. In view of this, the theory first advanced by Prof.
Sippara was the northern fortress of the Babylonian plain; it stood where the Tigris and Euphrates approached most nearly one another, and where, therefore, the plain itself came practically to an end. Upi or Opis, on the Tigris, still farther to the north, lay outside the boundaries of primæval Chaldæa. East of Babylonia were the mountains of Elam, inhabited by non-Semitic tribes.
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