Chapter V: Part 5

In Egypt, signs of contact with Sumer almost cease after Narmer’s reign; and since contact with Syria increased rather than diminished during the First Dynasty, it seems unlikely that the Mesopotamian influences reached Egypt from the north. The argument is not conclusive; we have seen that Sumerian culture moved upstream along the Tigris and Euphrates, and that a great temple was built at Brak on the Khabur in North Syria in Protoliterate times. But in Syria we do not find signs that native culture was deeply affected by contact with Sumer. This may be due to the incompleteness of our evidence; or it may be that Syrian culture was so unprogressive that it could not profit from such contact in the way Egypt demonstrably did. But before we accept this view we must consider an alternative.

It is possible that the Egyptians came into contact with Mesopotamia in the south, on the route which led from the Red Sea, past Southern Arabia, to the Persian Gulf. There are two arguments against this assumption: it has no analogy in historical times; and there is absolutely no sign of contact with Egypt to be found in Mesopotamia. But it is possible that the meeting-place was a region along the southern route, outside Sumer. In both Sumerian and Egyptian temples censing with aromatics was usual. In the time of Herodotus, frankincense was used for this purpose in Babylon, but we do not know at what date this was first introduced. In Egypt frankincense was known very early; if that holds good for Sumer also, contact might have been established in the regions from which frankincense was obtained—Southern Arabia or the Somali coast. There missions might have met, or middlemen might have acquainted Egyptians with Sumerian achievements. We know that the route to the Red Sea from Egypt—through the Wadi Hammamat—was used at a very early date. Archaic statues of the god Min were found at Koptos at the Egyptian end of that route.[195] They belong to the end of the Gerzean period or to the First Dynasty, and bear designs scratched on their sides which include the sword of the swordfish and pteroceras shells, found in the Red Sea. But the bearing of these facts upon the question where contact between Egypt and Sumer took place must remain, for the moment, a matter of surmise.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

UPPER EGYPT LOWER EGYPT NORTH MESOPOTAMIA SOUTH MESOPOTAMIA

Tasian Period 5000 ?
Fayum A Hassunah Period
Badarian Period Samarran
Amratian Period Merimde Halaf Period Eridu
Northern Ubaid Southern Ubaid Period
Period
3900 ?
Gawra Period Warka Period
3750 ?
Early Gerzean Early Protoliterate
Period Period
Maadi
Late Gerzean Late Protoliterate
Period Period
3100 Ninevite Period 3100
Protodynastic I Early Dynastic Period
Period:
Dynasties II
2664
III
IV
Old Kingdom: V 2425
Dynasties Proto-Imperial
Period 2340
VI North Akkadian Dynasty of Akkad 2180
Period
2181

Footnotes

[1]A. N. Whitehead, _Adventures of Ideas_ (New York, 1933), pp. 13,
14.

[2]O. Spengler, _Der Untergang des Abendlandes_ (München, 1920).

[3]“Der Aufbau der europäischen Kulturgeschichte,” in Schmoller’s
_Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im
Deutschen Reiche_, XLIV (1920), 633 ff.

[4]O. Spengler, _op. cit._, I, 153.

[5]O. Spengler, _op. cit._, I, 29.

[6]Spengler’s position is invalidated in his own terms by Bergson’s
criticism of a deterministic view of life in nature.

[7]O. Spengler, _ibid._ Leopold von Ranke has expressed a similar
idea in the splendid and simple phrase, “Alle Epochen sind
unmittelbar zu Gott.”

[8]_History_, II, 35.

[9]O. Spengler, _op. cit._, I, 15. Incidentally, this quotation
illustrates the very point at issue by emphasizing the almost
insuperable difficulty of formulating an alien mode of thought. In
transposing the words of a German contemporary I have been obliged
to blur his thoughts and lose shades of meaning at almost every
step: _Seele_, _eminent historisch veranlagt_, _urweltliche
Leidenschaft_, _Sorge_, derive their overtones and deepest meaning
from a world of thought which includes, at the very least, German
literature of the romantic period; these terms, therefore, hardly
bear translating. It is obvious that the disparity of terms and
concepts is immeasurably greater where an ancient civilization is
concerned.

[10]See my _Ancient Egyptian Religion_, New York, 1948, and
_Kingship and the Gods_, Chicago, 1948.

[11]O. Spengler, _op. cit._, I, 224 f.

[12]Ruth Benedict, _Patterns of Culture_ (New York, 1934), 23-4.

[13]_Ibid._, 250.

[14]_Ibid._, 46.

[15]_Ibid._, 254.

[16]_Horizon_, Vol. XV, No. 85 (London, January 1947), 25-6.

[17]_A Study of History_, I, 176.

[18]_Op. cit._, I, 193.

[19]_Op. cit._, IV, 130.

[20]R. G. Collingwood, _The Idea of History_ (Oxford, 1946), 328-30,
especially 328-9. The whole section should be read, since our
quotations give but an inadequate impression of its cogency.

[21]R. G. Collingwood, _The Idea of History_ (Oxford, 1946), 328-30,
especially 328-9. “There is only one genuine meaning for this
question. If thought in its first phase, after solving the initial
problems of that phase, is then, through solving these, brought up
against others which defeat it; and if the second solves these
further problems without losing its hold on the solution of the
first, so that there is gain without any corresponding loss, then
there is progress. And there can be progress on no other terms. If
there is any loss, the problem of setting loss against gain is
insoluble.”

[22]_A Study of History_, III, 216.

[23]_Op. cit._, I, 159.

[24]_Op. cit._, III, 381.

[25]_Ibid. et passim._

[26]_Op. cit._, I, 172-3. Edgar Wind, “Some Points of Contact
Between History and Natural Science,” in _Philosophy and History,
Essays Presented to Ernst Cassirer_ (Oxford, 1936), 255-64, shows
that the latest developments of science, which make it so much less
“exact,” lead to the raising of questions by scientists “that
historians like to look upon as their own.” But if these latest
developments have made science more “humanistic,” Wind is
over-optimistic when he says that “the notion of a description of
nature which indiscriminately subjects men and their fates like
rocks and stones to its ‘unalterable law’ survives only as a
nightmare of certain historians.” For many of them (not to mention
sociologists) it seems still to be a cherished ideal.

[27]_A Study of History_, _e.g._, I, 143.

[28]_Op. cit._, V, 28.

[29]These texts have been discussed by Kurt Sethe, _Amun und die
acht Urgötter von Hermopolis_. “Abhandlungen der Preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse,” No. 4. Berlin,
1929.

[30]_A Study of History_, I, 137. It is, perhaps, not unnecessary to
add that Toynbee’s scheme would be no more relevant to Egyptian
history if he shifted the date of his “time of troubles” to the
second or even the first millennium B.C. The error is one of method,
not of chronology.

[31]_Op. cit._, III, 377.

[32]_Op. cit._, III, 248-377. In the history of individuals Toynbee
applies it not only to the Buddha or to saints who of their own free
will withdrew from society in order to clarify their mission and the
message which they were to preach, but also to men like Thucydides,
Dante, and Macchiavelli, who were exiled, and bitterly lamented
their banishment even though it did not destroy their powers to
create. They worked in a solitude not of their choosing and never
returned at all, however effective their work may have proved to be
in the course of time. Toynbee also applies the formula of
“Withdrawal-and-Return” to social groups in a manner which fails to
explain anything, as, for instance, when he states that the
Nonconformists, after the Restoration, reacted on persecutions by
“withdrawing into the realm of private business in order to return
omnipotent, a century and a half later, as the authors of the
Industrial Revolution” (_Ibid._, 334). Thus, the interplay of dire
necessity and circumstances of every description is reduced to a
formula which confuses the issue by a theological implication
(withdraw in order to) which in more than one place (_e.g._ in the
image of the climbers and the mountainside) turns Toynbee’s account
of the facts into mythology. I am purposely avoiding a discussion of
Toynbee’s examples taken from the Near East or Crete, since I should
then have to correct his facts and should become a “critic aiming
instruments at bits and pieces” (_Horizon_, XV [London, January
1947], 50.) Readers interested in a detailed criticism by an
authority on European history (who likewise considers principles
rather than isolated errors) are referred to the essay of Professor
P. Geyl in _Journal of the History of Ideas_, IX (New York, 1948),
93-124.

[33]Part of Volume I and the whole of Volume II are devoted to its
discussion.

[34]_Op. cit._, III, 214.

[35]_Op. cit._, III, 215.

[36]We have actually adopted this method in _Archeology and the
Sumerian Problem_, SAOC 4 (Chicago, 1932), an example followed by
Anton Moortgat, _Frühe Bildkunst in Sumer_ (Leipzig, 1935); but the
latter book suffers from the confusion caused by an inadequate
delimitation of the successive periods.

[37]It would be simple enough if we could equate the beginning of
history with the introduction of writing, as is often done. The
equation holds good for Egypt where the oldest inscriptions refer to
the first identifiable events and personalities and thus, as records
of battles and royal names, form the earliest raw material of
Egyptian history. But in Mesopotamia this is not so; there
civilization took shape, and writing appeared, well before
historical documents in the narrow sense came into being. We shall
see that this difference between Egypt and Mesopotamia was due to
the different purposes which writing and art were made to serve; but
it illustrates that generalizations about history and prehistory are
hazardous even within a limited field.

[38]So, _e.g._ J. S. Slotkin, “Reflections on Collingwood’s Idea of
History,” in _Antiquity_, No. 86 (June 1948), 99. Against this
misconception see Helmuth Plessner, _Die Stufen des Organischen und
der Mensch_, Berlin, 1928.

[39]For a penetrating study of this matter see Gertrude Rachel Levy,
_The Gate of Horn, A Study of the Religious Conceptions of the Stone
Age and Their Influence upon European Thought_, Faber & Faber
(London, 1948).

[40]On the so-called Libyan palette: Capart, _Primitive Art in
Egypt_, 236-7, Figs. 175, 176.

[41]L. Borchardt, _Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sahure_, II (Leipzig,
1913), 10 and Plate I.

[42]W. F. Edgerton and J. A. Wilson, _Historical Records of Ramses
III_ (Chicago, 1936), 67 f. Wreszinski, _Atlas zur altaegyptischen
Kulturgeschichte_, III, Plate 66.

[43]Sir Aurel Stein, _An Archaeological Tour in Gedrosia_ (Memoirs
of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 43), 34; cf. 6-7.

[44]R. J. & L. Braidwood, in _Antiquity_ XXV, No. 96 (December
1950), 189-95.

[45]D. A. E. Garrod and D. M. A. Bates, _The Stone Age Of Mount
Carmel_, Oxford, 1937.

[46]These “teeth” show a peculiar gloss produced by the silica in
the stalks of grasses so that we are certain that they were used for
cutting cereals. (Cecil E. Curwen in _Antiquity_, IV [1930], 184-6;
IX [1935], 62-6.)

[47]G. Caton-Thompson and E. W. Gardner, _The Desert Fayum_ (London,
1934), 45 and Plates XXVI, XXVIII, XXX.

[48]_Journal of Near Eastern Studies_, IV (1945), 269, 274, and Fig.
37.

[49]R. Girshman, _Fouilles de Sialk_, I (Paris, 1938), 17 ff. and
Plates VII, LIV.

[50]Walter B. Emery, _The Tomb of Hemaka_ (Cairo, 1938), 33 and
Plate 15.

[51]W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Tools and Weapons_ (London, 1917), 46
and Plate LV, 7.

[52]P. Delougaz, _The Temple Oval at Khafajah_ (Chicago, 1940),
30-1, Figs. 26, 27.

[53]C. F. C. Hawkes, _The Prehistoric Foundations of Europe_
(London, 1940), 82-4.

[54]C. Daryll Forde, _Habitat, Economy and Society_ (London, 1934),
35: “In Owen’s valley several groups took advantage of favourable
conditions to irrigate patches of ground. The growth of bulbous
plants and grasses is patently more luxuriant wherever abundant
water reaches them, and this was achieved artificially by diverting
from their narrow channels the snow-fed streams flowing down from
the Sierra Nevada. In spring, before the streams rose with
snow-melt, a dam of boulders, brushwood and mud was thrown across a
creek where it reached the valley floor.... Above the dam one or two
main ditches, sometimes more than a mile long, were laboriously cut
with long poles to lead the river water out on the gently sloping
ground over which it was distributed by minor channels.... After the
harvest the main dam was pulled down.... There was, however, no
attempt at planting or working the soil, and none of the cultivated
plants grown to the south of the Colorado were known.”

[55]V. Gordon Childe, _Man Makes Himself_, 109, states that some of
these villages, when completely excavated, covered no more than from
1½ to 6½ acres, lodging from eight to ten households. In _The Town
Planning Review_, XXI (1950), 6, he states that sixteen to thirty
houses was the normal figure of a local group which he estimates at
200 to 400 souls.

[56]John Burckhardt, _Travels in Nubia_, 2nd ed. (London, 1822),
348-50.

[57]Percy E. Newberry, _Egypt as a Field of Anthropological
Research_, Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report for 1924
(Washington, 1925), 435-59.

[58]It seems as undesirable, therefore, to speak here of a neolithic
“revolution” as it is to refer to our theme as an “urban revolution”
(see below, p. 61, n. 10). Both terms, used by V. Gordon Childe,
place the changes in parallelism with the “industrial revolution,”
but the word “revolution” in this phrase is already used
figuratively; it does not refer to an event such as the French
Revolution or the Russian Revolution, but to a change of conditions.
And by extending its use in this sense, an impression of violent,
and especially of purposeful change is made which the facts do not
suggest.

[59]R. U. Sayce, _Primitive Arts and Crafts_ (Cambridge, 1933), 27
ff.

[60]An attractive guess is made by V. Gordon Childe, _Man Makes
Himself_ (Oxford, 1939), 87-90. For a recent discussion of the
problem which accentuates our uncertainties, see André
Leroi-Gourhan, _Milieu et techniques_ (Paris, 1945), 96-119.

[61]_E.g._ G. Caton-Thompson and E. W. Gardner, _The Desert Fayum_
(London, 1934), 46 and Plate XXVIII. Guy Brunton and Gertrude
Caton-Thompson, _The Badarian Civilization_ (London, 1928), 64 ff.
Jacques de Morgan, _Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse_, XIII
(Paris, 1912), 163 and Plate XLIII.

[62]Seton Lloyd and Fuad Safar, in _Journal of Near Eastern
Studies_, IV (1945), 271.

[63]This point has been emphasized by Robert J. Braidwood in
lectures and papers. See _Human Origins, an Introductory General
Course in Anthropology, Selected Readings_, Series II, 2nd ed.
(Chicago, 1946), 170 ff., 181 ff. See also Linda Braidwood, _ibid._,
153 ff. The Braidwoods, excavating in 1948 for the Oriental
Institute at Jarmo near Sulimanieh, found remains of a settlement
perhaps even older than Hassuna. See p. 29, n. 9 above.

[64]S. Passarge, _Die Urlandschaft Aegyptens_ (Nova Acta Leopoldina,
N.F., Vol. IX, No. 58, Halle, 1940), 35.

[65]In 1923 an expedition going to Qau el Kabir in Middle Egypt
found no trace of a Ptolemaic temple which Champollion, a hundred
years earlier, had marked on his maps on the east bank of the Nile;
the river had destroyed both the ruins and the village of Qau and
subsequently cut a new bed (G. Brunton, _Qau and Badari_ [London,
1927], 2-3, Plate I).

[66]Rudolf Anthes, _Die Felseninschriften von Hat Nub_ (Leipzig,
1928), 52 ff., 95 ff.

[67]Brunton, _Mostagedda_ (London, 1937), 67; Sir Robert Mond and O.
H. Myers, _Cemeteries of Armant_, I, 7.

[68]Amratian is called “Early or First Predynastic” or “Naqada I” in
the older literature.

[69]Frankfort, _Kingship and the Gods_ (Chicago, 1948), 348, n. 4,
and Index, Africa, Hamites. Badarian objects have been found, not
only in Middle and Upper Egypt (at Badari, Mahasna, Naqada, Armant,
and Hierakonpolis—see Brunton in _Antiquity_, III [1929], 461), but
in Nubia (Brunton, _The Badarian Civilization_ [London, 1928], 40),
in the northern provinces of the Sudan (report of the discoveries of
Mr. Oliver Myers of Gordon College, Khartoum, in _The Times_
[London] of March 31, 1948), in the desert fifty miles west of the
Nile in the latitude of Abydos (_Man_, No. 91 [1931]), and again far
to the south, four hundred miles west of the Nile in the latitude of
Wadi Halfa (_Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, XXII [1936], 47-8).

[70]Also called “Naqada II” or “Middle Predynastic.” Note that “Late
Predynastic” or “Semainean” has been proved a chimera. The remains
so labelled belong to the Gerzean period, which thus leads right up
to the First Dynasty. See Helene J. Kantor, in _Journal of Near
Eastern Studies_, III (1944), 110-46. When we use “late Predynastic”
we mean the last part of the predynastic period, in other words,
late Gerzean.

[71]A. Lucas, in _Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, XVI (1930), 200
ff.

[72]_Nature_, XII (October 1932), 625; Lucas in _Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology_, XIII (1927), 162-70; XIV (1928), 97-108.

[73]The Egyptian language has been explained as a common tongue
imposed upon a country where several dialects existed, in the same
manner as the French of Ile de France became the official French
language, and “Hochdeutsch” the vehicle of communication for all
Germans. Now this ancient Egyptian language included two
recognizable Hamitic strains—one Southern or Ethiopian, the other
Western or Berber—and also one Semitic strain (see the studies of
Ernst Zyhlarz in _Africa_, IX [London, 1936], 433-52; _Zeitschrift
fur Eingeborenensprachen_, XXIII [1932-3], 1 ff.; XXV [1934-5], 161
ff.).

[74]It would be possible to assume that the Semitic elements entered
through the Wadi Hammamat from the Red Sea, but this leaves the
Gerzean innovations unexplained and ignores the arguments put
forward by K. Sethe, “Die Aegyptische Ausdrücke für rechts und links
und die Hieroglyphenzeichen für Westen und Osten,” in _Nachrichten
von der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen_,
Phil.-Hist. Kl., 1922, 197-242.

[75]It even affected the physical type of the population; see G. M.
Morant, “Study of Egyptian Craniology from Prehistoric to Roman
Times,” in _Biometrika_, XVII (1925), 1-52.

[76]Brunton, _The Badarian Civilization_, 48. The assumption finds
strong support in the tradition that Menes, the first king of the
First Dynasty, reclaimed all the land from Wasta to Cairo before he
founded Memphis at the north end of the strip so reclaimed. Such an
enterprise presupposes some established skill in work of that
nature.

[77]For a criticism of the hypothetical construction of Egyptian
prehistory in terms of united Upper and Lower Egyptian kingdoms in
conflict with one another, see my _Kingship and the Gods_, Chapter
I, 349, n. 6; 350, n. 15; 351, n. 19.

[78]The head of the Persian Gulf was perhaps 125 miles to the north
of Basra; or this area may have been a lagoon, separated from the
Gulf by the “Bar of Basra.”

[79]The oldest of these is marked by various kinds of simple pottery
wares (Hassuna ware) decorated with incisions or merely burnished to
a high gloss. In addition there were sickles with flint “teeth” and
underground silos for grain storage. Sheep, goats, oxen, and asses
were kept. In a second stage appears fine painted pottery, called
Samarran—an offshoot of a ceramic tradition at home in Persia. It
was, in its turn, displaced by another type of pottery called Tell
Halaf, which is found from the Gulf of Alexandrette to the region
east of Mosul. The archaeological material is fully discussed in Ann
Louise Perkins, _The Comparative Archaeology of Early Mesopotamia_
(Chicago, 1949).

[80]See the article and photographs of Melvin Hall in _Asia_ (New
York), February 1939.

[81]This stage of their ceramics had been known from a small site
near Erech (A. Nöldeke and others, _Neunter Vorläufiger Bericht....
Uruk-Warka_, Berlin, 1938, Plates 36-40), when it was found well
represented at Abu Shahrein (Eridu): See _Illustrated London News_,
11 September 1948, p. 305; _Sumer_, IV (Baghdad, 1948), 115 ff.
There is nothing against calling this pottery “Eridu ware” as long
as its historical connections are not obscured. It is quite
gratuitous to claim that “Al Ubaid people” can no longer be called
the earliest settlers in southern Mesopotamia, for the Eridu ware is
simply an earlier stage of the Al Ubaid ware. If quibbles about
names are disregarded, it remains true that the earliest settlers of
the plain descended from Persia; the new ware shows an earlier stage
of their ceramics than has hitherto been found in the plain but it
was already known from the western edge of the Highland, _e.g._ Tepe
Khazineh near Susa (J. de Morgan, _Mémoires de la Délégation en
Perse_, Paris, 1908).

[82]C. Leonard Woolley in _Antiquaries Journal_, X (1930), 335.

[83]Fulanain, _The Marsh Arab, Haji Rikkan_ (Philadelphia, 1928),
21.

[84]Ancient Eridu. _Illustrated London News_, 31 May, 1947, 11
September, 1948; _Sumer_, III (Baghdad, 1947), 84 ff.; _Orientalia_,
XVII (Rome, 1948), 115-22. _Sumer_, IV (1948), 115 ff. shows the
development from a very small and primitive village shrine in the
earliest layer to a building recognizable in its main features as
the prototype of later temples.

[85]After T. Jacobsen in _Journal of Near Eastern Studies_, V
(1946), 140.

[86]We cannot say for certain whether its bearers were the Sumerians
who created the earliest civilization of Mesopotamia in the
subsequent—the Protoliterate—period. But no decisive proof for a
later arrival of the Sumerians has been offered, and the continuity
in cult and architecture support the view that they were the
dominant element in the Al Ubaid period, as they remained throughout
the third millennium in the south of the country. See also p. 51, n.
1 below.

[87]The earliest tablets, of the Protoliterate period, seem to be
written in Sumerian. They use the Sumerian sexagesimal system (with
units for 10, 60, 600, and 3600) and refer to Sumerian gods like
Enlil. But Sumerian has no clearly recognized affinity to other
tongues.

It is important to realize that the term “Sumerian,” strictly
speaking, can be used only for this language. There is no physical
type which can be called by that name. From Al Ubaid times until the
present day, the population of Mesopotamia has consisted of men
predominantly belonging to the Mediterranean or Brown race, with a
noticeable admixture of broad-headed mountaineers from the
north-east. This is, for instance, true of the Early Dynastic
period, as the skulls from Al Ubaid and Kish show. Skeletons of the
earliest known inhabitants of the plain, found at Eridu and Hassuna,
have been briefly discussed by C. S. Coon in _Sumer_, V (1949),
103-6; VI (1950), 93-6. They represent “rather heavy-boned
prognathous and large-toothed mediterraneans.” The much-discussed
problem of the origin of the Sumerians may well turn out to be the
chase of a chimera.

[88]A. J. Wilson in _Geographical Journal_, LIV (London, 1925), 235
ff.

[89]W. K. Loftus, _Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana_
(London, 1857), 7-8. On 17 May 1950 the correspondent of _The Times_
reported from Baghdad that “after a break in the Tigris bund ...
about 2000 mud houses have already collapsed.”

[90]“Tell Uqair,” by Seton Lloyd and Fuad Safar, in _Journal of Near
Eastern Studies_, II (1943), 131-58.

[91]It is sometimes said that the Sumerians, descending from a
mountainous region, desired to continue the worship of their gods on
“High Places” and therefore proceeded to construct them in the
plain. The point is why they considered “High Places” appropriate,
especially since the gods worshipped there were not sky gods only
but also, and predominantly, chthonic gods. Our interpretation takes
its starting-point from “the mountain,” not as a geographical
feature, but as a phenomenon charged with religious meaning. Several
current theories have taken one or more aspects of “the mountain” as
a religious symbol into account and we do not exclude them, but
consider them, on the whole, subsidiary to the primary notion that
“the mountain” was seen as the normal setting of divine
activity.—The whole material referring to the temple towers, and the
various interpretations which have been put forward, are
conveniently presented in André Parrot, _Ziggurats et Tour de Babel_
(Paris, 1949).

[92]The basic work on the subject of early Mesopotamian writing is
Adam Falkenstein, _Archaische Texte aus Uruk_ (Leipzig, 1936).

[93]A few words may be added here about the early development of
writing; although true pictograms—images of the objects (Fig.
13)—occur, many of the most common objects are rendered by simpler
tokens: either highly abbreviated (and hence conventional) pictures,
such as a figure with two curved lines across one end (No. 4), which
represented the horned head of an ox (the sign means “ox”), or, more
often, purely arbitrary signs, such as a circle with a cross—the
commonest sign of all—meaning “sheep.” The system, therefore, is a
collection of abstract tokens eked out with pictograms. The range of
notions which could be expressed was enlarged by certain
combinations. The sign for “woman” combined with that for “mountain”
meant “slave-girl,” since slaves were foreigners generally brought
from Persia. The sign for “sun” could also mean “day” or “white.”
That for “plough” could mean either the tool or its user, the
ploughman. Even so the script was of limited usefulness. It could
not render sentences, for it could not indicate grammatical
relations. Its signs were ideograms which listed notions; and that
was what the script was, first of all, required to do. But even
within the Protoliterate period a further step was taken towards
writing as the graphic rendering of language. We find that the arrow
sign, for instance, was soon regarded, not as a rendering of the
notion “arrow,” but as a rendering of the sound “ti,” which means
arrow. For the arrow sign was also used to render the notion “life”
which likewise sounded “ti.” This shows that the rendering of speech
rather than notions had become possible. The development of writing
consisted of a series of makeshifts and compromises introduced
piecemeal when the shortcomings of the system being used became
noticeable. Some signs acquired a variety of sound values. Some were
used to clarify the sense of other groups, although they themselves
were not pronounced at all. (These are called determinatives.) Thus
“ti” when it meant “arrow” (and certain other implements) was
accompanied by a sign which by itself read “gish” and meant “wood,”
but which, used as a determinative, merely indicated that an
implement of wood was referred to. Similarly, place-names were
accompanied by the sign “ki,” meaning “earth,” divine names by the
star sign, and so on. Nevertheless, the fact that phonetic values
became attached to most of the signs made the rendering of
grammatical endings, and, in short, of true speech, possible.

[94]From Protoliterate times onwards, officials, and later also
private persons, owned seals with which they could mark merchandise
or documents. The shape of these seals was peculiar and remained
characteristic for Mesopotamia until the end of its independent
existence in Hellenistic times. They were small stone cylinders
carrying on their circumference an engraved design which could be
impressed on a tablet or on the clay sealing of a jar or bale of
goods. Since the purpose of the seal design was the making of an
individual and recognizable impression, its engraving at all times
challenged the inventiveness of the Mesopotamian artists, who
responded with outstanding success. (In our illustrations the
rolled-out impressions, not the seals themselves, are shown. But see
Figs. 35-9.)

[95]The inlays consisted of terra cotta plaques set in among the
clay cones which covered the walls. The carved figures were executed
in stone and fixed to the wall with copper wire through loops
drilled in their backs (Fig. 18).

[96]The same applies to the “urban revolution”—a phrase often used
to describe the birth of civilization. This term has been introduced
by V. Gordon Childe, whose great achievement has been the
replacement of period-distinctions, which had only typological
significance, by others which suggest socio-economic differences.
However, in the later editions of his _Dawn of European
Civilization_, in _Man Makes Himself_, and in _What Happened in
History_, his point of view has assumed a Marxist slant which
applies to ancient Near Eastern conditions inappropriate categories.
His recent article, “The Urban Revolution,” in _The Town Planning
Review_, XXI (Liverpool, 1950), 3-17, and his recent L. T. Hobhouse
Memorial Lecture, “Social Worlds of Knowledge” (London, 1949), seem
to embody, however, a change of viewpoint. As regards the term
“urban revolution,” it can in no way be applied to Egypt, as we
shall see, even if we should accept it, with the qualifications
stated in our text, for the transition from prehistory to history in
Mesopotamia.

[97]This matter has been studied by Professor Elizabeth Visser in
her inaugural lecture “Polis en stad” (Amsterdam, 1947), who quotes
Busolt-Swoboda, _Griechische Staatskunde_, II, 920 and also Zimmern,
_The Greek Commonwealth_, 228: “Greek civilization is, in a sense,
urban, but its basis is agricultural and the breezes of the open
country blow through Parliament and the market place.”

[98]G. M. Trevelyan, _English Social History_ (London, 1946), 28.

[99]We have discussed elsewhere the feeling of anxiety which
pervades Mesopotamian religion: _Kingship and the Gods_ (Chicago,
1948), 277-81.

[100]_Journal of Near Eastern Studies_, V (1946), 137.

[101]A. Deimel published and discussed the texts. See his “Die
sumerische Tempelwirtschaft zur Zeit Urukaginas und seiner
Vorgänger,” _Analecta Orientalia_, II (Rome, 1931), 71-113. His
pupil, an economist, published a study on which we have largely
drawn: Anna Schneider, _Die Sumerische Tempelstadt_, “Plenge
staatswissenschaftliche Beitrage,” IV (Essen, 1920). The
Protoliterate tablets offer a sufficient basis for the view that the
organization of Early Dynastic times continued in most respects that
which was created at the beginning of Mesopotamian history.

[102]The city god was, for political purposes, and often also as
regards the importance of his temple, the chief god of the city. But
“the chief god owned only his own temple’s land. His relationship to
the other gods may most probably be compared to that of the headman
of a village to other landowners and their holdings in the village.”
(Thorkild Jacobsen in _Human Origins, An Introductory General Course
in Anthropology, Selected Readings_, Series II (Chicago, 1946), 255.

[103]Schneider, _op. cit._, 35.

[104]The illustration shows a reconstruction, warranted in all
essential details, of an Early Dynastic temple excavated at Khafajah
by the Iraq Expedition of the Oriental Institute. The magazines were
built against the inside of the oval enclosure wall. They surround
entirely the platform supporting the shrine and the open space in
front of it. See P. Delougaz, _The Temple Oval at Khafajah_
(Chicago, 1940).

[105]_Cambridge Ancient History_, I, 499.

[106]This has been demonstrated by Professor Thorkild Jacobsen in
lectures at Chicago.

[107]V. Gordon Childe, _Man Makes Himself_, 152 _et passim_. In
_Social Worlds of Knowledge_ (London, 1949), 19, he concurs,
however, with the view expressed in our text.

[108]P. P. Howell, in _Man_, No. 144 (1947).

[109]R. H. Lowie, _Are We Civilized?_, 108.

[110]After Anna Schneider, _op. cit._, 54.

[111]M. David, “Bemerkungen zur Leidener Keilschriftsammlung,”
_Revue de l’Histoire du droit_, XIV, 3-6, has pointed out that the
“Staatssozialismus” of early Sumerian times was only fully replaced
by a free economy under the First Babylonian Dynasty, about 1800
B.C. Under the Third Dynasty of Ur, private property could consist
of houses and the gardens belonging to them, but not of arable
fields, which belonged to the temple or to the king.

[112]Schneider, _op. cit._, 93 f.

[113]This seems the most probable interpretation of the fact that
even holders of allotments received rations during four months.
Schneider, _loc. cit._, 92, views this as payment for _corvée_; but
since many holders of allotments, such as craftsmen, worked for the
temple all the year round, this seems less likely.

[114]Thorkild Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient
Mesopotamia,” _Journal of Near Eastern Studies_, II (1943), 159-72.

[115]The word has not yet been found in Protoliterate texts, a fact
which does not prove, of course, that the institution was unknown in
that period, although it does make a _prima facie_ case for that
assumption. On the monuments (Figs. 15, 44) a bearded figure in a
long garment is throughout the main actor. He wears his hair wound
round his head and gathered in a chignon at the back, a style usual
with rulers in the Early Dynastic period. But it should be
remembered that the Protoliterate objects on which he appears derive
from Erech where, according to the Epic of Gilgamesh, there was a
permanent king in very early times. (This was possibly connected
with the cult of Inanna.) Note, however, that even Gilgamesh
consulted the assembly and the elders before he embarked on a course
of action which entailed the risk of war (_Journal of Near Eastern
Studies_, II, 166, n. 44). At Erech the ruler was called, not
_lugal_, but _en_, “lord.”

[116]The enumeration recalls the so-called “Royal Tombs” of Ur,
where, under conditions which are as yet obscure, a courtly society
had been buried in all its splendour. The riches discovered in these
tombs, which belong to the very end of the Early Dynastic period and
appear far removed from the simple co-operative society of the ideal
temple community which we have described, recall Homer and Malory
rather than Hesiod and Piers Plowman. Since Sidney Smith suggested
in 1928 (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ [1928], 849 ff.)
that these rich tombs, containing numerous attendants killed when
the main occupant was buried, derived from the performance of a
“fertility rite,” the discussion has continued without leading to a
decisive conclusion. See my _Kingship and the Gods_, 400, n. 12.

[117]Translation of Col. xii, 25-6, after Thorkild Jacobsen.

[118]The head is uninscribed but represents in all probability one
of the Akkadian kings. The eyes were inlaid with precious materials
and had been chiselled out by robbers.

[119]This view has been refuted by Thorkild Jacobsen, “The Assumed
Conflict of Sumerians and Semites in Early Mesopotamian History,”
_Journal of the American Oriental Society_, LIX (1939), 485-95.

[120]Frankfort, _Cylinder Seals_, 227 ff.

[121]M. E. L. Mallowan, “Excavations at Brak and Chagar Bazar,”
_Iraq_, IX (London, 1947).

[122]Walter Andrae, _Die Archaischen Ischtar-Tempel in Assur_
(Leipzig, 1922).

[123]_Journal of the American Oriental Society_, LIX (1939), 490.

[124]However, Lugalzaggesi, whom Sargon overthrew, had assumed the
title of “King of the Land.”

[125]L. W. King, _Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings_, II,
5; Sidney Smith, _Early History of Assyria_, 93.

[126]So F. W. Geers and Thorkild Jacobsen; see Frankfort, _Kingship
and the Gods_, 406, n. 35.

[127]Frankfort, _loc. cit._

[128]The Akkadian rulers were themselves apparently too close to the
period of local autonomy to draw up a single king list for the whole
land. This was done under Utuhegal (_ca._ 2100 B.C.), the destroyer
of the Gutian invaders who had overthrown the rule of Akkad.
Utuhegal’s “pride in new independence and in the ‘kingship’ which
had been brought back” led to the compilation of the country-wide
list in which the traditional lists of local rulers of the important
cities were combined (Thorkild Jacobsen, _The Sumerian King List_,
Chicago, 1939). Thus a conception of kingship established by the
Sargonid dynasty was projected into the past.

[129]_Iraq_, IX (1947), 15.

[130]H. Frankfort, S. Lloyd, and T. Jacobsen, _The Gimilsin Temple
and the Palace of the Rulers at Tell Asmar_ (Chicago, 1940), 4,
177-80.

[131]Near Abydos, in Upper Egypt (Fig. 51).

[132]The name is written with the sign of the scorpion, but we do
not know how it was pronounced.

[133]Alexander Scharff, “Archaeologische Beitraege zur Frage der
Entstehung der Hieroglyphenschrift,” _Sitzungsberichte der
Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Abt._ (1942),
Heft 3, 10, n. 17. Gunn, _Annales du Service des Antiquités de
l’Egypte_, XXVI, 177 ff., had seen in the _rekhyt_ the people from
Lower Egypt. Gardiner, _Ancient Egyptian Onomastica_, I, 100-8,
discussed the use of the word at length and hesitated to accept
Gunn’s conclusion because in later times they are not confined to
Lower Egypt; but by then the term, and the use of the lapwing sign,
had become purely conventional.

[134]We confine ourselves to this, the most obvious, aspect of the
Narmer palette as a work of art. But its extraordinary significance
for the history of art has recently been fully discussed by H. A.
Groenewegen-Frankfort, _Arrest and Movement, An Essay on Space and
Time in the Representational Art of the Ancient Near East_ (London
and Chicago, 1951), 20-3.

[135]For the unique features of this scene see H. A.
Groenewegen-Frankfort, _op. cit._, 19.

[136]The so-called Bull and Lion palettes. See Capart, _Primitive
Art in Egypt_, 238, Fig. 177; 242, Fig. 181; or Frankfort, _Kingship
and the Gods_, Figs. 27 and 28 and 91 ff.

[137]The evidence for the early date is linguistic. Junker’s view on
the date of the text is ill-founded. See Frankfort, _op. cit._, 352,
n. 1. In chapter ii of this work English renderings of the major
part of the Memphite Theology are given.

[138]In recent excavations at Saqqara, W. B. Emery has discovered
the tombs of high officials of the kings of the First Dynasty, but
there is no evidence, as far as I can see, that there were royal
tombs there.

[139]Frankfort, _Kingship and the Gods_, chapter ii.

[140]The reader conversant with the role of Osiris in the Egyptian
theory of kingship may here be reminded of the fact that the
“Interment of Osiris” was localized in the “Royal Castle” by the
Memphite Theology, and that this interment, as well as the
resurrection of Osiris in the Djed pillar, was annually performed at
Memphis.

[141]Frankfort, _op. cit._, 19-23.

[142]See G. M. Morant, “Study of Egyptian Craniology from
Prehistoric to Roman Times.” _Biometrika_, XVII (1925), 1-52.

[143]The rural character of the Egyptian commonwealth became
apparent also in times of internal conflict. The wars between the
Sumerian city-states find their Egyptian counterpart in struggles in
which large parts of the Nile valley appear united under rival
chiefs: a Theban family of Antefs and Mentuhoteps leading Upper
Egypt against the royal house residing at Herakleopolis; or Kamose
or Ahmose leading, first the Thebaid, then the whole Nile valley,
against the foreign Hyksos in the Delta.

[144]We may note in passing that the rudiments of the official
hierarchy were established in the First Dynasty. Cylinder seals of
that period (Figs. 35, 36) bear titles (and presumably names) of
officials. The investiture with a cylinder seal confirmed the
official in his function, and the term _ś‘ḥw_, which is usually
translated “noble,” in reality means “he who owns a seal of
office”—in other words, a high official.

[145]This may have been a contributory cause to the extreme scarcity
of legal and administrative documents, the main cause being the
perishable nature of the Egyptian writing materials—leather and
papyrus; but when the king’s decision is the source of law, the need
of codes and statutes is much reduced (see my _Ancient Egyptian
Religion_, 43-6). In any case, the rarity of written documents
obliged us to telescope in this chapter evidence much more widely
spread through time than we used in our description of Mesopotamia.
We have attempted to stress the features of society which we believe
to have been present well-nigh from the first and which remained
fairly permanent. But we are aware of the danger that we have
distorted our sketch of conditions in the early part of the third
millennium B.C.

[146]Kees, _Kulturgeschichte_, 210.

[147]_Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, XIII (1927), 200.

[148]Junker, _Giza_, III (Wien, 1938), 172 ff.

[149]The change was a slow one. Methen (whose career under the
Fourth Dynasty we have described) thought it worth while to record
in his tomb the possession, not of a large estate, but of a country
seat of about 2½ acres, provided with a garden, with vines, figs,
and other good trees, and a pond.

[150]H. Frankfort, _Ancient Egyptian Religion_ (New York, 1948),
Chapter iii.

[151]Gardiner in _Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, XXVII (1941),
19.

[152]This is an over-simplified description of the significance of
the scenes of daily life found in the tombs. For a more penetrating
treatment, see H. A. Groenewegen-Frankfort, _Arrest and Movement_,
28-44.

[153]Fig. 29, a relief from the Old Kingdom, shows, in the upper
register, the harvesters with their sickles; on the extreme left is
an overseer; the third figure from the left plays a long pipe, while
his companion sings, holding the side of his face, as oriental
singers do to this day. In the second register donkeys are brought
to carry the harvest home. The register below shows various
incidents in the transport; the bottom register shows how the
sheaves are stacked.

[154]Fig. 30, a wall painting from the New Kingdom, is best “read”
from the bottom upwards. At the left bottom corner teams of oxen
draw ploughs, while sowers, holding a bag with seeds, sprinkle the
grain with uplifted hands. Farther to the right men are shown
breaking the ground with hoes. Behind the three of them shown on the
right we see a girl drawing a thorn out of the foot of her friend.

The second register from below shows the grain being cut—one of the
labourers takes a swig from a water jar handed him by a girl who
stands in front, a basket hanging from her shoulder. Farther to the
right the grain is carried away in hampers (underneath one of these,
two girl gleaners are fighting and tearing each other’s hair); and,
on the far right, it is forked out in readiness for threshing. The
threshing is done by bullocks who trample the grain—this is shown at
the extreme right of the third register from below. To the left
women winnow the grain, their hair wrapped in white cloth against
the dust. The tomb owner watches in a kiosk and receives two water
jars. Behind the kiosk squat the scribes who note the yield of the
harvest while the grain is shovelled into heaps.

The upper register shows the deceased in his function as “Scribe of
the fields of the Lord of the Two Lands.” On the left are shown a
group of his officials, dressed in white, pencase in hand, busy
measuring the grain on the stalk; their attendants (with bare
bodies) hold the measuring cord. A peasant (followed by his wife who
carries a basket on her head with further gifts) offers something to
the tax officials, to propitiate them. But on the right, before the
kiosk of the tomb owner and near the mooring-place of the boat which
brought his subordinates to the scene, a peasant, who apparently
defaulted, is beaten, while another kneels and prays for grace.

[155]“The Eloquent Peasant” is a tale of such an appeal. See
_Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, IX (1923), 7 ff., and a short
discussion in my _Ancient Egyptian Religion_, 46, 146-50. For the
conception of _maat_, _ibid._, 49-58.

[156]For a detailed discussion of the building of the pyramids, see
I. E. S. Edwards, _The Pyramids of Egypt_, Pelican Books, chapter
vii.

[157]T. Eric Peet and C. Leonard Woolley, _The City of Akhenaten_,
Part I (38th Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Society), London, 1923.

[158]Gardiner in _Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache_, XLIII
(1906), 43.

[159]Max Weber, _Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial- und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte_ (Tübingen, 1924), 24.

[160]Junker, _Giza_, V (Wien, 1941).

[161]_Op. cit._, 52 ff.

[162]Junker, _Giza_, IV (Wien, 1940).

[163]After Griffith, _Deir el Gebrawi_, II, 30.

[164]Gardiner, _Journal of Egyptian Archaeology_, XXVII (1941), 22.

[165]After Kees, _Kulturgeschichte_, 40.

[166]_Ibid._, 41.

[167]Gardiner, _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology_,
XXXVII (1915), 117; XXXIX (1917), 133.

[168]F. M. Powicke, _The Reformation in England_ (Oxford, 1941), 31.

[169]This subject has been studied in the works named on p. 124, n.
5. Since the last of these was published during the war and is
hardly known abroad, we have included in this Appendix more matter
dealt with on a previous occasion than would otherwise have been
justifiable.

[170]Phrased differently, one might say that we had, without
justification, used the expansion of the Indo-European and
Arabic-speaking peoples as an analogy for the changes observed in
Egypt and Mesopotamia.

[171]Frankfort, _Cylinder Seals_ (London, 1939), 293.

[172]The reader unacquainted with these cylinders may identify the
figures as follows. In Fig. 37 he will see some hieroglyphs which
appear, reversed, at the extreme left in the impression of Fig. 38.
To the right of them one sees the offering table with two crescents
representing loaves of bread; over these a man extends his hand. He
is seated on a bed with legs ending in bull’s or lion’s feet (such
beds have been found in the graves at Abydos). His long hair is
rendered in a crosshatched mass. In Fig. 39 is a similar figure,
facing to the right. His hair is rendered with a straight line.

[173]In order not to overload this Appendix with footnotes, we shall
refer only to the most important monuments. These are conveniently
collected in J. Capart, _Primitive Art in Egypt_, London, 1905.
Detailed discussions with references will be found there and in the
following three works: H. Frankfort, _Studies in Early Pottery of
the Near East_, I (London, 1924), 117-42; A. Scharif, “Neues zur
Frage der ältesten Aegyptisch-Babylonischen Kulturbeziehungen” in
_Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache_, LXXI (1935), 89-106; H.
Frankfort, “The Origin of Monumental Architecture in Egypt” in
_American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_, LVIII
(1941), 329-58. In this last article, I have formulated disagreement
with certain ideas propounded by Scharff, especially as regards
cylinder seals, and have shown (_op. cit._, 354, n. 55) that the
relief of shell in Berlin (also depicted by Capart, _op. cit._, 83,
Figs. 50-1) is a purely Mesopotamian object, and therefore
irrelevant to the present discussion.

[174]They occur on the Small Hierakonpolis palette: Capart, _op.
cit._, Fig. 172.

[175]See also the University College knife-handle (Capart, _op.
cit._, 72, Fig. 37) and the Berlin knife-handle (Capart, _op. cit._,
73, Fig. 38.)

[176]Gebel el Arak knife-handle (Fig. 23); Small Louvre palette
(Capart, _op. cit._, 235, Fig. 174); Lion palette (Capart, _op.
cit._, 239, Fig. 178 plus 241, Fig. 180); Zaki Youssef Saad, _Royal
Excavations at Saqqara and Helwan_, 1944-5, _Supplément aux Annales
du Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte_, 166, Fig. 14.

[177]The Egyptian manner of representing carnivores and their prey
is shown in the central row of animals on the Hunters’ palette (Fig.
25) where they appear in headlong flight. See also the Small
Hierakonpolis palette and Egyptian renderings of the historical
periods. In Mesopotamia the prey is rendered as unaffected by the
attack; our Fig. 14, for instance, can be matched by a seal
(Frankfort, _Cylinder Seals_, Plate V _a_) where a lion is shown
striking his claws into a bull’s hindquarters. The bull stands as in
our figure. This is but one example from many. Another instance of
this rendering in Egypt is found on a macehead from Hierakonpolis
(Capart, _op. cit._, 97, Fig. 68) with alternating dogs and lions,
each of which attacks the one before him with teeth and claws. This
type of design, a circular interlocking by activation of the
individual figures, is characteristic for Mesopotamia and occurs on
numerous cylinder seals, on the silver vase of Entemena, and on the
macehead of Mesilim of Kish in the Louvre.

[178]See Frankfort, _Cylinder Seals_, Epilogue _et passim_.

[179]See Frankfort, “The Origin of Monumental Architecture in
Egypt,” in _American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_,
LVIII (1941), 329-58. In this article we have not only discussed the
detailed technical similarities between recessed brick building in
the two countries but also demonstrated the inadequacy of prevalent
explanations of the Egyptian examples, “irrespective the fact that
they failed to account for the contemporary construction of similar
buildings in Mesopotamia.”

[180]This does not imply that they must have been mean structures.
In Uganda, for instance, no fewer than a thousand men are
continuously engaged in the royal enclosure on building and repairs
(John Roscoe, _The Baganda_, 366).

[181]See also Borchardt, “Das Grab des Menes,” in _Zeitschrift für
Aegyptische Sprache_, XXXVI (1898), 87-105.

[182]This is the _Riemchenverband_, observed by the excavators of
Erech (E. Heinrich, _Schilf und Lehm_, 40) and of Tell Asmar
(Delougaz and Lloyd, _Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region_
[Chicago, 1942], 169, Fig. 127).

[183]In our figure and in the tomb of Neithotep (“Das Grab des
Menes”—see n. 2, above), the structures, like the Babylonian
temples, appear to stand on a brick platform; but in reality a low
revetment was built up against the outside of the walls after these
had been built up—complete with recesses—from the foundations. In
Babylonia this apparent platform is called a _kisu_.

[184]Our Fig. 48 shows the impressions of these round timbers in the
brick work of the White Temple at Erech, of which Fig. 45 shows the
plan. Fig. 49 shows a wooden sarcophagus found in a First Dynasty
tomb at Tarkhan in Egypt, which imitates a recessed building with a
similar strengthening of round timbers. Fig. 50 shows an actual tomb
found at Abu Roash in Lower Egypt with some timbers still in place.

[185]The Egyptian designs (Figs. 42, 44 left, 43) are supposed to
render a palace façade, an assumption incapable of proof and
ignoring the fact that the tombs have recesses on all four sides.
But whatever the original of this design may have been, its
abbreviated rendering in Egypt resembles an abbreviated rendering of
temples in Mesopotamia (Fig. 44 right) very closely.

[186]At Abydos three of these, perhaps built under the Second
Dynasty, survive. See Petrie, _Abydos_, III (London, 1904), Plates
V-VIII.

[187]Scharff, _Archaeologische Beiträge zur Frage der Entstehung der
Hieroglyphenschrift_ (München, 1942).

[188]See _Kingship and the Gods_, 20 and 350, n. 15.

[189]We have shown that in early Mesopotamian script words sounding
alike (_e.g._ “to live” and “arrow”) could be written with the same
sign and the meaning clarified by the addition of determinatives
which were not pronounced but indicated what kind of notion was
rendered. In Egypt from the first we find the same devices in use.
The hieroglyph depicting a rib can also be used to render the verb
“to approach,” in which case two legs are added as a determinative.
Just as in Mesopotamia the picture of the arrow became a phonetic
sign for _ti_, so the Egyptian signs become phonetic signs. There
is, however, a difference. In Mesopotamia both consonants and vowels
were rendered by the sign. In Egypt the vowels were ignored, and
only the consonantal skeleton of the word was rendered. This was
natural to the Egyptians, because the consonants of their words
remained constant while the vowels changed in the conjugation and
declension (as with us the verb “to break” has in the past tense “he
broke”). To turn to our example, the picture of the rib stood for
_spir_ when it meant rib, _soper_ when it meant “to approach,” and
so on. (This is the vocalization in Coptic, the latest stage of
Egyptian which used the Greek alphabet and, therefore, wrote
vowels.) The phonetic value of the sign of the rib is therefore
_spr_. In this way the Egyptians adapted the notion of how language
might be rendered (which they evidently got from Mesopotamia) to the
peculiarities of their own language. I do not want to suggest that
Egyptian necessarily calls for a script in which only the consonants
are written. Scharff (_loc. cit._), points out that Hebrew and
Arabic developed in their punctuation a method of rendering the
changing vocalization alongside the permanent consonantal skeleton
of the words.

Some of the phonetic signs of Egyptian consist of only one
consonant. In a discussion concerned with Egyptian writing there
would be no reason why they should be mentioned in particular, since
they do not differ in principle from the other signs. But in a wider
historical context the signs with the value of a single consonant
are of unique importance: they seem to be the distant ancestors of
the alphabet.

[190]Petrie, _Royal Tombs_, I, Plate 19, No. 11.

[191]Scharff, _op. cit._, 55.

[192]Some features of Mesopotamian civilization remain almost
unaltered during the Protoliterate period, hence it is very
important that the Egyptian links can be proved to derive from the
latter part, which is known to be a time of expansion in any case.
The evidence for the synchronization of the rise of Dynasty I in
Egypt with the later part of the Protoliterate period in Mesopotamia
consists of three groups:

(_a_) The cylinder seals found in Egypt all belong to the “Jamdat
Nasr” style and do not include any of the earlier style, known from
seal impressions found in Archaic Layer IV at Erech. Likewise absent
are examples of the brocade style which succeeds the Jamdat Nasr
style in Early Dynastic I. Thus the upper and lower limits of the
period during which contact took place are defined.

(_b_) The small bricks used in recessing at Naqada and Saqqara (Fig.
46) are predominant in the later part of the Protoliterate period in
Mesopotamia. In the earlier part larger bricks are commonly used; in
the subsequent Early Dynastic period the bricks are plano-convex.

(_c_) During the Protoliterate period Mesopotamian buildings were
decorated all around with elaborate recesses (Figs. 45, 48); and
this is the decoration found in the earliest monumental buildings in
Egypt, the tombs at Naqada, Abydos, Saqqara, etc. In Early Dynastic
Mesopotamia simplified recessing all around became the style; and
the multiple recessing was reserved for towers flanking temple
entrances (Fig. 19). These towers are introduced in Mesopotamia in
the later half of the Protoliterate period as a seal impression
shows (Fig. 42 right). The abbreviated renderings of recessed
buildings in Egypt show both flat buildings and buildings with
towers (Fig. 42, left; 43, 44), a combination which corresponds
neither with the earlier part of the Protoliterate period nor with
the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia but only with the later
part of the Protoliterate period. Again, the upper and lower limits
of the period of contact are defined.

[193]This object is depicted in Capart, _op. cit_., 100, Fig. 70,
and Scharff, _Die Altertümer der Vor- und Frühzeit Aegyptens_, II,
Plate 22, No. 108.

[194]There are no parallels in Egypt in historical times for the
ships with vertical prow and stern, while the Mesopotamian
_belem_—represented in silver, _e.g._ in the Royal Tombs at
Ur—assumes that shape. See Woolley, _The Royal Cemetery_, Plate 169,
and, for older literature, Frankfort, _Studies in Early Pottery of
the Near East_, I, 138 ff.

[195]Petrie, _Koptos_ (London, 1896), Plates III, IV, V 4; Capart,
_loc. cit._, 223, Fig. 166.

INDEX