CHAPTER III

THE AGE AND PRINCIPAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION

Effect of recent research on older systems of chronology--Reduction of very early dates and articulation of historical periods--Danger of the reaction going too far and the necessity for noting where evidence gives place to conjecture--Chronology of the remoter ages and our sources of information--Classification of material--Bases of the later native lists and the chronological system of Berossus--Palaeography and systematic excavation--Relation of the early chronology to that of the later periods--Effect of recent archaeological and epigraphic evidence--The process of reckoning from below and the foundations on which we may build--Points upon which there is still a difference of opinion--Date for the foundation of the Babylonian Monarchy--Approximate character of all earlier dates and the need to think in periods--Probable dates for the Dynasties of Ur and Isin--Dates for the earlier epochs and for the first traces of Sumerian civilization--Pre-Babylonian invention of cuneiform writing--The origins of Sumerian culture to be traced to an age when it was not Sumerian--Relative interest attaching to many Sumerian achievements--Noteworthy character of the Sumerian arts of sculpture and engraving--The respective contributions of Sumerian and Semite--Methods of composition in Sumerian sculpture and attempts at an unconventional treatment--Perfection of detail in the best Sumerian work--Casting in metal and the question of copper or bronze--Solid and hollow castings and copper plating--Terra-cotta figurines--The arts of inlaying and engraving--The more fantastic side of Sumerian art--Growth of a naturalistic treatment in Sumerian design--Period of decadence