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