As this rich soil became covered with vegetation,
it attracted the mountaineers from the north. As I said, the
earliest centre of the civilisation which was to culminate in
Babylon and Nineveh is traced at Susa, on the hills to the north,
about 6000 B.C. The Akkadians (highlanders) or Sumerians, the
Turanian people who established this civilisation, descended upon
the rivers, and, about 5000 B.C., set up the early cities of
Mesopotamia. As in the case of Egypt, again, more tribes were
attracted to the fertile region, and by about 4000 B.C. we find
that Semitic tribes from the north have superseded the Sumerians,
and taken over their civilisation.
In these ancient civilisations, developing in touch with each
other, and surrounded by great numbers of peoples at the high
Neolithic level from which they had themselves started, culture
advanced rapidly. Not only science, art, literature, commerce,
law, and social forms were developed, but moral idealism reached
a height that compares well even with that of modern times. The
recovery in our time of the actual remains of Egypt and Babylon
has corrected much of the libellous legend, which found its way
into Greek and European literature, concerning those ancient
civilisations.
Pages:
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510