'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎149r] (302/862)

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SUMERIAN AND BABYLONIAN PERIOD ZOJ
peninsular India, but the anthropological evidence is inadequate and
they may have been of Caucasian origin. 1 hey described themselves
as ‘the dark-headed people’, apparently in contrast with the fair
headed people of Subartu, but their type is only known from sculp
tures and relief carvings. They failed to maintain their racial stock,
which was never replenished from its original source, and eventually
merged with the Semitic-speaking element.
In Akkad the population consisted of Murtu or Amurru (Amorites)
who came east from Syria, probably after the Sumerians had reached
the lower delta, and were reinforced very early in the second millen
nium by fresh immigrations (p. 210). Their language, Akkadian or
Babylonian, was Semitic, but racially they do not seem to have closely
resembled the ‘Semitic’ tribesmen of Arabia who supplied the main
body of the Aramean and Chaldean immigration at the end of the
second millennium B.c. (p. 215), and of later movements such as that
of the Moslem A.rabs. The Akkadians adopted the general civiliza
tion of Sumer, including the cuneiform script. In religion, however,
they were the predominant influence, Sumerian deities being
gradually Semitized.
In Subartu, including the later Assyria, there was originally a
non-Semitic population and a non-Sumerian civilization. This
‘Subarean’ people was probably of Anatolian origin and included
fair-headed elements. Their civilization was that of north Syria, a
distinct Mediterranean ‘culture’ first identified at Tell Halaf. 1
Subarean race and civilization seem gradually to have been replaced
or absorbed by Semitic and Sumerian influences, mainly as a result
of a second Amurru invasion. The population of Subartu was always
rather mixed, receiving constant injections of Anatolians and Indo-
Europeans (pp. 211, 215).
In Elam, through which the Sumerians reached Mesopotamia,
the civilization was Sumerian at an early period and the population
may have been akin by race, though probably not by language.
Despite possession of a common and coeval civilization, the peoples
of Elam, predominantly a hill country, were seldom pacific and
constantly raided the cities of the plains of Sumer and Akkad.
Sumerian Domination
Sumer was the marshy coastal region adjoining the head of the
gulf, and several of its cities were close to the sea and the distributaries
of the Euphrates (fig. 14, 1, 11). It is worth noting that before the