. The eastern nations and Greece. s of Babylonia are very like those of the Nile luxuriant growth of grain upon these alluvial flats excited thewonder of the Greek travelers who visited the Itast. Herodotus willnot tell the whole truth for fear his veracity may be doubted. It isnot .strange that tradition should have located here Paradise, thatprimeval garden out of the ground of which (iod made to growevery tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. This so EARLY CITY-KINGDOMS OF BABYLONIA [§46 favored plain in a remote period of antiquity became the seat of anagricultur
. The eastern nations and Greece. s of Babylonia are very like those of the Nile luxuriant growth of grain upon these alluvial flats excited thewonder of the Greek travelers who visited the Itast. Herodotus willnot tell the whole truth for fear his veracity may be doubted. It isnot .strange that tradition should have located here Paradise, thatprimeval garden out of the ground of which (iod made to growevery tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. This so EARLY CITY-KINGDOMS OF BABYLONIA [§46 favored plain in a remote period of antiquity became the seat of anagricultural, industrial, and commercial population among which thearts of civilized life found a development which possibly was as oldas that of Egypt, and which ran parallel with it. 46. The Babylonian a Mixed Culture. In ancient times the part ofBabylonia in the south near the gulf was called Sumer and the partin the north Akkad. The first inhabitants of Sumer, known fromthe name of the land as Sumerians, were of non-Semitic race. They. Map of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley had already, when they appear in history, emerged from the StoneAge and were using utensils of copper. They possessed a systemof writing and other arts of a comparatively advanced culture. Itwas this people who laid in the main the basis of civilization in theEuphrates valley. About the same time that the Sumerians were establishing them-selves in the south, there came into Akkad in the north — suchappears to have been the course of events — Semitic immigrantsfrom Arabia. These peoples were nomadic in habits, and altogethermuch less cultured than the Sumerians. Gradually gaining ascendancy,they took over the Sumerian culture and developed it. They retained, §47] THE AGE OF CITY-KINGDOMS 51
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