Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

CHAP. V ELAM, SUMER, AND AKKAD 65
connexion with this discussion is the legend of Oannes, as
narrated by Berossus, a Babylonian priest, who wrote a few
years after the death of Alexander the Great, and who
diligently collected ancient traditions. According to his
chronicle, of which unfortunately only fragments have
been handed down, the ancient inhabitants of Babylonia
lived like beasts without any laws. During this era a
monster, half- fish, half- man, and endowed with reason,
Oannes ^
by name, appeared out of the sea and taught the
use of letters, laws, arts, and sciences. He also instructed
mankind to plough, to sow, and to reap. At night he
disappeared into the sea ; for he was amphibious. Oannes
and his successors, we are told, taught the people of
Babylonia during a period of 691,200 years which preceded
the great flood. Now this legend has generally
been held to point to the arrival of a
higher race by sea,
and, as the Semites ultimately predominated,
it has been
from the
argued that it was they who entered Babylonia
south. But King, to whose work I am specially indebted
in this chapter, looks upon this legend as merely implying
that the shores of the Persian Gulf were the earliest centre
of the Sumerian civilization, and believes that, as there are
but slight
traces of Semitic influence in Sumer during the
earlier
periods, the Semites came from the north-west and
not from the south.
Of the Sumerians themselves, and whence they came,
little was known until the important discoveries made near
Askabad under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution.
The excavations in a tumulus at Anau brought to light
pottery of the Neolithic age which, as stated in the previous
chapter, resembles similar pottery found by de Morgan at
Susa. It is therefore possible that the Sumerians migrated
to Babylonia from Turkestan : but further discoveries are
necessary before satisfactory proofs
can be obtained.^
Language.—The language of the Sumerians, in which
the oldest records we possess are written, is
agglutinative,
and is thus entirely unlike the Semitic. King states that
" the two races of Elam and Sumer do not appear to be
* Oannes is believed to be a corruption of Ea, the God of the Abyss. ,
^ Explorations in Turkestan, by Raphael Pumpelly. Carnegie Institution, 1905 j also
King's op. cit. appendix No. i, which is referred to in Chapter IV.
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