Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

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ST. LANGDON

in the second place, his royal contemporaries of Assyria who are
certainly quite as Semitic as himself wore an entirely different headdress, as well as his predecessor Mardukidinahi, see MENANT, Glyptique
t. I pl. VI. It is furthermore an utterly false argument, starting with
the known fact that certain religious ideas and divine symbols of
dress are due to the amalgamation of two races, to assume any
part of this amalgamation as distinctive of the race to which the person
in question belongs. The only safe way is to start at the origins of
these two peoples and find out what is distinctive of each of them and
to trace if possible any influence from one on the other. Now the long
shawl-like dress hanging from the left shoulder with a fold attached
to fall over the left arm and enveloping the body rather tightly from
under the left arm to the feet is worn by a Sumerian of doubtful sex
and identification on the tablet of Ur-Nina (L. HEUZEY, Catalogue des
antiquites chaldeennes du Louvre no 8; MEYER, p. 78). I am unable to
see how MEYER can separate these two dresses into,, plaids,, and,, shaggy coats,, although the horizontal folds of the early Sumerian
figures have a less regular appearance than that for instance of
Ningirsu (HEUZEY, Catalogue n~ 24). The same rather close fitting
winding folds pleated perpendicularly characterize both. Furthermore,
the similarity between the colored fantastic dress of a dignitary of
Palestine from the grave of Hui, p. 13, and the winding dress of
Naram-Sin of the relief of Diarbekr I am unable to see. Moreover,
how do we know that the dress of Naram-Sin is of wool (p. 12) or
undoubtably of bright colors (p. 13)? The facts seem much rather to
warrant the supposition that the dress is itself Sumerian.
The difference in features between Sumerian and Semite is clearly
shown by MEYER and needs no further argument but that the method
of wearing the full beard with shaven lips is limited to Semites is a
hazardous statement, for this compels him to assume that the Sumerians from the very earliest times represented their gods with Semitic
form of beard (so Nin-Girsu on the Stele des Vautours). When we first
meet with Semites, long after the earliest figures of Sumerian deities
with shaven lips and full beards, they also have unshaven lips. To:: * O be