A History of Science-1 [23]
to light. It became apparent that the Greek ideas concerning Mesopotamia, though vague in the extreme, were founded on fact. No one any longer questions that the Mesopotamian civilization was fully on a par with that of Egypt; indeed, it is rather held that superiority lay with the Asiatics. Certainly, in point of purely scientific attainments, the Babylonians passed somewhat beyond their Egyptian competitors. All the evidence seems to suggest also that the Babylonian civilization was even more ancient than that of Egypt. The precise dates are here in dispute; nor for our present purpose need they greatly concern us. But the Assyrio-Babylonian records have much greater historical accuracy as regards matters of chronology than have the Egyptian, and it is believed that our knowledge of the early Babylonian history is carried back, with some certainty, to King Sargon of Agade,[5] for whom the date 3800 B.C. is generally accepted; while somewhat vaguer records give us glimpses of periods as remote as the sixth, perhaps even the seventh or eighth millenniums before our era. At a very early period Babylon itself was not a capital and Nineveh had not come into existence. The important cities, such as Nippur and Shirpurla, were situated farther to the south. It is on the site of these cities that the recent excavations have been made, such as those of the University of Pennsylvania expeditions at Nippur,[6] which are giving us glimpses into remoter recesses of the historical period. Even if we disregard the more problematical early dates, we are still concerned with the records of a civilization extending unbroken throughout a period of about four thousand years; the actual period is in all probability twice or thrice that. Naturally enough, the current of history is not an unbroken stream throughout this long epoch. It appears that at least two utterly different ethnic elements are involved. A preponderance of evidence seems to show that the earliest civilized inhabitants of Mesopotamia were not Semitic, but an alien race, which is now commonly spoken of as Sumerian. This people, of whom we catch glimpses chiefly through the records of its successors, appears to have been subjugated or overthrown by Semitic invaders, who, coming perhaps from Arabia (their origin is in dispute), took possession of the region of the Tigris and Euphrates, learned from the Sumerians many of the useful arts, and, partly perhaps because of their mixed lineage, were enabled to develop the most wonderful civilization of antiquity. Could we analyze the details of this civilization from its earliest to its latest period we should of course find the same changes which always attend racial progress and decay. We should then be able, no doubt, to speak of certain golden epochs and their periods of decline. To a certain meagre extent we are able to do this now. We know, for example, that King Khammurabi, who lived about 2200 B.C., was a great law-giver, the ancient prototype of Justinian; and the epochs of such Assyrian kings as Sargon II., Asshurnazirpal, Sennacherib, and Asshurbanapal stand out with much distinctness. Yet, as a whole, the record does not enable us to trace with clearness the progress of scientific thought. At best we can gain fewer glimpses in this direction than in almost any other, for it is the record of war and conquest rather than of the peaceful arts that commanded the attention of the ancient scribe. So in dealing with the scientific achievements of these peoples, we shall perforce consider their varied civilizations as a unity, and attempt, as best we may, to summarize their achievements as a whole. For the most part, we shall not attempt to discriminate as to what share in the final product was due to Sumerian, what to Babylonian, and what to Assyrian. We shall speak of Babylonian science as including all these elements; and drawing our information chiefly from the relatively late Assyrian and Babylonian sources, which, therefore, represent the culminating achievements of all these ages of effort, we shall attempt to discover what