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Outlines of European History
in which they far surpassed their Sumerian teachers. Thus the life and qualities of the desert Semite and those of the Mingling of Sumerian and Semitenon-Semite mountaineer now mingle on the Babylonian plain, as Norman and English later mingled in Merry England. On the streets and in the market places of the Euphrates towns, where
The third figure (wearing a cap) is that of the noble, Ubil-Ishtar, who is brother of the king. He is a Semite, as his beard shows. Three of his four attendants are also Semites, with beards and long hair; but one of them (just behind the noble) is beardless and shaven-headed. He is the noble's secretary, for being a Sumerian he is skilled in writing. His name "Kalki" we learn from the inscription in the corner, which reads, "Ubil-Ishtar, brother of the king; Kalki, the scribe, thy servant." This inscription is in the Semitic (Akkadian) tongue of the time and illustrates how the Semites have learned the Sumerian signs for writing. The scene is engraved on Kalki's personal seal, of which the above is a drawing. It is a fine example of the Babylonian art of seal-cutting in hard stone. The original is in the British Museum.
once the bare feet, clean-shaven heads, and beardless faces of the Sumerian townsmen were the only ones to be seen, there is now a plentiful sprinkling of sandaled feet, of dark beards, and of heavy black locks hanging down over the shoulders of the swarthy Semites of Akkad (Fig. 41).
