It is true that the name Mitanni is not met with at this period, but the geographical term Subartu is,[46] and in later tradition was regarded as having ranked with Akkad, Elam and Amurru as one of the four quarters of the ancient civilized world. [Illustration: FIG. 37. FIG. 38. FIG. 39. EXAMPLES OF ARCHAIC SCULPTURE FROM ASHUR AND TELLO, EXHIBITING THE SAME CONVENTION IN THE TREATMENT OF WOOLLEN GARMENTS. The seated statuette (Fig. 37) is from Ashur, and the treatment of the garment is precisely similar to that in early Tello work (Figs. 38 and 39). (After _M.D.O.G.,_ No. 54, p. 18, and _Déc._ pl. 2 (_bis,_) No. 1, and pl. 21 (_ter,_) No. 3.)] In the astrological and omen texts, which incorporate very early traditions, the references to Shubartu are interpreted as applying to Assyria,[47] but the term evidently had an earlier connotation before the rise of Assyria to power. It may well have included the North-Mesopotamian region known afterwards as the land of Mitanni, whose rulers are found in temporary occupation of Nineveh, as their predecessors may have established themselves at Ashur. But, however that may be, it is clear that the historic city of Ashur was not in its origin either a Sumerian or a Semitic foundation. Its later racial character must date from the period of the Western Semites, whose amalgamation with an alien and probably Anatolian strain, which they found there, may account in part for the warlike and brutal character of the Assyrians of history, so striking a contrast to that of the milder and more commercial Semites who settled in the lower Euphrates valley. As in Babylonia, the language and to a great extent the features of the Semite eventually predominated; and the other element in the composition of the race survived only in an increased ferocity of temperament.