That the Sumerians played the more important part in originating and moulding Babylonian culture is certain. In government, law, literature and art the Semites merely borrowed from their Sumerian teachers, and, although in some respects they improved upon their models, in each case the original impulse came from the Sumerian race. Hammurabi's Code of Laws, for example, which had so marked an influence on the Mosaic legislation, is now proved to have been of Sumerian origin; and recent research has shown that the later religious and mythological literature of Babylonia and Assyria, by which that of the Hebrews was also so strongly affected, was largely derived from Sumerian sources. The early history of Sumer and Akkad is dominated by the racial conflict between Semites and Sumerians, in the course of which the latter were gradually worsted. The foundation of the Babylonian monarchy marks the close of the political career of the Sumerians as a race, although, as we have seen, their cultural achievements long survived them in the later civilizations of Western Asia. The designs upon the cover of this volume may be taken as symbolizing the dual character of the early population of the country. The panel on the face of the cover represents two Semitic heroes, or mythological beings, watering the humped oxen or buffaloes of the Babylonian plain, and is taken from the seal of Ibni-Sharru, a scribe in the service of the early Akkadian king Shar-Gani-sharri. The panel on the back of the binding is from the Stele of the Vultures and portrays the army of Eannatum trampling on the dead bodies of its foes. The shaven faces of the Sumerian warriors are in striking contrast to the heavily bearded Semitic type upon the seal. A word should, perhaps, be said on two further subjects--the early chronology and the rendering of Sumerian proper names. The general effect of recent research has been to reduce the very early dates, which were formerly in vogue. But there is a distinct danger of the reaction going too far, and it is necessary to mark clearly the points at which evidence gives place to conjecture. It must be admitted that all dates anterior to the foundation of the Babylonian monarchy are necessarily approximate, and while we are without definite points of contact between the earlier and later chronology of Babylonia, it is advisable, as far as possible, to think in periods. In the Chronological Table of early kings and rulers, which is printed as Appendix II., a scheme of chronology has been attempted; and the grounds upon which it is based are summarized in the third chapter, in which the age of the Sumerian civilization is discussed.