_Sumerians._--At some time before the dawn of history a people whom we call Sumerians moved into Babylonia from the East. These people spoke a language which possesses some features in common with Finnish and Turkish. They were neither Aryans nor Semites. The Semites wore thick hair and long beards; the Sumerians shaved both their heads and faces. These Sumerians overran southern Babylonia as far north as Nippur and in this region became the ruling race. They grafted the worship of their own gods upon the worship of the deities of the cities which they conquered, but the Semitic elements of these local deities persisted even in Sumerian thought. It thus came about that the bald and beardless Sumerians picture their gods with hair and beards. After settling in Babylonia, the Sumerians developed a system of writing. It was at first hieroglyphic, like the Egyptian system. Afterward the Semites, who still retained the supremacy in the cities of Kish and Agade in the north, and who had probably been reinforced there by fresh migrations from Arabia, adapted this system of writing to their own language. As clay was the usual writing material and it was difficult to make good pictures on it, the pictographic form of the writing was soon lost. The pictures degenerated into those conventional symbols which are today known as the “cuneiform” characters. (2) _The Pre-Babylonian Period_ of the history includes the period from about 3200 B. C. down to the rise of the city of Babylon, about 2100 B. C. This period, like the preceding, was a time of successive city kingdoms. One city would establish an empire for a while, then another, having become more powerful, would take the leadership. When first our written records enable us to trace the course of events, Lagash in the south and Kish in the north were the rival cities. Lagash was ruled by a king, Enkhegal. A little later Meselim, King of Kish, conquered all of southern Babylonia, including Lagash. After Meselim had passed away, Ur-Nina founded a new dynasty at Lagash and gained his independence. Ur-Nina’s grandson, Eannatum, raised the power of Lagash to its greatest height, conquering all the cities of Babylonia, even Kish. The Elamites were always invading the fertile plains of Babylonia, so Eannatum ascended the eastern mountains and subjugated Elam. “_Stele of the Vultures._”--He celebrated his victories by the erection of one of the most remarkable monuments which the ancient world produced, the so-called “stele of the vultures.” From the pictures on the monument we learn that the soldiers of Lagash, about 2950 B. C., waged their battles in a solid phalanx protected by shields. The Greeks were formerly supposed to have invented this form of attack, but were anticipated by 2,500 years; (see Fig. 19).