Semitic Languages and Literatures_, LVIII [1941], Plate I, _a_, _b_) 43. Stela of King Djet of the First Dynasty (Louvre) 44. Three buildings with recesses, rendered on monuments of the First Dynasty in Egypt, and three Mesopotamian cylinder-seal impressions of the Protoliterate period (_American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_, LVIII [1941], Plate 341, Fig. 7) 45. Plan of the “White Temple” on the archaic ziggurat at Erech (_Achter vorläufiger Bericht_, 1937, Plate 19_b_) 46. Plan of the Tomb of Hemaka at Saqqara (W. B. Emery, _The Tomb of Hemaka_, Plate I) 47. Tomb ornamented with recesses, at Abu Roash (_Kemi_, VII [1938], Plate XI_a_) 48. Recesses of the “White Temple” at Erech (Drawn after _Achter vorläufiger Bericht_, 1937, Plate 14_b_) 49. Wooden coffin imitating a recessed building with round wooden beams, from Tarkhan (Petrie, _Tarkhan_, I, Plate XXVIII) 50. Recessed tomb with round wooden beams, of the First Dynasty, at Abu Roash (_Kemi_, VII [1938], p. 40, Fig. 9) 51. Map of the Ancient Near East, from the _Westminster Historical Atlas to the Bible_ (The Westminster Press, [Philadelphia, 1945], 22) I. THE STUDY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS Our subject is the birth of civilization in the Near East. We shall not, therefore, consider the question how civilization in the abstract became possible. I do not think there is an answer to that question; in any case it is a philosophical rather than a historical one. But it may be said that the material we are going to discuss has a unique bearing on it all the same. For the emergence of Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization has some claim to being considered as the birth of civilization in a general sense. It is true that the transition from primitive to civilized conditions has happened more than once; but the change has mostly been induced—or at least furthered—by contact with more advanced foreigners. We know of only three instances where the event may have been spontaneous: in the ancient Near East, in China, and in South and Middle America. However, the genesis of the Maya and Inca civilizations is obscure, and for China we must count with the possibility—some would say the likelihood—of a stimulus from the West. But no appeal to foreign influence can explain the emergence of civilized societies in Egypt and Mesopotamia, since these lands were the first to rise above a universal level of primitive existence. In the sequel we shall leave this aspect of our subject to one side: in other words, though the fact that in the Near East civilization arose spontaneously, and for the first time imparts a particular weight and splendour to the events, we are specifically concerned with the events themselves. And here, at the very outset, a difficulty must be faced.