[84]Ancient Eridu. _Illustrated London News_, 31 May, 1947, 11 September, 1948; _Sumer_, III (Baghdad, 1947), 84 ff.; _Orientalia_, XVII (Rome, 1948), 115-22. _Sumer_, IV (1948), 115 ff. shows the development from a very small and primitive village shrine in the earliest layer to a building recognizable in its main features as the prototype of later temples. [85]After T. Jacobsen in _Journal of Near Eastern Studies_, V (1946), 140. [86]We cannot say for certain whether its bearers were the Sumerians who created the earliest civilization of Mesopotamia in the subsequent—the Protoliterate—period. But no decisive proof for a later arrival of the Sumerians has been offered, and the continuity in cult and architecture support the view that they were the dominant element in the Al Ubaid period, as they remained throughout the third millennium in the south of the country. See also p. 51, n. 1 below. [87]The earliest tablets, of the Protoliterate period, seem to be written in Sumerian. They use the Sumerian sexagesimal system (with units for 10, 60, 600, and 3600) and refer to Sumerian gods like Enlil. But Sumerian has no clearly recognized affinity to other tongues. It is important to realize that the term “Sumerian,” strictly speaking, can be used only for this language. There is no physical type which can be called by that name. From Al Ubaid times until the present day, the population of Mesopotamia has consisted of men predominantly belonging to the Mediterranean or Brown race, with a noticeable admixture of broad-headed mountaineers from the north-east. This is, for instance, true of the Early Dynastic period, as the skulls from Al Ubaid and Kish show. Skeletons of the earliest known inhabitants of the plain, found at Eridu and Hassuna, have been briefly discussed by C. S. Coon in _Sumer_, V (1949), 103-6; VI (1950), 93-6. They represent “rather heavy-boned prognathous and large-toothed mediterraneans.” The much-discussed problem of the origin of the Sumerians may well turn out to be the chase of a chimera. [88]A. J. Wilson in _Geographical Journal_, LIV (London, 1925), 235 ff. [89]W. K. Loftus, _Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana_ (London, 1857), 7-8. On 17 May 1950 the correspondent of _The Times_ reported from Baghdad that “after a break in the Tigris bund ... about 2000 mud houses have already collapsed.” [90]“Tell Uqair,” by Seton Lloyd and Fuad Safar, in _Journal of Near Eastern Studies_, II (1943), 131-58.