constructions which prove that the inscriptions were composed by
Semites. As long, therefore, as no traces of purely non-Semitic
inscription are found, we cannot go beyond the Semites in seeking for
the origin of the culture in this region. In view of this, the theory
first advanced by Prof. Joseph Halevy of Paris, and now supported by the
most eminent of German Assyriologists, Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, which
claims that the cuneiform writing is Semitic in origin, needs to be most
carefully considered. There is much that speaks in favor of this theory,
much that may more easily be accounted for by it, than by the opposite
one, which was originally proposed by the distinguished Nestor of
cuneiform studies, Jules Oppert, and which is with some modifications
still held by the majority of scholars.[14] The question is one which
cannot be answered by an appeal to philology alone. This is the
fundamental error of the advocates of the Sumero-Akkadian theory, who
appear to overlook the fact that the testimony of archaeological and
anthropological research must be confirmatory of a philological
hypothesis before it can be accepted as an indisputable fact.[15] The
time however has not yet come for these two sciences to pronounce their
verdict definitely, though it may be added that the supposition of a
variety of races once inhabiting Southern Mesopotamia finds support in
what we know from the pre-historic researches of anthropologists.

Again, it is not to be denied that the theory of the Semitic origin of
the cuneiform writing encounters obstacles that cannot easily be set
aside. While it seeks to explain the syllabic values of the signs on the
general principle that they represent elements of Babylonian words,
truncated in this fashion in order to answer to the growing need for
phonetic writing of words for which no ideographs existed, it is
difficult to imagine, as Halevy's theory demands, that the "ideographic"
style, as found chiefly in religious texts, is the deliberate invention
of priests in their desire to produce a method of conveying their ideas
that would be regarded as a mystery by the laity, and be successfully
concealed from the latter. Here again the theory borders on the domain
of archaeology, and philology alone will not help us out of the
difficulty. An impartial verdict of the present state of the problem
might be summed up as follows:

1. It is generally admitted that all the literature of Babylonia,
inclu