The constant rivalry between the
mountaineers and the desert-nomads led to endless warfare.
Only the strongest and the bravest could hope to survive and
that will explain why Mesopotamia became the home of a very
strong race of men who were capable of creating a civilisation
which was in every respect as important as that of Egypt.
THE SUMERIANS
THE SUMERIAN NAIL WRITERS, WHOSE CLAY
TABLETS TELL US THE STORY OF ASSYRIA
AND BABYLONIA, THE GREAT SEMITIC
MELTING-POT
THE fifteenth century was an age of great discoveries.
Columbus tried to find a way to the island of Kathay and
stumbled upon a new and unsuspected continent. An Austrian
bishop equipped an expedition which was to travel eastward
and find the home of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, a
voyage which led to complete failure, for Moscow was not
visited by western men until a generation later. Meanwhile
a certain Venetian by the name of Barbero had explored the
ruins of western Asia and had brought back reports of a most
curious language which he had found carved in the rocks of
the temples of Shiraz and engraved upon endless pieces of
baked clay.
But Europe was busy with many other things and it was
not until the end of the eighteenth century that the first
``cuneiform inscriptions'' (so-called because the letters were
wedge-shaped and wedge is called ``Cuneus'' in Latin) were
brought to Europe by a Danish surveyor, named Niebuhr.
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