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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
M. de Morgan's remarkable discovery of early civilizations in the possession of painted pottery and copper at Susa in 1897 has remained for about twenty years an isolated addition to our knowledge. But the explorations of the last years have suddenly revealed its real import. In the two civilizations which he found succeeding each other at Susa there seem to be represented large cultural provinces. Their ultimate importance lies furthermore in the fact that they have both contributed elements towards the great culture of the Plain of the Two Rivers, and it seems at present possible, without allowing hypotheses to play an illegitimate part in the argument, to define with some precision the respective elements and their relation to the three great historical problems for which the title of this paper stands.
page 217 note 2 For literature see Frankfort, , Studies in Early Pottery of the Near East, i, 25. Henceforth quoted as Studies.Google Scholar
page 217 note 3 Comptes rendus du XIIIme Congrès Intern, d'Anthrop. et d'Archeol. Préhist. Monaco, 1906.Google Scholar
page 217 note 4 Studies, i, 49-54.
page 218 note 1 Man, 1926, 25.Google Scholar
page 218 note 2 Some doubt has been raised as to the affinity and date of this pottery, but it seems clearly to point to a stage of development intermediate between Susa I and Al'Ubaid by its technique, its shapes, and the style of its decoration alike. See Reallexicon der Vorgeschichte, article Vase-Vorderasien, 3, e, where literature is given.
page 219 note 1 These stand in no relation to the main body of remains. Just so Mr. Woolley found sherds and even a few unbroken pots in the soil in which the later people, of the First Dynasty of Ur, had buried their dead, upsetting thereby some earlier graves. The sherds from Kish are now in the Ashmolean Museum.
page 219 note 2 Archaeologia, lxx, 110 sqq.
page 219 note 3 Ur-Excavations: Al'Ubaid, a report on the work carried out at Al'Ubaid for the British Museum, etc., by Hall, H. R. and Woolley, C. L.. I am dealing with the pottery in a review to appear in the July number of this Journal.Google Scholar
page 219 note 4 Revue Archéologique, 1916, 17.Google Scholar
page 219 note 5 Centenary Supplement of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1924, pls. XV, XVI.Google Scholar
page 219 note 6 Burlington Magazine, 12 1924; Studies, ii, 184.Google Scholar
page 219 note 7 Illustrated London News, 20 10. 1924, 531, top row.Google Scholar
page 219 note 8 Zeilschrift für Ethnologie, 1898, 460 sqq.Google Scholar
page 220 note 1 Studies, i, pl. III, 4.
page 220 note 2 Ibid., 78.
page 220 note 3 Ibid., 83 sqq.
page 220 note 4 Ibid., 66 sqq.
page 221 note 1 Al 'Ubaid, 155 and pl. LI, p. xv b (T.O. 521). See now also Langdon, , Ausgrabungen in Babylonien seit 1918 (Der Alte, Orient, 1928) especially p. 74. Unfortunately Professor Langdon, all through this booklet, treats the pottery without discrimination.Google Scholar
page 221 note 2 Cros-Heuzey, , Les Nouvelles Fouilles de Telloh, 310, fig. 20.Google Scholar
page 221 note 3 Revue Archéologique, 1926, 17.Google Scholar
page 221 note 4 The Illustrated London News, 11. 17, 1927.Google Scholar
page 221 note 5 For shapes see Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, France, Fasc. 2, pi. v, 1-3; for designs ibid., pi. vi, 44, iv, etc.
page 221 note 6 Revue Archéol., 1926, 17, figs. 3, 4.Google Scholar
page 221 note 7 Studies, i, 66 sqq.
page 222 note 1 See also Addendum, p. 234.
page 222 note 2 Revue Archeologique, 1926, Une théorie nowoelhsur les vases de Suse. This criti cism of some views expressed in Studies, i, does not, to my mind, do away with the main results of that inquiry. But I am not prepared to dogmatize about the origin of the Susa I pottery in leather vessels though that seems still probable to me. I have not, however, based that suggestion on a misinterpretation of certain vessels which got deformed in the firing (Rev. Arch., loc. cit., 6, fig. I) to which M. Pottier takes me to refer when speaking about the ‘bulgy outlines’ of the vessels. Even such beakers as that figured in Studies, i, pl. I, I, have, especially near the foot, that peculiar roundness which reminds one of leather. This, however, is a minor point, as is also my tentative sketch of the economic conditions under which the inhabitants of Susa I lived. I confess that here, as on a number of points, I have expressed myself some what too vigorously, not to say dogmatically (see Studies, ii, p. iv, foot-note). In the matter of the survival of religious motives from Susa I into Susa II, M. Pottier quotes again the eagle with outstretched wings, but does not take into account a seal cylinder which proves that we have no right to take the bird on the Susa I pots (which never grasps animals, as do the heraldic birds from Sumer and Susa II) as an eagle (Studies, i, 46, n. 4).
page 223 note 1 Al'Ubaid, 128 sqq.
page 225 note 1 Al'Ubaid, 168.
page 226 note 1 See now also Reallexicon der Vorgeschichte, article Vase-Vorderasien.
page 226 note 2 Studies, i, 34 sqq., and now Revue Archéol., 1926, 14 sqq. It is of little importance that the sterile layer appears to be of varying thickness. The new sondages have shown that the two cultures nowhere mix and that the separating sterile layer seems to exist throughout the site.
page 227 note 1 Especially in Rassen, Völker, Sprachen.
page 227 note 2 The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 99 sq.
page 227 note 3 Andrae, , Die Archaischen Ischtartempel, pls. 43, 47 c-f.Google Scholar
page 227 note 4 Die Achtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefässscherben des Mittleren Reichs, in Abhandlungen der Preusiischen Akademie der Wissen tchaften, 1916.Google Scholar
page 228 note 1 Langdon, , Excavations at Kish, i (1924), pis. XXXVI–XXXIX.Google Scholar
page 228 note 2 La Glyptique Syro-Hittite, 60 sqq.
page 228 note 3 Studies, i, 111; Glanville, , in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, xii, 53 sqq.; Studies, ii, 103, note.Google Scholar
page 228 note 4 Studies, i, 65, n. J.
page 229 note 1 In the discussion Mr. L. H. Dudley Buxton stated that the skeletal material from Kish suggested that in addition to the racial elements which are common both to Kish and to Ur there are others which so far have not been found at Ur. If further research confirms these facts, it would appear that the distribution of the two classes of painted pottery in Mesopotamia coincides with that of two different racial elements, which then could be hardly anything but Sumerians and ‘Semites’.
page 229 note 2 Al'Ubaid, 214 sqq.
page 229 note 3 Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vi, 4 sqq.; Studies, i, 85.
page 230 note 1 Studies, ii, 4 sqq., 33 sq., 119 sqq., 147 sqq., 189 sq. Mr. Lucas has recently (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, xiii, 162 sq.) shown how favourable were the conditions in Egypt for the discovery of copper-working. But history is no matter of logic, and comparative archaeology plainly proves that the opportunity was not grasped, and that the use of copper on a considerable scale was due to Asiatic initiative.
page 230 note 2 Studies, ii, and now also Comptes Rendus de la Session d'Amsterdam de I'Institut International d'Anthropologie, 1928.Google Scholar
page 230 note 3 Studies, ii, 148.
page 232 note 1 Illustrated London News, 23rd 04 1927.Google Scholar
page 233 note 1 Childe, Compare, Dawn of European Crvilization, fig. 61, with Xanthoudides, Vaulted Tombs of MesaraGoogle Scholar, pl. LVII, top row.
page 233 note 2 In the discussion Professor Childe rightly insisted on the necessity of distinguishing between the creative region, where discoveries were made and shapes evolved, and the mining region. We cannot as yet be certain about the exact location of the first; it should be remembered, however, that the first movement from Asia into the Aegean which brings copper, starts from the south coast of Asia Minor (Studies, ii, 79). And, further, the wealth of Hissarlik II and the distribution of copper and early bronze types in Europe suggest that the Caucasus region or at least some region on the eastern or southern litoral of the Black Sea was exporting metal objects of these various forms, and not metal only.
page 234 note 1 Studies, i, 38, and Liverpool Annals, xiv, 54 sq.