'fire-necropoles' at Zurghul, &c., are not substantiated.)

The burials are hard to distinguish from similar contracted
interments of later date, except that the furniture is more abundant
in early times and mat graves are unusual in later days Mounds of
this age may be known by the occurrence on the surface of scraps of
oxydized copper, nails, &c.; shell-fragments; undecorated light drab
sherds; and the typical small plano-convex bricks.


III. MIDDLE BRONZE AGE.
1. Early Semitic or Akkadian (Sargonid) period; c. 3000-2500 B.C.

Characteristics. Less crude style of art: development of writing (see
XIV, Fig. 1); first inscribed clay tablets of usual style; beginnings
of cuneiform, developed from the archaic semi-pictographic character.
Bricks still plano-convex; stamped inscriptions begin. Stone
maceheads of same type as earlier. Large and well-cut cylinder-seals
of fine limestone, lapis, diorite, granite, and shell are
characteristic of the period: they are generally of an easily
recognizable form (reel-shaped) with sides showing a marked concavity
(see XIV, Fig. 5). The great development of art is shown by the stele
of Naram-Sin (_Louvre_) found at Susa. Not many mounds of this period
have been dug.

2. Later Sumerian (Gudea) and early Semitic Babylonian (Hammurabi)
periods; c. 2500-1800 B.C.

Characteristics. Typical 'Gudea' style of sculpture, in round and
relief (Telloh, _Louvre_); materials hard diorite, dolerite and