by certain ancient festivals in various countries, he suggests that
they may be due to "a remarkable homogeneity of civilization
throughout Southern Europe and Western Asia in prehistoric times. How
far", he adds, "such homogeneity of civilization may be taken as
evidence of homogeneity of race is a question for the ethnologist."[9]

In Chapter I the reader is introduced to the ethnological problem, and
it is shown that the results of modern research tend to establish a
remote racial connection between the Sumerians of Babylonia, the
prehistoric Egyptians, and the Neolithic (Late Stone Age) inhabitants
of Europe, as well as the southern Persians and the "Aryans" of India.

Comparative notes are provided in dealing with the customs, religious
beliefs, and myths and legends of the Mesopotamian peoples to assist
the student towards the elucidation and partial restoration of certain
literary fragments from the cuneiform tablets. Of special interest in
this connection are the resemblances between some of the Indian and
Babylonian myths. The writer has drawn upon that "great storehouse" of
ancient legends, the voluminous Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, and it
is shown that there are undoubted links between the Garuda eagle myths
and those of the Sumerian Zu bird and the Etana eagle, while similar
stories remain attached to the memories of "Sargon of Akkad" and the
Indian hero Karna, and of Semiramis (who was Queen Sammu-ramat of
Assyria) and Shakuntala. The Indian god Varuna and the Sumerian Ea are
also found to have much in common, and it seems undoubted that the
Manu fish and flood myth is a direct Babylonian inheritance, like the
Yuga (Ages of the Universe) doctrine and the system of calculation
associated with it. It is of interest to note, too, that a portion of
the Gilgamesh epic survives in the _Ramayana_ story of the monkey god
Hanuman's search for the lost princess Sita; other relics of similar