Ishtar-Tammuz myths, the Semiramis legends, Ashur and his symbols, and
the origin and growth of astrology and astronomy.

The ethnic disturbances which occurred at various well-defined periods
in the Tigro-Euphrates valley were not always favourable to the
advancement of knowledge and the growth of culture. The invaders who
absorbed Sumerian civilization may have secured more settled
conditions by welding together political units, but seem to have
exercised a retrogressive influence on the growth of local culture.
"Babylonian religion", writes Dr. Langdon, "appears to have reached
its highest level in the Sumerian period, or at least not later than
2000 B.C. From that period onward to the first century B.C. popular
religion maintained with great difficulty the sacred standards of the
past." Although it has been customary to characterize Mesopotamian
civilization as Semitic, modern research tends to show that the
indigenous inhabitants, who were non-Semitic, were its originators.
Like the proto-Egyptians, the early Cretans, and the Pelasgians in
southern Europe and Asia Minor, they invariably achieved the
intellectual conquest of their conquerors, as in the earliest times
they had won victories over the antagonistic forces of nature. If the
modern view is accepted that these ancient agriculturists of the
goddess cult were of common racial origin, it is to the most
representative communities of the widespread Mediterranean race that
the credit belongs of laying the foundations of the brilliant
civilizations of the ancient world in southern Europe, and Egypt, and
the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates.