part Semitic and thus related to the Hebrews. Several thousand years
before Christ the people of this land began to till the soil, to
control the floods in the rivers by means of irrigating canals, to
make bricks out of the abundant clay and with them to build houses and
cities. They also invented a system of writing upon clay tablets.
These were baked in the sun after the letters were inscribed.
Commercial records and written laws and histories were thus made
possible and in time a varied literature was created. Whole libraries
of these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and deciphered by
modern investigators.

=Evidences of ancient culture.=--By B.C. 4000 there flourished on the
plains of Babylonia a splendid civilization in many ways similar to
ours to-day. The people raised enormous crops of grain and exported it
by ship and caravan to distant lands. They had developed to a high
point the arts of the weaver, the dyer, the potter, the metal worker,
and the carpenter. They had devised a system of geometry for the
measuring of their wheat fields and city streets. Through astronomy
they had worked out the calendar of days, weeks, months, and years
which with modifications we still use. They had erected magnificent
temples to their gods. From translations of the inscriptions on their
clay tablets we can gain a clear knowledge of their life and customs.
Here, for example, is a translation of part of a letter from a son to
a father asking for more money: "My father, you said, 'When I shall go
to Dur-Ammi-Zaduga, I will send you a sheep and five minas of silver.'
But you have not sent. Let my father send and let not my heart be
vexed.... To the gods Shamash and Marduk I pray for my father." If we
forget the outlandish-sounding names, how natural this seems! How like
our boys was this boy who wrote the queer-looking characters on this
bit of clay which we may hold in our hand!