known that the use of writing for literary purposes is immensely old
in both Egypt and Babylonia. Egypt was emphatically a land of scribes
and readers. Already in the days of the Old Empire, the Egyptian
hieroglyphs had developed into a cursive hand."

From the Tel el-Amarna tablets, discovered in Upper Egypt, we know
that for 100 years people were corresponding with each other, in the
language of Babylonia in cuneiform characters. Libraries existed then,
and "Canaan in the Mosaic age, was fully as literary as was Europe in
the time of the Renaissance." Ancient Babylonian monuments testify to
the existence of an ancient literary culture. The results of the
excavations by the American Expedition, published by Prof. Hilprecht,
of the U. of Pa., show that in the time of King Sargon of Accad, art
and literature flourished in Chaldea. The region of the garden of Eden
was the pivot of the civilization of the world. From this region
radiated the early civilization of Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt. And
the advanced degree implies centuries of prior civilization. The
origin of man and the earliest civilization occurred in the same
region. Ur explorations (1927) show high art, 3000 B.C.

The earliest records show man was civilized. He lived in houses,
cities and towns, read and wrote, and engaged in commerce and
industry. To be sure, he did not have the inventions of modern
times. If all these were necessary, then there was no civilization
prior to the 20th century. Prof. J. Arthur Thompson, of Aberdeen, an
evolutionist, says: "Modern research is leading us away from the
picture of primitive man as brutish, dull, lascivious and
bellicose. There is more justification for regarding primitive man as
clever, kindly, adventurous and inventive."