Chinese and Sumerian

INTRODUCTION xi

with the lower sides rounded, seems to confirm this view of its significance as an underground abode. C/. also Perrot and Chipiez, Art 7 Chaldaea, i. 184: ‘The houses of the Armenian peasantry are sunk into the ground, &c. The cross-line of Dangin’s figure can hardly represent a division into upper and lower stories, since Babylonian and Assyrian houses were usually one-storied edifices (Perrot and Chipiez, AC. i. 188f.). The same remark applies to the similar character, D. 403; where, however, it is conceivable that the cross-line indicates division into an outer and inner court or chamber.

Since mountain ranges constitute the eastern boundary of Babylonia, ‘the East’ was naturally there designated by the Mountain-symbol and word (24 KUR, Sadi). And since the horse was not indigenous in the country, it has been usual to interpret the group 7 “Ve 44 E]], which denotes the horse (Br. 4994: sésd#) as meaning ‘Ass of the East’. But although the horse may well have been originally imported into Babylonia from the East, and although the ass was probably in use there long before, there is no apparent reason why the name of the horse should not have been introduced along with the animal itself; and the analogy of the similar group },“VE= \ Gey, read simply GAM-MAL, ‘camel’, seems to favour the idea that KUR (GUR) was a (the?) Sumerian term for ‘horse’ (6 HWA. p. 308 s.v. sept). The Ass-symbol, in fact, appears to have included the horse (Br. 4986), and, in that case, may have been read KUR as well as AN-SHU (see Lew. s.v. KUR, horse). What, however, is particularly interesting for our purpose is the fact that the Ass- (and Horse-) symbol in question is used as a Determinative Prefix (Classifier or ‘ Radical’) in the groups denoting the camel and the mule as well as the horse; a fact which finds a close parallel in the Chinese use of the Horse-Radical in the characters for the ass, the mule, and the camel.

Another no less striking instance of the same kind of agreement between the two scripts is the use of the Dog-symbol in certain characters denoting beasts of prey, such as the lion, the leopard or panther, and the wolf (Br. 11271; 11274; 11276; 11290; ¢f. 1983). In both, for instance, the lion is ‘The Great Dog’ or ‘The Master Dog’ (see Lex. s.v. UR, @ value of the Dog-symbol). It hardly seems probable that these peculiar coincidences of usage arose independently in the two languages and systems of writing.

It may be added that the linear Sumerian character (D. 226) denotes not

only the ass (and horse), but also the foot (s¢fm) of man and beast and, accordingly, is

represented in cuneiform by the two signs «= GIR, ‘foot’, and FI ‘ass’ (‘horse ’).

Now this curious linear symbol, which somewhat resembles the linear forms of >]

(p. 18f.; Szgn-hist, No. 79; D. 304) set up on end and turned round, and which also

presents some degree of likeness to the symbols which figure the two legs with

various adjuncts (D. 310-315), may conceivably have originated in an attempt to b 2