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The Masterpieces and the History of Literature (1); Analysis, Criticism, Character and Incident
The Masterpieces and the History of Literature Analysis Criticism Character and Incident - 1 Author:Julian Hawthorne Volume: 1 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Original Publisher: Hamilton Book Co. Subjects: Literature Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access... more » to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ASSYRIAN LITERATURE. PWARDS of four thousand years ago, the region known as Babylonia, the richest part of Mesopotamia, or "land between the rivers" Tigris and Euphrates, was occupied chiefly by two tribes or nations -- the Akkadians and the Suuieriaus. The former held the north, the latter the south. They belonged to the Turanian family of mankind. These Turanians were so denominated by the ancient Persians or Iranians, as inhabiting Turan, "the land of darkness," and were of the same stock as those known in later ages as Huns and Mongolians. Their language was agglutinative, and its nearest representatives at the present day are the Hungarian and Turkish. In the latter name is still preserved the root of the ancient designation. When Semitic invaders established themselves in Babylonia, they united chiefly with the Sumerians. There are . nentioued in early records the Elamites, who lived towards the East, and the Kaldi or Chaldeans, who had their habitat in a district of Babylonia proper. We also hear of a wild tribe from the north-east, which, 1500 years before Christ, attacked Babylonia and dominated it for six centuries ; this tribe was known as the Kassites or Cosseans. All these peoples, except the Chaldeans, were non-Semitic, and probably were Turanian. Babylonia was one of the first centres at which men reached a high state of civilization. This is proved not only by the agreement of the earliest historians whose works have survived, but also by the astonishing architectural remainswhich have but recently been brought to...« less