Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/94

 62 Oiitlines of European History Sumerian wedge- writing and calendar. Sumerian religion the horse is still unknown. Traffic with the upper river brings in metal from the Nile valley, and the smith learns to fashion utensils of copper. But he has not yet learned to harden the copper into bronze by admixture of tin. Traffic and government have taught these people to make records, scratched in rude pictures with the tip of a reed on a flat piece of soft clay. Speed in writing simplified these pictures into groups of wedge-shaped marks, once the lines of the picture (Fig. 37). Hence these signs are called cuneiform, mean- ing " wedge-form," writing (Latin, cu- neies, " wedge "). This writing was phonetic, but did not possess alpha- betic signs. In order to date events in a given year, each year received a name, after some important event which had hap- pened in it. The year was composed of moon-months, twelve of which fall very far short of making up a solar year. An extra month must be inserted every three years or so. This inconvenient calendar was also employed by later peoples of the Mediterranean, until it was replaced by that of Egypt (pp. 23 and 268), which we now use.^ In the midst of their most sacred town we see rising a tall pyramidal mount of brick (compare Fig. 43) which ser^es as the Fig. 38. Restoration of an Early Babylonian House. (After Koldewey) The towns of the early Babylonians were small and were chiefly made of such sun-baked brick houses as these. Their simple adornment con- sisted only of vertical panels and a stepped (" crenelated ") edge at the top of the wall. The doors were crowned by arches in contrast with the Egyptians, who knew the arch but preferred a horizontal line above all doorways 1 The moon-month calendar is still in use among the oriental Jews and Mohammedans.