One thing, liowever, is certain, and that is, that the Heb. Shinar to all appearance ro|)resents the whole of Babylonia, exceptmg the district of which Larsa was the capital (see above). This being the case, it corresponds with the Kingi-Uraof the non- Semitic texts, which is translated in the bilingual inscriptions by the expression ' Sumer and Akkad ' — that is to say, not only N. Babylonia, but S. Babylonia also. The question, therefore, naturally arises, whether a modili(-ation of Ilommel's theory would not furnish the best explanation. That « changed, in the non-Semitic idiom, into i, is proved by the post-position for ' to,' which was pronounced either /.:« or i«. This would produce the torui iiingi- Ura, from which the Heb. Shin'ar {Siiiar) might easily have been derived.* It is noteworthy that, from the geographical point of view, such an ex- planation of the word would leave nothing to be desired.
The latest or one of the latest identtflcAtions of Shinar ii with 5anJor of the Tel el-Amama tablets (Winckler 25 = London
* At least one compound group indicates the possible value ol ii lor the character Ki, whilst two others suggest that ol Mc.
504
SHINAR
SniXAR
No. 5). This, however, requires much further li^^ht before it can be admitted into the bounds of likely theories. The only statement with regard to Sanhar made by" the letter in question is a reference to pifts which the kinj^ of IJatti (Heth, the Hittites)aiid the kmg of Saniiar had made to the writer, the king of ^laiia. W. Max Muiler (Aifuni und Europa, p. 279) identifies Sanhar with :iiyyotpx, the modern Sinjar.
Sumer, jjeuerally retrarded as the Habylonian orijrinal of Shinar, is usually found coupled with the name of the sister- province Akkad, of which the Accad of (Jn 10i"> was the capital. As stated ahove, the two provinces toj^ether are called Kingi- Ura in the non-Semitic inscriptions, rendered, in the bilingual texts, by the words mdt hu-ine-ri u Ak-ka~di-i^ 'the land of Sumer and Akk.ad-' The first component of the non-Semitic equivalent, Kitigi (also written Keiiijt\ is explained as jndtu, 'country,' and t/ra as Jkkadu or Akkad. Kiiufi therefore meant 'country ' par exceiteiiee — in fact, in the bilint;ual inscrip- tion of SamaS-sum-ukin (5 R. 62, 40ab), kimji-Ura is translated by the words mdt Akkadi, ' the land of Akkad-*
The original language of the country of Shinar was to all appearance non-Semitic, and it is very likely that, as already indicated, the Heb. word in question may be derived from that idiom. It is true that several Assyriologists (notably Halevy, the leader of the school) regard this language as being more or less artificial (see art. AccAD) ; but that it should be so is hardly likely, the idiom in question (often called Akkadian in England, and generally called Sumerian on the Continent) ditler- mg considerably from Semitic Babylonian, not only in words, but also in grammatical forms. Among the chief differences may be cited tlie use of suttixes instead of preh.xes to express the pre- positions {ea-ni-iu or ea-ni-ku, 'to his house,' lit. 'house-his-to'), the use of long strings of verbal prefixes, suffixes, or infixes (innan-lal for inna-in- lal, ' it he weighed,' gab-indaria, 'he opposed,' lit. 'breast-hini-with-(he)-set'), the use of compound woTiXa (ki-dur, 'seat,' lit. ' place- (of )-sitting,' (lu)- qubbri-igi, ' attendant,' lit. ' (man)-standing-before,' sa-bat, ' sabbath,' lit. ' heart-rest,' ia-hula, ' heart- joy,' and many others), and the numerical system, ■vhich goes up to 5, and then begins a new series, combining the numbers of the first {dS for ia-as, ' live-one ' = ' six,' tmina for ia-mina, 'five-t%vo' = 'seven,' etc.). The objection that this ancient idiom cannot be a real language, but only a system of writing, because the same or similar words occur in it and in Semitic Babylonian, is easily explained away by the fact that, when two nationalities live together, in close intercourse, words and phrases are extensively borrowed on both sides : and this was certainly the case here.
In support of the contention that there was another race and another language in the land of Shinar than the Semitic, may be cited the fact that tlie oldest sculptures give, to all appearance, examples of a race not possessing the Semitic tj'pe of the later Babj'lonians. but one differing con- siderably from it. The Semitic inliabitants of Shinar were thick -set and muscular, as the cylinder-seals of Semitic work and the later monu- ments, such as the boundary-stone witli the bas- relief of king Marduk-nadinahi, show. Tlie type of at lea.st one section of the non-Semitic inhabit- ants, on the other hand, was slim and spare, and is illustrated by the bronze statuettes of the time of king f;udea{c. 2700 B.C.), representing a kneeling fifpire holding what is generally regardoil as a fire- stick ; the human figures found in bas-rcliofs from Lagas ; and those on a large number of cylinder- seals. It would, moreover, seem tliat the ancient inhabitants of .Sliinar were accustomed to do a thing which the Semites do only under foreign influence, namely, shave the hair from the face and head. This is shown not only by the heads of statues and statuettes from Tel-loh (the ancient Lagas), but al.so from numerous cylinder -seals and impressions of cylinder -seals of the later Akkadian (or Sumerian) period, in which an olli- cial is represented bein^; introduced to the god whom lie worshipped. The KO<l himself, however.