Posing the Sumerian Question:

Question:
Race and Scholarship
Scholarship in the Early History of Assyriology
Assyriology

Jerrold S.
S. Cooper

The lohns
Johns Hopkins University

INTRODUCTION'
celebrate Miguel Civil as we commemorate the quincentenary of the
Is it not fitting that we celebrate
encounter of Spain with the New World?World? Spanish was the first European tongue to put down roots in the
Americas,
Americas, and Miguel belongs to the great stream of Spanish subjects that over the last half millennium
have fulfilled
fulfilled potentials in this hemisphere that may have been more constrained at home. horne.
1992
1992 is also the 500th anniversary of the migration of Hispanophones in an an opposite direction,
language use in the eastern Mediterranean that persist even
leading to the creation of islands of Hispanic langnage
today, if only as ever diminishing shadows
today, shadows ofthe existence in the early part of
of the robust communities still in existence of
this century. And it was early in this century that a scion of one of those communities, who, like Miguel
Civil, had pursued Oriental studies in Paris, was still valiantly fighting an already lost battle against the
CiviI,
very notion that Sumerian was a natural language.
language.
That first Hispanophone Sumerologist
Thatfirst Sumerologist -- he even published poetry in Spanish -- Joseph Halevy,
Halkvy, was
born in 1827
1827 in AdrianopIe'.
Adrianople'.
Adnanople2. He taught in Jewish schools there and in Bncharest,
Bucharest, and was active in
promoting the Hebrew enlightenment (haskalah).
(haskalah). In his free
free time he taught hirnself
himself Near Eastern
languages, Amharic, because he was taken by the notion of making contact with the
Ianguages, and even mastered Amharic,
Jews of Ethiopia, who, having been cut offfor
off for a millennium from the rest of Jewry, were being intensively
HalBvy arrived
proselytized by Protestant missionaires. Halevy amved in Paris in 1866,
1866, and the next year was sent to
Ethiopia by the Alliance
Alliance Israelite Universelle.
Universelle. His successful
successful fulfillment of that assignment -- he returned
with important manuscripts and much information on the community --led Ied to his being sent in 1869
led 1869 by

1. I would like
1. to thank C.
Like to J.
J. Bottero,
C. Bier, R. Borger, 1. BottCro, S. Iwry, G. their advice and
M a r k for their
G. Krotkoff, A. Loprieno and H. Marks
assistance. P.
assistance. P. Simon-Nahum, La eitecite investie: "Science du Juda?sme"J?anqats
investie: La "Science ]udafsme"jranr;ais et la
Judafsme"jranr;ais Republique (Paris,
fa R6wblique (Paris, 1991)
1991) appeared too too late to
this study (reference
be used in this courtesy M. Olender).
(reference courtesy OIender).
There are some variant traditions regarding his place ofbirth.
2. There
Thefe of birth. M. Eliav, Tarbiz 35
35 (1966) 73
73 n. 85, states thathe
85, states that he was born
horn
Kessler, The Falashas (New York 1982)
in Hungary, and D. Kessler, 120, says,
1982) 120, says, without citing his source, that he was born in Galicia but
to Turkey
moved to Turkey as a child.

(Fs. M. Civil) 9 (1991) 47-66

AuOr (Fs.
47
 JERROLD S_
S. COOPER

Acadkmie des Inseriptions

the Aeademie
Academie Belles-Lettres to
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres t o the Yemen to eolleet inscriptions for the planned
collect inseriptions
Corpus Inscriptionz~m
Corpus Semiticarum. The Yemen was c10sed
Inscriptionum Semiticarum_ Halkvy disgnised
closed to European travellers, so HaIevy disguised
himself as a rabbi from Jerusalem and eireulated
circulated among the Yemenite Jewish eommunities,
communities, surrepti-
tiously eopying inscriptions along the way. He retumed
copying South Arabian inseriptions returned to Paris with 686 texts, by far the
!argest inscriptions hitherto known, and published
largest corpus of such inseriptions 1872-3. He was widely reeog-
pnblished them in 1872-3. recog-
nized for both the feat itself and his seientific 1879 he was named professor of Ethiopian
achievement. In 1879
scientific aehievement.
languages
languages at the Eeole
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
Etudes3.3.

"Nons devons nous resigner a

"Nous A accepter qu'il ... que nous ne pourrons jamais
qu'il y ait des textes ...
comprendre, sauf dans le
eomprendre, Ie sens le
Ie plus litteral
littkral et banaY4.
banal"'. Civil on Sumerian at hisbis most pessimistic
pessimistie doesn't
hold a eandle
candle to Halevy subjeet: "Quant a
Halkvy on the same subject: sumkrologues modernes, nous sommes
a nous, sumerologues
absolument incapables de lire correctement une seulephrase
absolument 'sum4rienne"' (emphasis original),
seule phrase 'sumerienne"' original), because "le
"Ie
sumkrien n'ajamais
sumerien n'a jamais exprime
exprim6 une langue reelle parlee par un peuple queleonque"5.
rkelle parlke quelconque"5.
quelc~nque"~. Sumerian,
Sumerian, rather, was
an originally
originally ideographie
ideographic system for writing Akkadian, whieh,which,
which, as phonetic writing of Akkadian was devel-
oped, became continued to be eultivated
hieratic mode of writing that eontinued
beeame a hieratie alongside the secular
cultivated alongside secular phonetic
seeular phonetie
mode.
My first exposure to Halevy's came during a perusal ofS.
Halhy's theory eame Antiquity oflratf
Pallis'sAntiquity
of S. A. Pallis's ofIra$ when I
Chicago, and Pallis's explanation of
was Civil's student in Chieago, ofHah~vy's
Halevy's motives stuck in my mind: "Perhaps it
was on aeeount
account of racial prejudice
prejudiee that he denied that Babylonia, from where his aneestors,
ancestors, the Hebrew
patriarehs, eame,
patriarchs, came, had been oeeupied
occupied by a non-Semitic people before the Semites,
Semites, a people who were even
said to have invented the writing whieh
which was the Semitie
Semitic Babylonians' own ingenious invention"7
invention"'.
invention"'. Reeent
Recent
attention that has been called to the "Orientalist"
"Orientalist" aspect of early ancient Near Eastern studies
studies'
studies8 8 suggests

that Pallis was only partly right: it was "racial prejudice",

prejudice", but not, or not only,
prejudiee", only, his own, that motivated
Halevy
Halkvy in his forty year struggle against "Sumerism".

HALEVY'S THESIS'
The original statement of the anti-Sumerist position appeared in 1874 1874 in the Journal Asiatique
under the title "Observations critiques sur les prktendus Babylonie"lo. "Turanian",
pretendus Touraniens de la Babylonie"lO. "Turanian",
deriving from the Iraniana epie
epic tradition 11, was first used by F. Max Müller
tradition1', Miiller in 1854
1854 to deseribe
describe the Euro-
Enro-
pean and Asian languages
languages that were not Indo-European, Semitic or Chinese, and the term t e r n eame
came to be used
specifically for the broad language group that today we would call Dralo-Altaic.
more speeifieally Uralo-Altaic. Earlier in the nine-
Uralo-Altaie.

Halevy in the Encyclopaedia

3. See the bibliography in the article on HaIevy Encyc!opaedia Judaica, and add 1. Levy, Revue
I. Levy, R.evue historique 126
126 (1917)
215-218.
"Les limites de l'information
4. Civil, "'Les I'information textuelle", L 'archeologie
'arche%gie de !'Iraq
textuelle", in M.-T. Barrellet (ed.), L'archdologie l'lraq
?Ira@(Colloques internationaux
intemationaux
du C.N.R.S. No. 580), 228.
5. Halevy, Prkcis
Precis d'allographie Assyro-Babylonienne. Paris 1912,
Prtxis 1912, pp. 18
18 and 13.
13.
1956.
6. Copenhagen 1956.
7. P. 180.
8. M. T.
8. T. Larsen, "Orientalism East". Pp. 181-202 in The
"Orientalism and the Ancient Near East". The Humanities Between Art and Science. lntel- Intel-
lectual Developments 1880.1914, ed. M.
Developments 1880-1914, M . Harbsmeier and M. T. Larsen. Copenhagen, 1989; 1989; A. Gunter and M. T. Larsen (eds.), The The
Construction 0/
Constrnction of rhe Ancient Near East (forthcoming as a special issue of History and Culture [Copenhagen]).
of the [Copenhagen]).
9. For painstaking
pamstaking and relatively fair (but cf. below), if unsympathetic, expositions of Halevy's thesis and the ensuing
polemics pro and con, see F. sumerische Frage, Leipzig 1898,
F. Weissbach, Die s~~merische dilssyriologie I, Paris 1904,
1898, and C. Fossey, Manuel d'Assyrio[ogie 1904,
cbap. IL
chap. 11.
II.
10. Pp.
10. 461-536.
Pp.461·536.
461·536.
11. Cf. R. Frye, The
11. History 0/
TheHistory ofAncient Iran, Munieh
ofAncient 1984,59:
Munich 1984, 59: The Tura became mown known in Iranian
ktiown lranian epic as the enemies ofIran
of Iran
par acellence, and with tbe
par excellence, the advent of the Turks, became identified with- witk them. In the Shah-Nama,
Shah-Nama, Faridun divides the world
sons: Rum and the west are given to Salm, the Turks and China to Tur, and Iran to Iraj.
between his sons: lraj. A jealous lraj, thus
jealous Tur kills Iraj,
beginning the enmity between fran Iran and the Turks (R.CR. Levy, The Epic of
(R. Levy, of Kings.
ofKings. Shah-Nnrna, The
Kings. Shah-Nama, The NationnlEpic ofPersia, by Fedowsi
National Epic ofPersia,
afPersia,
[tr. revised by A. Banani},
Banani], London 1967,1967, 27ff.).

48
 POSING THE SUMERIAN QUESTION

teenth century, E. Rask had used the term "Scythian" for the same purpose purpose". 12
1
'. The first characterizations

of Sumerian by Rawlinson and Oppert assigned it to the "Scythian" group, but the term "Turanian" "Turanian" so soon
on

In the introduction to his pionnering grammar of Sumerian Sumerian14, 14

, F.I"
took over, and comparisons were made with Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian and other Turanian languages
F. Lenormant claimed that Sumerian would
eventually play the same role for the agglutinative Turanian family as Sanskrit had far
languages13.

Indo-European'5.
for Indo-European
13.

I5 •
15.

Halkvy, who was fluent in both Turkish and Hungarian, easily demolished claimed affinities of Sumerian
Halevy,
to either, and continued to do so over the years; years; this, perhaps, was his most lasting contribution to
Sumerology.
Sumerology.
But HaMvy
Halkvy went further. He asserted that from the earliest to the latest, the monuments of
Mesopotamian civilization show themselves to be the expression of a single race --the the Semitic -- and that
neither Mesopotamian place names, nor the testimony of biblical or classical authors, nor
ofbiblical nar the traditions of
the Assyrians and Babylonians themselves betray the presence of Turanians or any other ethno-linguistic
group beside Semites in early Mesopotamia. Sumer and Akkad, Akkad, he explained, were geographic
geographie or political
divisions, not ethno-linguistic. In the absence of mention of another ethno-linguistic group, the institu-
ethno-linguistie group, institu-
tions of Assyro-Babylonian eivilization, cuneiform writing system, must be understood as a
civilization, including the euneiform
Semitic achievement.
Since it was precisely the inaptness of euneiform cuneiform as a script for the Semitic Semitie language
language of ancient
Mesopotamia that had led Hineks Hincks in 18521852 to postulate that cuneiform had a non-Semitic origin, origin, a postu-
late seemingly confimed by Rawlinson's discovery in the same year that certain of the Nineveh tablets
were bilingualI6,
bilinguaP', Halkvy's task was to show 1)
bilingual", Halevy's 1) that the cuneiform syllabary, in his words, "ne eonvient convient
qu'a
qu'a un idiome semitique" and ahd "Ies
"les syllabes
syllabes produites par les signes cunei formes eorrespondent
signes cuneiformes
cun6ifonnes correspondent aux mots
assyriens"; and 2) that "la "Ia eomposition
composition et I'ageneement
I'agencement des signes signes cuneiformes
cunkiformes dans les documents
nommes aecadiens [~
nommks accadiens Sumerian] revelent
[= Sumerian] rivklent tous les caracteres
caractkres d'un systeme
systkme artificiel"17.
artificiel"17.
syllabary, HaIevy
As to the syllabary, Halevy pointed out that it has special signs signs for emphaties laryngals, marking
emphatics and laryngals,
laryngaJs,
it as originally designed for a language
language with justjust such phonemes, i.e. Assyro-Babylonian.
Assyro-Babylonian. The origin of the
values of individual signs
ofindividual signs can be discovered by studying the Assyrian syllabaries: one can pick out among
the many Assyrian words represented by a single single sign,
sign, one or more that gave that sign its phonetic phonetie
value(s). Thus A <
value(s). < aplu, SV <
aplu, SU < zumru,
zumm, SU
zumru, SV < < rafJtieu, DAN <
rahaju, DAN< < dannu, MU MV < < Sumu,
sumu, MAH < < mafJfJu,
mahhu,
SAG <
SAG< < Saqir, 18 If
etc.18
etc.18
saqa, etc. If then,
then, on the one hand we admit that the syllabary is Semitic Semitie in origin, and, on the
other, we know that many of its signs ideographically in Assyrian texts, it follows
signs are used ideographieally follows that the texts
called "Sumerian"
that have been ealled "Sumerian" should simply be a purely ideographic
ideographie Assyrian, and documents of a
not doeuments
different, non-Semitic language.
language. Most of the supporting arguments he brought are spurious (and were so
recognized even then), but others, such as similarity in verbal affixation (in-laI, (in-Ial,
(in-lal, in-Ial-es
in-laI-es i~squl, i-squl-u),
II i:iququl,
in-lal-eS // i-Squl-u),
word order, adverb formation with -s, -S, the shared use of IILIir as a copula, and the fact that sa Sa was the relative
pronoun both in Assyrian and in the so-called Sumerian texts ("Les assyriologues assyriologues leIe prononcent gar, afin

12. F. Max Muller,

12. F. Müller, Science oi
Miiller, The Science o,fLanguage,
of Language, New York, 1891, I: 396f.
1891, I: 396f
13. Antiquity 176-178.
13. Pallis, Antiquity 176-178.
14. "Akkadian" by Lenonnant
14. At the time, Sumerian was called "Akkadian" Lenormant and many others, while the "Sumerian" had been
thc true name "Sumerian"
divined by Oppert
üppert in 1869,
1869, and fiercely
fiercely advocated by himhirn ever sinee,
since, but was not proven correct
correet until
unti11889.
1889.
1889. See the discussions
diseussions in
Weissbach, Sumerische Frage and Fossey, Manuel I. I-
15. Etudes Accadiennes,
15. 1873, p. 1.
Accadiennes, II Paris 1873, 1.
16. Pallis, Anziquiry
Antiquity 175f.
175f.
17.
17. JA 1874
1874 534f.
18.
18. Ib-id., 506-510. The follow-up article in fA
Ibid., 506-510. JA 18761ists
1876 fivc hundred signs
1876 lists over five signs with their Semitic derivations,
derivations, a list that was
systematized, updated and revised in subsequent publications over the next thirty-five years. The great majority involved errors or
spurious etymologies, such as NIN "mistress, lord" <. c SSem.
e m . (Heb.)
(Reb.) nyn "to increase, propagate".
"ta increase, propagate".
propagate" . More convincing
eonvincing were those like
AN < < Sem. Anu or SAG < < Sem. Saqir,
Scm. saqü, an of which, like these two, have turned out to result from either Sumerian
saqil, all Sumtrim loans into iota
Semitic, or coincidental similarities (cf. Thureau-Dangin, RA 10
similarities (cf. 10 {l913]
[I9131 194).
194). A final category involved secandary values derived
secondary va1ues'
values'
equivalents, such as EL <
from Semitic equivalents, < ellu,
ellu, where the actual
aetual Sumerian reading (in this case sikil) was not yet known.
known.

49
 S. COOPER
JERROLD S.

d'en
d'en effacer l'affinite
l'aff~nitkavec l'idiome
l'idiome semitique"")
~kmitique"'~) were not so far-fetched
far-fetched in 1874.
1874. Halevy
Halkvy also pointed to
features of the so-called non-Semitic language that could not possibly, according to him, hirn, occur in a natural
language; here, certainly, contemporary students of Sumerian might agree.
langnage;
divergence
The di
eli vergence between the two methods of writing, writing, ideographie Sumerian) and phonetic, was
ideographic (our Sumerian)
explained as folIows:
follows:
follows: the writing system had been originally
originally purely ideographie,
ideographic, meant for the eye and not
for the ear, but early on, a method of phonetic writing developed, developed, whose endproduct is the phonetically
texts.
written Assyrian texts. However, because writing was thought gift, the original ideographie
to be a divine gift, ideographic
system was not abandoned, but was maintained and cultivated by the priests (much as Egyptian hiero-
glyphs were used alongside
glyphs alongside demotic),
demotic), separately [rom
from the spoken language, for religious
spaken language, religious purposes. In this
way, it also came to be pronounced, and hence developed phenomena resembling those of a natural
language,
language, like vowel harmony20.
harmony20.
For the next forty years, HalevyHalkvy wonld
would adapt and modify this theory in response to criticism, new
data and his own increasing familiarity with cuneiform sourees. sources. Both he and his critics characterized him
as an outsider to t o the field in 1874,
1874, but through his subsequent preoccupation with the Sumerian question, question,
as well as with other areas of cuneiform studies, such as Amarna, he became an Assyriologist,
aswell Assyriologist, if heter-
odox, and autodidact 2 !. Certain notions he developed in defense of his thesis
antodidact in this field as in all others
others2'. defense
are extraordinary in their ingenuity as weil well as in their incredibility:
incredibility: the fact,
fact, for example, that Semitic
prepositions appear in "Sumerian"
"Sumerian" texts as postpositions is explained as necessary to avoid confusing
these particles
partieles of relations with the actual substantives that they modify; hence, the substantives are
first22.
written first".

RACE, PHILOLOGY AND POLITICS

Almost forty years after his first anti-Sumerian manifesto, Halevy Halkvy wrote, in his final
final restatement of
his position, that once he understoodthat
understood that Sumer and Akkad did not refer to two different races, races, but
rather to geographical
geographical regions, "je m'apervus
m'aperyus
m'aper~us que les textes censes ceusks exprimer la langne
langue sumerienne
sumhienne
realit&l'idiome
expriment en realite l'idiome assyro-semitique
assyro-skmitique ordinaire, mais dans une mode de redaction rkdaction archai"que,
archa'ique,
auquel nous
uous devons
devons l'invention
l'invention de l'ecriture
l'ecriture cuneiforme"".
~ u n 6 f o r m e " ~The
~ . question of "Sumer(ian)"
"Sumer(ian)" and
"Akkad(ian)"
"Akkad(ian)" continues to stir controversy in our own time, and the Sumerian language, language, even as we know
it today, can seem unreal. But Halevy's
Halkvy's solution, as his critics never ceased to indicate, is more unreal still.
Although his thesis was well
A1though weil enough argned
argued to win over, if only temporarily, Delitzsch and the young
Thureau-Dangin (see below),
Thnreau-Dangin Assyriologists of the time rejected it.
below), the vast majority of Assyriologists it. What possessed a
scholar of Ha!evy's
Halkvy's learning to concoct such a bizarre theory and defend it so tenaciously, and at such
great cost to his reputation and credibility, for over four decades?
decades? What
m a t inspired his sense of mission,
mission, his
crusade, as Oppert aptly characterized it (see below)?
below)?
The answer suggested by Pallis referred to earlier,
earlier, prejudice conditioned by Halevy's
Halkvy's own Semitic
background, was suggested by his contemporaries as weH,
background, well,
well, but before turning
tuming to these critical
eritical responses to
Halevy's
Halkvy's thesis, we must put the question of race and civilization into its proper intellectual context in the

19.
19. Ibid., 525.
525.
20. Ibid., 529.
529.
1874 completed his Habilitation after onlya
21. Delitzsch in 1874 only a one year introduction to Assyriology under Schrader. "Cunei-
form study being in its infancy", he could do this "'with
"with comparative ease, as he be himself
bimself said" (Price,.
(Pricc,. 1012 iii). Note, too,
(Price. BA 10/2 too, Sayces
Sayce's
Sayee's
comment on Hah':vy
Halevy and his
bis theory: "Started while as yet he was ignorant of Assyrian,
Assyrian, it has been supported
suppoaed and preached by hirn him
with renewed vigour since his enrolment in the band of Assyriologists" (Lecture
(Lecture on the Origin and Growth 01 of Religion [The
of [The Hibbert
Lectures, 1887],
18871, 2nd ed., London 1888,
1888, 429). -
~u sixieme congres
22. Actes dusixi&me congr&sinternational
iinternationol des orientalistes (1883) vol. 2 558. Cf.
(1883) voL Cf. ibid. 563
563 for his explanation of why Assyrian
ofwhy Assyrian
accusative a.od
and da.tive
a.nd dative pronominal suffIxes helore the verb in the hieratic (= Sumerian) mode.
before tbe
suffxes appear before
23. Precis d'allographie assyro-babylonienne, Paris 1912.
d'aliogropkie assyro-babylonienne, 1912.

50
 POSING THE SUMERlAN
SUMERIAN QUESTION

Europe
Europe of 1874. 1874. This done, it will become clear that Halevy'sHalivy's motivation was provoked by more than
petty racial pride.
"En politique, comme en poCsie, poesie, en religion,
religion, en philosophie, le Ie devoir des peuples indo-europeens
indo-europkens
est de rechereher
rechercher la nuance, la conciliation
conciliailon des choses opposees,
opposkes, la complexite, si profondkment
profondement
inconnues
inconnues aux peuples semitiques, skmitiques, dont I'organisation
l'organisation a toujours ete et6 d'une
d'une desolante
dksolante et fatale
simplicit",,24.
simplicite"24.
~ i m p l i c i t P Thus
~ ~ . pontificated Ernest Renan in his inaugurallecture
inaugural lecture at the College
Collige de France in 1862.1862.
Renan was the the dominant figure in Semitic philology in France when Halevy Halkvy arrived
amved in Paris in 1866,
1866, and
remained so for decades. He was also "the chief scientific scientific sponsor of the Aryan myth in France"25.
Francexz5.This
26
Aryan myth, so-called,
so-called, as described by L. Poliakov and M. Olender Olender26, , was the product of European

romanticism's search for origins, and for an explanation of European dominance in science, science, politics and
commerce. The discovery of the Indo-European languages languages at the end of the eighteenth century combined
with the Enlightenment's abandonment of biblical anthropology, led European scholars scholars to discover their
"racial" origins in Aryan antiquity, an antiquity that, with the triumph of biblical higher criticism, could
be said to reach back beyond that of the Old Testament. The elaboration of the Aryan myth involved
locating
locating within Europe's
Europe's Aryan inheritance all the virtues that set Europe apart from from the rest of the world,
and viewing the triumph of Aryan Europe as the providentially providentially guided cuImination
culmination of human history.
The great paradox to be resolved for Christian Europe was that the spiritual salvation of the Aryan
race came not from religious
religious intuitions of its own, but from those of the alien Semites.
Semites. This resolution was
accomplished
accomplished by making polytheism and mythology, mythology, the major spiritual defects ofthe of the Aryans, the natural
products of the dynamism from which sprang their numerous virtues. Conversely, Conversely, the spiritual virtue of
the Semites
Semites -- their only great virtue -- which gave monotheism to the world, was said to derive from the
quiescence which otherwise characterized that race". race27.Renan, for example,
example, argued that until the appear-
ance of Christ, the JJews ews had made nothing of their monotheism, and that Christianity really had little to
do with Iudaism
Judaism (whose
(whose true
tme continuation was rather, Islam), but adopted the mentality of the (Indo-
European) people among whom it spread. Mentality, for far Renan, was determined by language. The Indo-
languages, he claimed, are varied and always
European languages, always propagating and transforming themselves,
whereas
whereas Semitic languages
languages are few,
few, immobile, stagnant and fixedfuted at an infantile stage.
stage. Semitic fitubborness
ßtubborness
stubborness
and resistance to change derived from these linguistic qualities, qualities, as did monotheism. Semitic, which devel- devel-
oped in the empty desert, is syntax-poor,
syntax-poor, incapable of conceiving multiples; hence the notion of a single
single
god. This linguistic simplicity made Semites Semites incapable of abstraction,
abstraction, metaphysics and intellectual crea-
tivity. Aryans,
Aryans, with a rich and complex complex grammar and syntax, could comprehend the multiplicity of
nature,
nature, hence polytheism and mythology, and, and, later, science and metaphysics.
metaphysics. The Semitic incapacity to
conceptualize
conceptualize muItiplicity
multiplicity meant that in literature Semites were limited to proverb, parable and verse; verse;
epic was inconceivable for them. Monotheism is simply a specific specific instance of a linguistically
linguistically determined
imagination2*.
lack of imagination".
Renan's eIderelder contemparary,
contemporary, the Indo-Europeanist Adolphe Pictet, who used a method he called
"linguistic paleontology" to restore the world of the earliest Aryans,
"Iinguistic Aryans, went further. U nable to imagine that
further. Unable

24. E. Renan, De la part semitiques dans

part des peuples sdmitiques ['histoire
/'histoire de la
dans l'histoire civilisation, Paris 1862,
fa civilisation, 1862, 16.
16.
25. Lenn
Leon
Le6n Poliakov, The A
Poliakov, The ~ a Myth.
Aryan n
Myth. A History of
ofRacisf
ofRaäst Nationalist ldeas
andNationalirt
Racist and Ideas in Europe (tr.
Idem (tr. E. Howard), New York 1974,1974, 206.
Renan is an easy target, and appears as a villain also in E. Said's Orientalisrn
Orientalirm (NewYork,
Orientalism (New York, 1978) and in M. Bemal's
Y o 4 1978) Bernal's
Bemal's BlackAthena I (New
Brunswick,
Bnmswick, 1987).
1987). His idea of race,
race, however,
however, was ambiguous,
ambiguous, and ultimately was more mare linguistic
linguistic than anthropological: «Le<OLe
"Le Ture,
Turc, devot
d&ot
devat
musulman,
musulman. est de nosjours un bien plus
iours un
nos jours olus vrai Semite
Stmite que
aue l'Israelite
l'Isra&litedevenu Frangais,
Fraucais.
~. au u.o w mieux
ou pour m i e u dire,
dire. Europeen"
Euroo6en" (cited
(cited by
bv M. OIender,
Olender.
Olender,
Les langues
langues du paradis. Aryen et Semites: un couple
ef Sdmites: providentiel, Paris 1989,
cmrpleprovidentiel, 1989, 85, and see pp. 82-84).
82-84)
26. See the works cited in the preceding note.
OIender, Langues 28.
27. Olender,
28. See the discussion ofofRenan OIender,. Lanmies
Renan in Olender, Langues
Langt/es 75-1 11.
. 75-11 Cf. the critique ofmodern
L Cf. reflexes ofthe
of modern reflex.es of the Renanian concept
conceot of
Semitic religion by A. Archi, p. 26 of Modes de contacts
contacts et processus de transformations
transformatiom dansdans les socidth
socieles anciennes
societes anciennes (Collections de
rEcale
?EcoIe Fram;aise
rEcole Fran~aisede Rome 67),671, PisaJRome
PisaIRome 1983.
1983.

51
 JERROLD S. COOPER

a people as intellectually gifted as the Aryans could have produced only base polytheistic religions, religions, he
thought he could identify a primitive monotheism among the first Aryans. This germ genn of monotheism
remained with them, to flourish again with Christianity. He cites the teachings of Zarathustra as an
example of pure, independently conceived Aryan monotheism. What led most Aryans astray for so long lang
of liberty, unique to their race, a spirit that sparked the invention of
was the spirit ofliberty, ofpolitics, science and the
politics, sdenee
arts, but also pushed the Aryans toward representing the complexity of nature in a polytheistic polytheistie religious
religious
system. Providence
system. Providenee destined the Hebrews Hebrews -- authoritarian, intolerant, single-minded -- to preserve a pure
monotheism, but "ou "oh en serait le
"OU Ie monde
mande s'i1s
s'ils etaient
Haient restes senls ita
restis seuls a la tete
t&tede l'humanite?"
l'humanitk?" It lt was the
Aryans, "douee
"douke des dks leIe debut des qualites m&mes qui manquaient aux Hebreux
qualitis memes H"breux pour devenir les Ies
civilisateurs du monde", whom providence
eivilisateurs providenee chose to bring progress and enlightenment to tbe the world".
worldzg.
But wait! Hiucks and Rawlinson had demonstrated by 1850
wait! Hincks Assyro-Babylonian was a Semitie
1850 that Assyro-Babylonian Semitic
Semitic
language. Hadn't
language. Hadn't this rendered obsolete
obsolete any notions that Semites
Semites were incapable
incapable of ereating civiliza-
creating great civiliza-
tions? Not at all! As we have seen, seen, no sooner had the Semites
Semites been brought in from from the wilderness
wildemess to the
cradle
eradle civilization,
cradle of eivilization, than it was deeided
civilization,!han decided that it was not !hey
they who created their own writing system; system; an earlier,
earlier,
non-Semitic
non-Semitie people had invented writing and created institutions (religion,
ereated the basic institutions (religion, mythology,
mythology, literature
literature and
30
science)
seience) Mesopotamiam civilization.
science) of Mesopotamiam civilization. This was what stuck in Halevy's craw
Halkvy's eraw
craw30. • In the 1876
1876 follow-up
follow-up to his
1874
1874 article,
article, Halevy stated the issue direetly:
directly: Mesopotamian civilization
directly: Where does Mesopotamian civilization come from?from? "A quelle
race faut-il
faut-il attribuer la ereation,
faut-i! creation,
creation, l'initiative?" "cette eategoire
l'initiative?" He then referred to "eette categoire
categoire de savants qui ont de la
peine itiLi aecorder
accorder
accorder aux S h i t e s certaines aptitudes qui se reviolent
a m Semites avec eclat
rkklent avee kclat dans la eivilisation
civilisation
civilisation de la
Mesopotamie.
Mhopotamie. Des telles teIles hesitations
hksitations ne disparaltront entierement
ue disparaitront entierement que le Ie jour ou \'origine ·semitique de
oh l'origine
DU l'origine's6mitique
l'ecriture cuneiforme
cuneiforme sera devenue
l'eeriture eun6iforme devenue une certitude"3l.
certitudex3'. Only by showing that euneiforrn
eertitude"31. cuneiform
cuneiform itself was a Semitic Semitie
could Semitic
invention eould Semitie virtue be upheld,
upheld, and this was the task that Halevy
Halkvy set for himself.
himself.
A peculiarity Halkvy's 1874
peeuliarity of Halevy's 1874 article, and one for which he was severly taken to task by his erities, critics,
critics,
was that he never cited another scholar by name, even when quoting directly. direetly. explained, "dans
directly. Rather, he explained,
Ie but d'observer
le stricte impersonnalite"",
d'observer la plus striete impersonnalit~?'~~,he simply attributed the opinions against whieh which he
argued to "Ies
'argued "les assyriologues". But at the end of his article he relented: relented: In a postscript, he reported that at
the moment he was correcting proofs, he noticed a passage in the just just published Hollenfahrt
HOilenfahrt der Istar by
Höllenfahrt
Eberhard Schrader, the father of German Assyriology. There Schrader tried to explain away the incontest- ineontest-
able evidence Semites were indeed capable of epie
evidenee that Semites epic composition, as manifest in the text he edited. edited. The
Semites,
Semites, explained Schrader,
Schrader, developed capability only as the result of eontact
developed that eapability contact with the Turanians of of
Babylonia, from whom they took their writing system and mytbo]ogy. mythology. Halevy found it outrageous that, as
mythology.
he interpreted Schrader, Schrader was so eertain Semites were unable to develop an epie
certain that the Semites epic tradition
using their own resources,
resourees,
resources, that he was compelled to ascribe
aseribe such a tradition, once
onee found,
found, to a purely hypo-
thetical non-Semitic source.
thetieal
Of course, the imagined limitations of the Semitie were not Sehrader's
Semitic mind Were Schrader's only reasons for postu-
lating what we could call a Sumerian origin for Ishtar's Descent, and we know that in this case, certainly,
case, eertainly,
certainly,
correct. But Schrader's views on the Semites
he was absolutely eorreet.
correct. Semites were especially
espeeially objectionable.
objeetionable. In 1875,1875, he

127-141. Note pp. 135-137,

Langues 127-141.
29. Olender, Lansres 135-137, which record the yaung Pictet's project and
young Saussure's negative reaction to Pictet's
methods.
of nineteenth century attitudes toward tbe
30. In a discussion ofnineteenth Phoenicians, Bemal
the Phoenicia.ns, Bernal devotes a short paragraph to this problem,
without mentioning Hal€:vy.
Halevy. He concludes:
concludes: "By attributing all
ail aspects cf
of Mesopotamian civilization to the Sumerians, the thc anti-
Semites who 1890s dominated much of the writing of ancient history Were
wbo by the 18908 were able to maintain their general tenet that Semites
Semites
were essentiaUy
essentially uncreative" (Blackdtheno
uncreative" (Black I, 338). I would bring his dates down to the 1860s.
Athena I, 1860s.
31. JA 1876201-203.
31. 1876 201-203. Although published two years after the first afticJe, this was
afticle, tbjs war already in proof jus-t a few months after tbe
proofjust the
Halevy attributed the delay in publication
first appeared. Ha16vy publication to "des influences (Revue ssemitique
influences occultes" (Re}'ue h i t i y u e 6 [1898J
118981 172),
172), i.e.
i.e.
Oppert.
32.
32. JJA
A 1874
1874 465f. n. 1.
465f. ll. I.

52
 POSING THE SUMERIAN QUESTION

published "Semitismus
"Semitisrnus und Babylonismus.
Babylonismus. Zur Frage nach dem Ursprunge des Hebraismus"33,
Hebrai~rnus'"~,in which
he c1aimed tbat all "North Semites", inc1uding
claimed that Hebrews, migrated from
including Babylonians, Phoenicians and Hebrews,
Arabia to Babylonia,
Babylonia, dispersing
dispersing from there to the west and south. It was from the non-Semitic population
tbat they received the elements of civilization: writing, mythology,
of Babylonia that mythology, pantheon, phallus
warship -- even parallelismus membrorum!
worship membrorum! Whatever can't be found among the Arabs isn't Semitic, and
must be attributed to that civilizing
civilizing sojourn
sojoum in Babylonia:
Babylonia:
der gesammte Nordsemitismus, eingeschlossen
eingeschlossen den Hebraismus, ist durch das Anderssein des
Babylonismus hindurch gegangen und hat sich nach sdnem,
Babylonismus seinem, ihm
ihrn eigenthümlichen
eigenthiimlichen und denselben
eigenthiimlichen nnd
von dem Arabismus
Arabismus unterscheidenden Charakter, was Anschauungs-
Anschauungs- und ganze Seinsweise
Seinsweise
betrifft, erst ausgebildet
ausgebildet in Babylonien und durch den Kontakt mit den nichtsemitischen, vor den
34
Semiten bereits in Babylonien ansässig
ansassig gewesenen Bewohnern
Bewohnerd4. •

Only after this contact with non-Semitic Babylonians were the Hebrews fit far for revelation: "in BabyIon
Babylon war
das Gefass bereitet, in welches später ~ollte"~
spater der Inhalt ewiger Wahrheit gethan werden sollte"". So~ even
. mono-
theism, the single Semitic virtue that even the most enthusiastic Aryanist would not contest, was now
claimed to have been realized only because of contact in lower Mesopotamia with the "vermutlich dem
c1aimed
innem Hochasien entstammenden
innern entstammenden Urbewohner,
Urbewohner, auf deren Rechnung auch aucb die Erfindung
Erfindung der wunder-
samen Keilschrift zu setzen ist"36.
i~t"~~.
Hal6vy
Halevy especially outraged in his early artic1es
Halkvy seems especially articles by the notion that the Turanians, of all people,
should be credited with achievements thought beyond the capacity of the Semites. Semites. Lenormant, together
Halevy's 1874
with Oppert the chief target ofHalevy's
of Hal6vy's 1874 artic1e,
article, was especially keen on the Turanians. In 1874,
article, 1874,
Lenormant published L a magie chez les
La Chaldkens et les
fes Chafdeens
Chaideens fes origines accadiennes, half of which is devoted to
demonstrating the affinities of the Sumerian ("Akkadian" in his terminology) terminology) language and system of
mythology and magie magic with those of the Turanian peoples. peoples. According to Lenormant, the Sumerian
language
language had special affinities with the Finno-U
Finno-Ugricgric group and Basque, and a long chapter was devoted to
the resemblances of Finnish and Sumerian mythology. Halevy Hal6vy regarded the Turanians as little more than
savages
savages recently emerged from from forest and steppe;
steppe; having lived among the Turks and Magyars, he c1early clearly
l i e them. He was quite properly rebuked by both Oppert and Lenormant for harboring ground-
did not like
less prejudices against the Turanians, not dissimilar, one might add, to the prejudices that others held
against the Semites 37 • But Halevy
Semites3'. Hal6vy was not alone in Paris;
Paris; in the aftermath ofthe
of the Franco-Prussian war, the
great French anthropologist Quatrefages explained the barbarous conduct of the Prussians by theorizing
that they were not really Germans at all, all, but actually Finns, remnants of a primitive (Turanian) race that
had preceded the Aryans in eastern Europe".
Europe 38 •
Europe38.
enterprise, and it was as a philologist working in a field
The "Aryan myth" was a philological enterprise, field permeated
by the mystique of Aryan superiority that HalevyHal6vy
Halkvy was provoked to vindicate the Semitic roots of Assyro-
civilization. It was not only in Assyriology that he
Babylonian civilization. be labored against aspects
aspects of the Aryan myth.

Jahrbiicher
33. lahrbiicher jilr protestantische The%gie
Jahrbücher fir
für Theologie CI
Theologie 11 (I875)
(1 875)
875) 117-133.
117-133.
34. Ibid. 131. HalCvy, Rev. de
131. HaU:vy, philologie et
dephiiologie
phil%gie CI
ef d'ethnographie 2 (I 876) 267, said in response that taking the Arabs as the model
(1876)
for Semitic capabilities
capabilities would be like taking the Baluchis or Of Afghans as representantive
representantiye of the Aryans.
35. Ibid. 133.
133.
36. Ibid. 120.
120.
J. Oppert,
37. 1. GäU. 1877 1416f.; F. Lenormant, La langue
Gott. gel. Anzeigen 1877
OppeR, Gott. primitive de la Chaldee
langueprimitive Chaldhe et les
fes idiomes touraniens,
tonraniem,
1875, 393. Ironically, Lenormant
Paris 1875, Lenomant had just just published a stinging attack against Renan's wholewhale conception of the Semitic
Lenomant refuted on the basis of Assyro-Babylonian evidence (Les
mentality, which Lenormant (Les premiPres civilisafions) voL
premieres civilisations) 11, Paris 1874,
vol. II, 1874,
113-123). It was hardly antisemitism that brought him
113.123). lt hirn
him to champion the Turanians.
38. Poliakov, Aryan Myth 261.

53
 JERROLD S.
S. COOPER

He vigorously disputed the claimed antiquity of orally transmitted Sanskrit scripture 39, tried to show that
scripture3',
the Avesta was influenced by the Old Testament (henee (hence any Zarathustran monotheism was Semitie
(hence Semitic in
origin)40,
origin)40,and he vigorously combatted the documentary hypothesis ofthe of the composition ofthe of the Pentateuch,
41
without, however, regard'l.
however, defending traditional Jewish teachings in that regard
regard4'. •

The Aryan myth did not remain confined to the lecture halls of the academy or the pages oflearned of learned
journals
journals and books. Barely nascent in Paris of 1874,1874, aavirulent
virulent political antisernitism developed in the
politieal antisemitism
1880s, culminating in the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s.
1880s, 1890s. The racial theories upon which this antisemitism
was based drew their justification
justification from the works of philologists
justifieation philologists like Renan, and it may well
phiIologists weIl have been
this ever more prominent role of antisemitism in French political life that provoked Halevy
politicallife Halkvy to maintain
so tenaeiously
tenaciously until his death in 1917
tenaciously his anti-Sumerist thesis unti! 42
191742.

PERSONALITIES AND
PERSONALITIES A m PROFESSIONAL LIFE
Halhy's ehallenge,
Halevy's challenge, addressed to "les
challenge, Yes assyriologues", was, in fact,
fact, as we have seen,
seen, direeted
directed at Oppert
and Lenormant in Paris, and at Schrader in Germany. Oppert responded in the JournalAsiatique
Journal Asiatique with the
"SumQien au
cleverly titled "Sumerien
cIeverly r i e ~ ~ and
ou rien?"" ? " ~Lenormant
~
Lenonnant book". Both took a tone of exasper-
with a 399-page book".
ated politeness, wondering why someone who had aehieved achieved so much in other branches of Semitie
Semitic studies
would so foolishly
foolishly venture onto a terrain that was not his own, and pretend to overthrow the last quarter
century of Assyriological
Assyriological scholarship. And both thought they knew the answer:answer:
l'auteur ita
l'attachement de l'auteur
Pourtant l'attachement idkes ne suffirait pas ita
a ses propres idees I'aveugler ita
il'aveugler i ce point, s'il
s'il
ne s'y etait pas joint
joint une sorte de sentiment de patriotisme de race, imparfaitement conscient de
lui-mgme et pourtant impossible ita meconnaitre.
lui-meme quelqne chose de nature ita
rnkconnaitre. Ce sentiment a quelque
etonner habituQ itB envisager
itonner les esprits habitues envisager de semblables questions avec ['impartialite
I'impartialitk de la critique,
ceux qui, n'etant
n'ktant ni Touraniens, ni Semites,
Simites, ne se croient pas charges
chargis du r6lerole de champions de
l'honneur
I'honneur de l'une I'antre de ces races el
I'une ou de l'autre
tautre et y
y demeurent tout a i [ait
fait indifferents.
indiffkrents. Mais M.
Halhy semble
Halevy semble vraiment se tenir pour solidaire de la gloire des Semites
Skmites dans l'antiquite.
l'antiquitk.
(Lenormant)45
(Lenonnant)45
(Len~rmant)~~

39. E.g. "Nouvelles observations sm sur les ecriture indiennes", Rrv

icriture indiennes", Rev. sdmitique
semitique 3 (1895)
(1895) 222-285. Just as Jewish orallaw
oral law claimed
to have been transmitted orally from Moses to the Pharasaic seribes, scribes, so the Brahmans claim millennia of oral transmission for their
sacrcd baoks. In reality, both the Jewish orallaw
sacred books. oral law and the Sanskrit texts are little aiderolder than their writing down. The question is still a
taday; see Jack Goody, The
matter of dispute today; The Irlterface
Inter/ace Between the Written
Interface Written and the Oral,
0 ~ ~Cambridge
1, 1987, ehap.
1987, chap. 4.
40. E.g. "L'influence Avesta" , Rev.
"L'influence du Pentateuque sur l'I'Avesta",
Avesta", Rev. sdmitique
semitique 4 (1896)
(1896) 164-174,
164-174, where behe lasbes
lashes out at the Aryanists who
wbo
iried to show that any similarities
have tried similarities between the Avesta and the OT were due to the th~ influence ofthe
of the former thc latter, because the
fonner on the
Avesta, likc
like the Veda, «devait
"dewit representer l'antique
l'antique religion de 1a la race indo-europeenne
indo-europdenne sans aucun melange hetcrogime
h6tizoghne et
milalange hetf:rogime e t surtout de
simitiques dont on ne voulait a
conceptions semitiques A aucun prix". TheThc question remains controversial today.
41. See F. F. Pedes, West 17
Perles, Ost und West 17 (1917) 108108 and I. LCvy, Revue Historique 126
1. Levy, 126 (1917)
(1917) 217f.
217f He believed the Pentateuch to
have been composed as a single single work toward the end of Solomon's
Solomon's reign or early in the divided kingdom.
42. On FrenchFreneh antisemitism, see R. F. Byrnes, Antisemitism in Modern France vol.
F. Byrnes,
Bymes, I , New Brunswick
"01. I, Bmnswick 1950,
1950, chap. II;11;
L. Poliakov, The History oJ
TheHistory ofAnfi-Semitism
oj Anti-Semitism vol. IV, New York 1985, 1985, ehap. especially p. 34 there, where Renan is cited as "the
chap. 2, and especially
authority" for the
major authority" tbe racial component
camponent of political
politieal antisemitism, and this eitation
citation on p. 41
41 from E. Drumonfs
Drumont's infamous La
Juive (1886),
France Jiiive distinct1y Renanesque echoes:"
(1886), which has distinctly ... the Semite, mercantile, greedy, scbeming,
echoes:". .... scheming, devious, and the thc Aryan,
enthusiastic, heroic, chivalrous, disinterested,
enthusiastic, frank, trusting".
disinrerested, frank, trusting". lt HalCvy's motivations without
It is pointless to speculate further on Halevy's
distrcssed enough by the expulsion ofthe
more evidence; he was however, distressed of the lews
Jews from Moscow in 1882 1882 to
ta write and publish a poem
in modem Hebrew on the subject.
43. JA 1875442-497. S e e also Oppert in GÖu.
1875 442-497. See Gott. ze1.
Gott. gel. A~nreigen
Anzeigen 18771877 569-574, 1409-1424.
1409-1424.
44. La langue
langue primitive de la chaldde et les
fa chaldee idiomes touraniens,
fes idiomes tocrraniens, Paris 1875. eno~mously prolific, prompting
1875. Lenormant was eno;mously
the following
following remark ofthe
of the young
yaung Friedrich De1itzsch
Delitzsch in 1875:
1875: "Jedes Jahr
Jailr die Welt mit einer Menge von Aufsätzen
Aufsatzen Büchern zu
AufsXtzen und Biichem zn
beschenken, deren InhaltInhaIt man in kaum ein paar Monaten, durch neue Inschriften belehrt, zurückzunehmen zuriickzunehmen oder wenigstens
zuriickzunehmen
bedeutend modificiren muss ... widerstreitet
muis ... widerstreitet mir durchaus" Johanning, Bibel-Babel-Streit
du~chaus"(letter to A. Dillmann cited by Jahanning, Bibel-Babel-Streit 35 1).
Bihel-Babel-Streit 351).
45. Lenormant, Lanpre Langue primitive 397.

54
 POSING THE SUMERJAN
SUMERIAN QUESTION

Nous avons du supposer que des motifs, au moins tres-respectables,

trks-respectables, ont engage
engag.! notre honorable
antagoniste ita
i s'opposer
s'opposer aux idees irrecusables
irrkcusables dans notre opinion,
opinion, et qui refusent aux Semites
Skmites
l'invention de l'ecriture
I'kcriture cuneiforme.
cun6forme. Le savant auteur ... ... en voyant echapper
Cchapper aux Semites
Skmites les
origines
origines de la science chaldeenne,
chaldkenne, craint ded e donner raison a i de certaines prktensions
pretensions des
aryanistes qui regardent Iiäi tort comme superieure
sup6rieure la race des Iudoeuropeens.
Indoeuropkens. Nous sommes
Hilevy: nous ne croyons
d'accord avec M. HaJevy: croyons pas que les Semites
Skmites aient dans I'histoire du monde une
place moins
mains privil6gike
privilegiee que celle qui devra revenir aux Aryas dans les origines
origines de la civilisation.
Mais c'est justement a
c'est justement i cause de la grande influence qu'ont
qu'ont exercee
exerc.!e les Semites
Skmites dans d'autres
n'hisitons pas a
branches du developpement de l'intelligence, que nous n'hesitons i ne pas leur accorder ce
qui ne !eur
leur revient pas.
(Oppert)46
(O~pert)~~

Oppert continued: If the Semites did not invent the cuneiforrn

cuneiform system,
system, so clumsy and "si peu appropriee
aux besoins d'un penple
peuple vraiment civilisateur", we should not forget that they invented the alphabet,
"accept6 par toutes les nations civilisees". This important fact alone should be enough to set aside the
"accepte
fears of those who worry about others devaluing those (Semitic) civilizations "auxquelles les temps
[ears
leurs croyances religieuses.
modernes doivent !eurs cas, la question n'est pas lit".
religieuses. En tout cas, 1i".
Ja".
Halkvy's accomplishment,
Both French scholars regretted the necessity of attacking a scholar of Halevy's accomplishment, but
regarding the Semitic origin of the syllabary
did so nonetheless. Their refutations regarding syllabary were thorough and
telling,
telling, but by clinging too closely to the Turanian hypothesis, they gave HaIevy Halkvy plenty of ammunition for
his subsequent rebuttals. Both Oppert and Lenormant brougth the argument -- absurd to us now, now, and to
Halevy then -- that Sumerian TUR meaning "son, man (in the sense of citizen or group member)" member)" was
etymologically the same as Iranian Tur, the eponym of the Turanian language language group47,
group4', thus clinching;
clinching, for
them, the relationship with Sumerian'8
Sumerian''.
S ~ m e r i a n Oppert,
Oppert,
~~. trying to show how fundamentally different is the struc- strnc-
ture of Sumerian from any Semitic language, language, pointed to Sumerian nominal compounds (Semitic
don't combine nouns), which he likened to Sanskrit compounds. To prove the point, he
languages don't
presented the ludicrous spectacle of a Sumerian hymn translated into Sanskrit!49 Sanskrit!" Lenormant exposed
himself to Halevy's
himselfto Marduk-na~ir kudurru
Halkvy's ridicule by using the Marduk-nasir kudurrusoso to illustrate the non-Semitic, high cheek-
cheek-
boned, straight-nosed Turanian type in Babylonian art'!. artS!.
arts1.
52
Schrader, eschewing
eschewing the grace and humor of Halevy's Parisian colleagues,
colleagues, began his rejoinder
rejoindersZ with
a school-masterish rehearsal of how and why Assyriologists
Assyriologists concluded that cuneiform was invented by
non-Semites, and why Sumerian could not be a Semitic language. He then tellingly demolished Halevy's
non-Semites,
arguments
arguments on syllabary and language.
language. He skirted the Turanian issue, saying saying that calling Sumerian
"Turanian" was just
"Turanian" saying that Sumerian is an aggjutinative
just a convenient way of saying language, and he left
agglutinative language,
open the question of its nearer affinites.
affinites. But he was fierce
fierce on the subject of the origin of Assyro-

46. Oppert, JA 1875 1875 444.

47. Seen.
Seen. 11.II.
11.
48. Oppert,
Opperl, JA 1875 4 6 4 f Lenormant, Langue primitive
1875 464f.; primitive 381 Opperl, this showed that "Le sumerien
38 1 n. 1. For Oppert, sumtrien est par excel-
lence la langue
langue touranien".
tauranien". Furthennore, Oppert
üppert thought that a study of the basic ideogram stock of Sumerian showed that the
Sumerians originated in the north.
49. fA 1815 454 n. 1.
JA 1875454 1.
50. E. Strommenger, 5000 Years Years ofthe
of the Art o[lldesopotamia,
o/the o f l k o p o t a m i a , New York 1964,
oflldesopotamia, 1964, 27Of.
270f.
51. Langue primitive
primitive 382f. In fairness to Lenonnant, he went on to justly criticize Halevy racial labels can
HalCvy for insisting that raciallabeIs
be applied to art. No Assyriologist,
Assyriologist, said Lenormant, puts the question on an either/or eitherlor basis; rather, Babylonian civilization was a
of the coexistence of Semites
product ofthe Semites and Turanians from earliest times, "la fusion des genies propres aux deux races" (388). (388). See
Ha16vyvys' inability to accept the notion of different "races"
below for Halevy's "races" cooperating.
cooperating.
52.
52. ZDMG 29 (1875) 1-47. 1-47.

55
 S COOPER
JERROLD S.
JERROLD

Babylonian civilization~
Babylonian civilization; whosewhose accomplishments,
accomplishments, he insisted, were were decidedly
decidedly non-Semitic, referring the
interested reader to
interested to his "Semitismus und Babylonisrnus"
his "Semitismus Babylonismus" (see (see above).
above). And,
And, Schrader
Schrader argued,
argued, ifHalevy
if Halevy saw saw
between later Assyro-Babylonian
continuity between Assyro-Babylonian art art and the earlier Mesopotamian monuments, monuments, it is is because
the Semites
the Semites took overover thethe entire
entire earlier tradition,
tradition, since the Babylonian
Babylonian SemitesSemites werewere themselves,
themselves, "wie alle alle
Semiten, was
Semiten, was Kunst anbelangt,
anbelangt, wenig rigi in ell"^^. Nor was
wenig originell"". was Schrader open to compromisecompromise on the subject of
The Semites
literature: The Semites lacked
lacked an an "epic
"epic drive",
drive", and
and ifthe Assyro-Babylonians, alone among Semites,
if the Assyro-Babylonians, Semites, had
developed an
developed an epic
epic deserving
deserving comparison with with that
that of the Indo-Gerrnans,
Indo-Germans, then an unprejudiced scholar
should note
should note that thethe Babylonian
Babylonian Semites
Semites had been living living together with a highly developed non-Semitic
civilization, and
civilization, and that
that scholars
scholars would
would have
have to to be
be blind not to put the two two together, attributing Babylonian
epic to
epic civilizationi4.
to that non-Semitic civilization 54 •

Halevy's rebuttaIs
Halevy's rebuttals were
rebuttals were filled
filled with
with sarcasm
sarcasm and and self-assurance.
self-assurance.His His attack
attack on Lenorrnant focussed on
Lenormant focussed
the question, where
the Turanian question, where he he was
was mostmost effective:
effective: "Le grand pretre prttre de de la religion prehistorique
prt5historique de de la
race touranienne brandit Ie
race le glaive
le glaive vengeur sur sur lala tete
t&tedudn scelerat
scklkrat qui
qui jette la torehe
torche incendiaire dans dans le le
Ie
parvis de
parvis de son
son temple"''.
temple"ii. As As toto Lenormant's accusation of racial patriotism, patriotism, Halevy rejected it by pointing
to the
to the fact
fact that Oppert,
Oppert, who who opposed
opposed hirn, him, was
him, was also
also a Jew 56 • Halevy would use
JewS6. use thatargument
argument over and
that argument
over to
over to defend against later, later, similar charges,
charges, seeming
seeming not to understand that the argument itself was was illog-
illog-
ical.
ical.
ica!.
He replied
He replied toto Oppert
Oppert and Schrader jointly in
and Schrader in aa two-part article 57 • In the first
articles7.
article". first part, published in 1876,1876,
he stated
he stated most openly
openly the the issue
issue hehe was
was trying
trying to
to address:
address: The Mesopotamian monuments had proved that
the Semites
the Semites were
were capable
capable of all all that thethe Aryanists had been insisting they were were not, but scholars like
Schrader were
Schrader were using
using thethe Sumerians
Sumerians to to deprive
deprive thethe Semites accomplishment^^^. The second
Semites of those very accomplishments". second
part of thethe rebuttal appeared two two years
years later,
later, with
with a note by Halevy Halivy describing
describing the delaydelay as
as due
due toto the
resignation ofthe
resignation the journal's
of the journal's editor,
editor, and
and an an editorial note saying
saying that onlyonly the absence
absence of an editor allowed
allowed
the article
the article to
to be
be printed without modifyingmodifying the the personal attacks
attacks it contained. Thus Thus forewarned,
forewarned, the reader
soon finds
soon finds hirnself
himself in in the
the midst of aa vicious
vicious personal attack on Oppert as as a scholar and human being.
Oppert "poursuit ses ses invectives
invectives avec d'acharnement, professe a
avec tant d'achamement, A l'egard
l'kgard du eritique
il'egard dkdain si
critique un dedain
bruyant que ... ces
que ... ces continuelles
continuelleS provocations nous obligent" to consider his scholarly qualifications.
Despite Oppert's early early education in Hebrew, Hebrew, his contributions to Semitic Semitic philology were marked by
numerous failures: "Sous la main inexperimentee
failures: "Sous inexpkrimentee de M. Oppert, les expressions expressions les plus claires ... ... sont
violentees ou deforrnees,
violentees difonnies, ita l'effet d'en tirer des
deformees, des idees ereuses,
creuses, pedantesques
creuses, pkdantesques ou des images images insipides et
excessive"jg.
d'une platitude excessive"59.
Acknowledging Oppert's role
Acknowledging role in the early
early years of the decipherment of cuneiforrn, cuneiform, he asserted that
cuneiform,

Ibid. 42.
53. lbid.
Ibid. 42.
54. lbid.
54. 50f.
Ibid. 50f.
pritendue langue
55. La pretendue
55. I a n p e d'Accad,
d'Accad, est-elle
est-elle touranienne?
tol~ranienne?Paris 1875, 6.
1875, 6.
56. Ibid.
56. Ibid. Sf.
5f. Hak~vy
HalCvy was was also
also under the strange
strange illusion that Weissbach, Haupt and Delitzsch were Jews (Rev. (Rev. Semitique
SPmitique 6
[I8981 172;
[1898] 172; ibid.
ibid. 15
15 [1906]
[I9061 184).
184). He
He may have
have been confused by the fact that Weissbach
Weissbach can also
also be a Jewish name. Haupt was
taught Hebrew as as a child
child by a rabbi who who was
was the father
father of his
his favorite playmate (Albright, Sfitdies Haupt xxi),
(Albright, Stltdies
Studies xxi), which mayaiso
may also have
confused Halcvy.
confused HalCvy. Delitzsch's
Hal6vy. Delitrsch's father,
father, the
the famous
famous theologian
theologian Franz
Franz Delitzsch, had defended himself forfor fifty
fifty years against
against charges
charges that
he was
he was the illegitimate
illegitimate son
son afaof a Jew,
ofa Jew, one
one Lewy
Lewy Hirsch, wha who had roomed in his parents' house and had helped support Franz, whose
who
were quite
parents were quite poor, through gymnasium and university (K. (K. Johanning, Der Bibel-BabeL-Streit 19881 27f.). Franz
Bibel-Babel-Streit [Frankfurt 1988]
life-long foe
became a life-Iong
life-long foe of antisemitism,
antisemitism, but the leader ofthe ofthe
of Jews to Christianity as well. His son Friedrich, the
the movement to convert Jews
Assyriologist and erstwhile
Assyriologist erstwhile ally
ally of HalCvy, who
Hal6vy,
ofHalevy, who had been taunted as as "der ludenenkel", antisemite towards the end
Judenenkel", became a vicious antisemite
his life
of his
ofhis life (Johanning, ap. op. cit.;
cit.; H.
H. Huffmon, "Babel und
Hufimon, «Babel
Huffman, itndBibel:
Bibel: The Encounter Bctween Q~rarterly
Babylon and the Bible", Michigan Quarterly
Between BabyIon
Babylon
Review 22 22 (1983)
(1983) 309-320
309-320 [also
[also in M. O'Connor
in M. O'Connar and D. N. N. Freedman, Backgrounds for the the Bible,
Bible, Winona Lake IN
Eible, 19871). Was
IN 1987]).
HalCvy taunting hirn
Hal6vy
Halevy him asas well?
well?
57.
57. Rev.
Rev. dede philologie et et d'ethnologie 2 (1876)
(1876) 259-272;
259-272; 3 (1878) 193-214.
193.514.
58. Rev. de
58. Rev. de philo!.
phi101 et
philol. el J'et~nol.
d'ethnoi 22 266.
266.
59.
59. Rev.
Rev. dedephilol.
philol. et
philo!. el J'ethnol.
d'ethnol 3 199-202.
199-202.

56
 POSING THE SUMERIAN QUESTION

now "tout
"tout le
Ie monde s'aper,oit
s'aper~oitque eelui
celui qui fut nauguere
naugukre le
Ie premier des assyriologues
assyriologues est aujourd'hui tres-
trh-
arriere"60
arrikrP60. More eutting
cutting still, and more revealing,
revealing, was the following:
following:
Les connaissanees
connaissances hebraiques
hkbraiques et chaldaYques
chaldalques
chalda'iques qu'il
qu'il s'etait
s'ktait aequises
acquises des
dks son enfanee,
enfance, quoique
stationnaires
stationnaires et imparfaites, suffisaient eependant
cependant pour laisser loin derriere lui des devanciers ... ...
et il y a lieu de croire que son origine semitique
skmitique n'a
n'a pas ete pour peu de chose dans eette
etkpour cette glorieuse
obstination.
obstination. Malheureusement, le Ie defaut
dkfaut du gout,
deraut go%, la recherche des invraisemblanees
invraisemblances ... ... enfin
I'insuffisanee
l'insuffisance de son eapital
I'insuffisance capital de philologie semitique,
skmitique, tout eela
cela ensemble sese fait jonr ... son
jour dans ...
Expedition
Expkdition en Mesopotamie,
Mbopotamie, la meilleure ... ... de ses oeuvres 61
oeuvres6'.

Oppert's supposedly faulty scholarship,

scholarship, Halevy implied, was a betrayal of his Jewish upbringing. The
presumption that a Jewish edueation
education should have provided a solid basis for Assyriology was also also intended
to boost Halevy's
Halkvy's own eredentials
credentials as a newcomer.
newcomer· to that field.
field.
Why, suddenly, such rancor?
raneor? Oue
One eould detect in Oppert's patronizing reassuranee
could deteet reassurance of
ofHalevy
Halevy
Halkvy on the
subjeet
subject of Semites and writing (see
(see above) the self confidenee
confidence of a sophistieated,
sophisticated, socially well-assimilated
Jew,
Jew, teaehing
teaching sinee
since 1869
1869 at the College
Collkge de Franee,
France, who, having eompleted
completed gymnasium and university in
his native Germany,
Germany, had lived virtually his entire adult life in Franee.
France. He could not have been more
different than his coeval eorreligionist
correligionist Halevy,
Halkvy, an Ottoman Jew, Jew, autodidaet,
autodidact, newly arrived in Paris
with
la notion la plus exaete
exacte des manieres
manihres d'agir, de penser et de sentir de l'Oriental ... eleve
l'oriental ... Bevi dans un
monde separe diffkrences de langue et de religion, il a garde
"nations" particularistes par les differences
sipare en "nations" gardk au
judaYsme
judalsme natal nn
juda'isme un attachement passionnk
passionne qui fit de lu;
lui un champion toujours pr&t pret ita
pr"t 8 defendre,
defendre,
ingknue, les causes favorables ita
avec la bonne foi la plus ingenue, B la grandeur passke
passee du peuple juifjuif et des
general62.
62
gknkra162.
Semites en general •

Oppert had eome

come to France, as had many other German Jews in the middle third ofthe of the century,
century, in search
ofliberties
of liberties available to Jews nowhere else on the continent. To cite only, once more, Renan in his famous famous
leeture 1862, "si I'on
lecture of 1862, l'on exeepte
excepte la France qui a eleve dans le Ie monde le Ie principe d'une eivilisation
prineipe d'une civilisation
purement ideale,
idkale, ecartant
kcartant toute idee de difference
diffkrence de races, les Juifs presque partout forment encore eneore une
sociitk a
societe 8 part"63.
part"".
Oppert never hid his Judaism; to the contrary, he was aetive active in Jewish eauses.
causes. Halivy's manner
causes. But Halevy's
of
ofwearing
wearing his Judaism on his sleeve in professional life lire -- precisely
preeisely what was not neeessary,
necessary, theoretieally,
theoretically,
in France -- must have been distasteful to Oppert. Oppert's
Oppert's work of the preceding quarter century, which whieh
early on had been unsueeessfully
unsuccessfully attaeked
attacked by a notorious racialist 64 , was now
racialist64, being ehallenged
challenged with imper-
tinence by an outsider, flying
flying -- in Lenormant's words (see above)
above) --thethe "unmistakable"
"unmistakable" banner of Semitic
pride. It is difficult to determine exaetly
exactly what actions of Oppert prompted Halevy's HaMvy's outburst;
outburst; although
more socialize
socialize to the norms of appropriate
appropriate scholarly discourse,
discourse, Oppert was no less contentious or egotis-
tical than Halevy, and he possessed tremendous influence in the Parisian academic community. By 1877, 1877,
he was calling Halevy's theory "a contrived fantasy", and accusing him hirn of
ofpreaching
preaching "einen ungliicklichen
unglücklichen
Kreuzzug gegen 'Sumer
'Sumer und Akkad"'65.
Akkad"'65.
Halkvy remembered the period with great bitterness:
Decades later, Halevy

60. Ibid. 209.

60.
61. Ibid. 206.
62. l.I. Levy, Rev. hisforique 126
Rev. historiqt/e 126 (1917) 215.
63. Peupies
63. Peuples s6mifiques
semitiques 13. 13.
64. The «most
64. A. de Gobineau
"most vehement" of the many early attacks on the decipherment of cuneiform came from Count J. A
(pallis,
(Pallis, Antiquity oi
(Paliis, Anfiquify o f Iraq
of h a q 161 Far Gobineau's
f.). For
161f.). Gobineau's racial theories, see Poliakov, Afyun
Aryan Myth 233~238.
jlJyth 233-238.
65.
65. Gätt.
Gatt.
G i f t . gel. Anzeigen 18771877 I1 572, II
I1 1417.
1417.

57
 JERROLD S.
S. COOPER

MaJgre le
Malgre Ie ton impersonnel et respectneux
respectueux de mon article de 1875,
1875, ma
rna theorie m'am'a va1u
valu des afflic-
afflic-
nombre. On organisa une persecution sans
tions sans nombre. tr&vecontre moi. Je
sans treve J e fus
fus empeche
emp&ch&de faire
des communications a a !'Institut,
l'Institut, on m'a
m'a evince de 1a Sociite des Etudes
la Societe juives
~ t u d e jnives
s et au moyen de
denigrements et de calomnies, on atout a tout fait pour me priver du poste j'occupe a
paste que j'occupe a l'Ecole
l']icole des
Hautes-Etudes. arrives plus facilement, on a commence a
Hautes-~tudes.Et pour y arriver B declarer ma rna tMorie
theorie ridicule,
sachant que leIe ridicule tue vite en France"6.
Francec6.

fend between the two scholars,

The feud scholars, harsh even by Parisian standards, continued unabated until Oppert's
unti! Oppert's
death in 1905 67 . Oral tradition transmitted by a senior French colleague reports that the two actnallycame
1905". colleague actually came
to blows with umbrellas in the hallway of the Institut!
Institut! Unfortunately, most of the oral tradition and
personal recollections
recollections that could have helped us to read between the lines ofthe
of the published
pnblished record are now
lost.
lost.

SUMER SPEAKS
SPEAKS
According Pallis, the death blow to Ha!evy's
According to Pallis, Halkvy's thesis was dealt by Paul Hanpt's
Haupt's work on Sumerian
1879-1882, and the publication, beginning in 1884,
grammar from 1879-1882, 1884, of the materials recovered by the
Tello, the first site to be excavated in Sumer itsel[68.
French from Tello, itselF8. Bnt,
But, in fact,
fact, Halevy's thesis enjoyed its
successes following
greatest successes following these events. As we have seen,
seen, work such as Hanpt's,
Haupt's, which showed Sumerian
to ha ve the regular phonological and morphological
have morphological features of a natural language, could be assimilated to
naturallanguage,
language,
Halevy's
Halhy's theory: As Sumerian,
Sumerian, what Halevy considered to be the hieratic mode of representing Assyro-
Babylonian, became more and more a speciallanguage
special language of the priesthood, it was pronounced by those who
special
learned and used it,it, and thus began to develop in some ways like the naturallanguage
natural language it was not. As to the
art from Tello, which, in Pallis's words showed "the outward appearance of the new people, and scholars
Tello, which,
weil as laymen could all see the difference from
as well from the well-known
well-known Semitic type"69
type"69-- Halevy
HaMvy could account
for this, too! The sculpture from Tello showsshows mortals as round headed, bald and clean shaven -- the "new
peoplen-
people"- but gods are bearded and rather "Semitic looking". In 1906, 1906, Eduard Meyer elaborated his own
thesis to explain this distinction 70 • The mortals were indeed the Sumerians, a non-Semitic racial type that
distincti~n'~.
Babylonia, and the deities were Semitic, taken over by the newly arrived Sumerians
conquered southern Babylonia,
[rom
from the indigenous
indigenous Semites! Haltvy's response: It is weil
Semites! Halevy's well known that primitive peoples render the human
form in a very summary way but lavish a great deal of care on their representations of their gods. Thus,
the mortals portrayed on the early monuments tell us nothing about how the people really appeared; only
the images
images of their gods reveal the race of these people, and they are unambiguously Semitic. Semitic.
Nor were the texts from Tello, and later Nippur, immediately decisive, as Pallis snggests suggests they were.
Both the Sumerist and anti-Snmerist
anti-Sumerist positions had been elaborated primarily on the basis of Sumerian
and bilingual texts from
from seventh century Nineveh. Older texts from the south were known (e,g. (e.g. IR 1-5),
(e.g. 1-5),
but relatively rare,
rare. When, large numbers of early texts from
rare. from Tello
Tello and Nippur did become available,
available, their
decisive, and they were hardly mentioned in the major confrontations with
evidence was not immediately decisive,
Halevy's
Haltvy's thesis offered by Weissbach
Weissbacb (1898)and
(1898) and Fossey (1904).
(1898) (1904). In a paper read in 1882,1882, Halevy was
confident that the new inscriptions unearthed by de Sarzec seltle the Sumerian question
Sarzec at Tello would settle

66. Rev. shitique 17 (1909)

semitique 17 (1909) 198f.
(I909) 198f.
67. Weissbach 107 107 describes "a small skirmish" 1888-89: In a paper read to the Academie des Inscrip-
skirmish between the two in 1888-89:
tions, Halevy
lions, HalCvy took the opportunity to repeat his anti-Sumerist position. "Oppert widersprach ihm in allen Punkten. Als HalevyHaltvy
seinen Vortrag dann veroffentlichte
verijffentlichte und Oppcrt
veröffentlichte Oppert zu widerlegen suchte, antwortete dieser mit einer Declaration, Halevy
HalCty mit einer
Reponse
RCponse und Oppert wieder mit einer Replique,
Rtplique, ohne dass die Sache
Sache seIbst
selbst auch nur einen Schritt gefOrdert
gefirdert worden wäre".
ware".
wan=".
Pallis, Antiquity
68. Panis, Antiquity 181f.
181f.
69. Ibid.
70. Sumerier lind
und
tmd Semiten in Babylonien,
Babylonlen, Bcrlin
Berlin 1906.
1906.

58
 POSING THE SUMERIAN QUESTION

onee and for all in his fa

once vor71 , and on servera!
favor7', serveral oecasions
occasions he presented transliterations of Early Dynastie
Dynastic
inscriptions side-by-side
inseriptions side-by-side with translations of them into Assyrian,
Assyrian, to emphasize their Semitie
Semitic eharacter,
character,
together with French
Freneh translations and philologieal
philological notes that provided Semitie
Semitic etymologies
etymologies far
for eaeh
each and
.-
72
every Sumerian wordword72. •

In 1889, Friedrieh
Friedrich Delitzseh
Delitzsch declared himself
himself for Ha!evy's
Halevy's position in the first edition of his
Assyrische Grammatik
Grammatikn. 7l . In alueid
a lucid and eoneise
concise
concise presentation ofwhat
of what Thureau-Dangin would later eallcall "Ie
"le
meilleur
meillenr de la these
thkse 'haleviste"'74, Delitzseh remarked that the inseriptions
'halkvi~te""~,Delitzsch inscriptions of the aneient
ancient kings of Ur,
Larsa and Tello betray their Semitie Semitic origins through words like da-ri (form dan?),
darzi), but also
also through
"semitische Denk- und Sprechweise" in, for example, royal titles and epithets". epithets7'. Eight years later,
Thureau-Dangin published a seleetion selection
selection of tablets from Tello, ranging from Presargonic through Ur IH, III,
111,
including the first Sargonie
Sargonic
Sargonic tablets ever ~ublished.
published. Thureau-Dangin
Thnreau-Dangin was perplexed by the mixture
mixture of of
phonetie and logographie
phonetic logographic writing in these last. If a personal name written a-iJu-DUG,
a-@DUGs was obviously to be
Semitic aiJu-(abu,
read as Semitie aiJu-Iabu,
ahrr-(cibzl, was the name gu-de-a
gii-dk-a on the same tablet to be read as written, or as Semitie
Semitic
nablu? sa'amu, given the fact that in the same texts su
in-ne-gi-sa,, be read as a form of Semitic Sa'umu,
nabiu? Should in-ne-si-saJO Su
ba-ti alternates with the phonetically
ha-ti phonetiea!ly written Semitie
Semitic im-iJur?
im-bur?
Si je eite
cite ces exemples
exemples que je pourrais aisement
aiskment multiplier, c'est afin de montrer eombien
combien
flottante et ineertaine
flottante incertaine est,
est, dans l'hypothese d'nne double langue, la limite itA etablir entre le
l'hypothkse d'une Ie
semitisme
skmitisme et le non-simitisme: il n'existe ita vrai dire aueun
Ie non-semitisme: aucun criterium
critkrium permettant de distinguer
d'une fa,on
faqon certaine une inseription
inscription non semitique d'une inseription
inscription semitique
skmitique ecrite
ccrite
kcrite
idkographiquement. Dans la prksente
ideographiquement. l'hypothkse d'une langue non
presente etude nous ecarterons I'hypothese
76
skmitiq~e'~.
semitique •

Were there any true non-Semitic texts at all, all, they should be found in the period before Sargon,
Sargon, reasoned
Thureau-Dangin, but when we examine the Presargonie Presargonic inseriptions
inscriptions recently exeavated
excavated in Babylonia, we
find frequent phonetically written Semitic
Semitic terms, such as dam-J1a-ra, da-ri, and gi-na,
dam-ha-ra, da-ri, gi-na, which prove that the
language
language of those timt
tlmt
that wrote the inseriptions
inscriptions was Semitic, as does "l'emploi
"l'emploi de tournures
toumures ou de construe-
construc-
construc-
tions se modelant sur la phrase semitique
skmitique ".... On se trouve done
donc en prksence
presence d'inscriptions redigees
redigkes non pas
en deux langues, mais d'apres
d'aprks deux systemes diffkrents, l'un ou
systkmes differents, oh domine leIe phonktisme,
phonetisme, l'autre ou
oh domine
l'ide~graphisme"~~.
l'iMographisme"77 This was precisely Halevy's
Halhy's thesis!
thesis!
Even those who firmly upheld the Sumerist position were uncertain about what the early inscrip-
tions implied for it. Hilprecht, for example, was eertaincertain that Lnga!zagesi
Lngalzagesi
Lugalzagesi was a Semite, whose name was to
Sarnl-mali-emüqi-keni,
be read Sarnl-mali-emLlqi-keni,
Sarnr-mdi-em~iqi-kcini,but Lagash,
Lagash, aceording
according to him, was a Sumerian bastion78.
bastion". Radau, though,
would read the names of all the early rulers of Lagash as Semitie: Semitic: Ur-Nanshe ~ Kalab-nanse,
Ur-Nanshe=Kalab-nanie,
Eanatum ~Bit-same-uktn,
= Bit-Sam8-z~kin, Gudea =~Nabiu79.
N a b i ~ ' ~Chronology
. also played a role in the confusion. Nabonidus
had dated Naramsin 3200 years earlier than himself, and despite the reservations of some scholars about
of this date, it was generally accepted until King put early Babylonian chronology on a more
the reliability ofthis
solid basis in 1910
1910a0.80 • Thus Radau, noting that "Semitisms oeeur
Radau, "Semitisms occur in almost all the earliest inscriptions",

M6langes de
71. lvIelanges rie critique
cririqlie et d'hisfoire (Paris 1883)
el d'histolre
d'histoire 1883) 389-409.
E.g. Le sumerisme et l'histoire babyionienne
72. E.g.
B.g. babylonienne (Paris 1901)
baby/anienne 1901) 38-85.
73. F. Delitzseh, Assyrische Grammatik,
F. Delitzsch, Gmmmafik, Berlin 1889,
1889, §25.
$25.
74.
74. RA 10 10 {l913)
(1913) 194.
194.
Delitzseh, Assyrirche
75. Delitzsch, Grammaiik 69.
Assyrische Grammatik 69.
76. RA 4 (1897) 73.
76.
77. Ibid. 73f.
78. BE 1/2112 (1896) 269f.
269f.
79. Early Babylonian
Baby/onian Hisrov,
History, New York 1900,1900, 144.
144.
80. L. W. King,
80. King,A A History a/Sumer
ofS~imerand Akkad, London 1910,
o/Surner 1910, 61-65;
61-64; cf. F. Schmidtke, "Die Fehldatierung Naramsins durch
cf. F.
Nabonid", WO II(1947)
{l947)
(1947) 51-56.
51-56.

59
 lERROLD S.
JERROLD S. COOPER

pushed the period of pure Sumerian culture, the beginnings

beginnings of "civilization and history ...... back to at least
6000 Be"". Halevy
B P R ' .Halivy could easily poke fun at scholars who insisted so emphatically on the existence of a
people who lost their independence in such remote antiquity,
antiquity, and who left no unmediated evidence of
their presence.
Nevertheless,
Nevertheless, continued study of the ever increasing number of early texts would, necessarily,
necessarily, lead
HaMvy's thesis by both Delitzseh
to the abandonment of Halevy's Thnreau-Dangin. Delitzsch dropped it
Delitzsch and Thureau-Dangin.
already in his Die Entstehung des iiltesten Schrftsystems oder der Ursprung
ältesten Schriftsystems Ursprz~ngder Keilschrzftzeichen
Keilschrijtzeichen (Leipzig
Keilschri/tzeichen
1897); Thureau-Dangin passed over the question in silence
1897); silence in his Recherches sur i'origine d'kcriture
l'origine d'{xriture
cunkiforme of 1898,
cuneijorme
cunei/orme 1898, and seems not to have explicitly acknowledged the existenee
existence of aseparate
a separate Sumerian
ethnolinguistic group until 1907 82 • Halevy, octogenarian, had lost his last
190782.
190782. Halivy, prominent supporter, but he
supporter, hut
maintained his lonely course and produced, at 85, 85, the Prkcis d'allographie assyro-babylonienne,
Precis d'a[[ographie assyro-babylonienne, a final,
final,
lengthy statement of this theory. In a peculiar, dismissivedismissive review of that work,
work, Thureau-Dangin
mentioned that Halevy's
Halivy's thesis had enjoyed Delitzsch's suport for a time, hut but was eompletely
completely silent about
adherence to it
his own adherence 83 •
itR3.

INNOVATION AND DEVIANCE

The replies to Halevy
Halivy by Oppert,
Oppert, Lenormant and Schrader, as weil well as the later overviews by
Weissbach and Fossey,
Fossey, all began by setting forth the reasons for the two-decade old consensus
consensus th"at
that Halevy
Halivy
had attacked. Rawlinson's original deeipherment (Assyro-Babylonian)cuneiform had shown
decipherment of Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian)
(185 I), but two anomalies immediately became apparent. On the one hand, the
it to be a Semitic language (1851),
cuneiform syllabary
syllabary was neither structurally nor phonologically weil well suited to represent a Semitic
language;
langnage;
language; on the other, the syllabic values ofthe
of the logograms
logograms used to represent certain Semitic
Semitie words had no
obvious relationship to those words. quicHy saw the resolution ofthese
words. Hincks quickly of these anomalies: Cuneiform had
been originally intended to write another,
another, non-Semitic language (1852),
(1852), and at almost the same time this
intuition was confirmed when Rawlinson and Oppert both characterized the non-Semitie
intui,tion non-Semitic language of the
bilinguals
bilinguals as "Scythian", later "Turanian" (see above),
above), because unlike Semitic or Indo-European
languages, it was agglutinative, and Oppert theorizcd
theorized that the "Scythians" had invented cuneiform, which
was then borrowed by the Semites.
Semites. The subsequent twenty years of study of the bilingual texts fully
substantiated Oppert's theory; indeed many features of both the lexical and literary bilingual texts made
sense only in the context of such a theorys4.
theory84.
theory".
The rapid development and confirmation of the theory of cuneiform origins origins in response to anoma-
lies in the data elieited decipherment hears
elicited by Rawlison's deeipherment bears some resemblanee forging of a scientific
resemblance to the forging
paradigm through whieh
which a new diseipline
discipline is created, as described by Thomas Kuhn".Kuhnt5. Indeed, despite the
enormous advanees
advances in nearly a century and a half half of Assyriology,
Assyriology, this basic paradigm still frames
frames our
approach to research:
research: A prior Sumerian civilization invented the cuneiform writing system, system, whieh
which was
'~ubsequently
subsequently adapted to write the Semitic dialect(s) ancestral to Assyro-Babylonian
Assyro-Babylonian Akkadian, as weilwell as
languages of neighboring areas. Mesopotamian ci
other languages civilization
vilization was the result of the interaction of
Sumerian and Semitic elements (as weil degree, other groups), and a good bit ofthe
well as, to a lesser degree, of the religious

81. Early Babylonian

Babylonian History 149f.
149f.
82. F.
F. Thureau-Dangin, sumerischen und akkadischen
Thureau-Dangin, Die sumerischen Königsinschrijten, Leipzig 1907,
Konigsinschrijten,
akkadischen Konigssinschrifren, 1907, introduction. See Halevy's
HaIevy's
HalBvy's reac-
reac-
semitique 15
tion in Rev. s&mitique IS
15 (1907)
(1907) 389f.
83. RA 10 10 (1913)
(19
, 13) Halevy's rebuttal in Rev. 'emitique
194-197. Cf. Halevy's
, 194-197. semitiare 21 (1913)
semitique 21 . , 424-438.
84. See especially Schrader, ZDMG 29 (1875) 1-4.
especially Schrader, 1-4.
85. The Structure 0/
The Strncture of Scientijic
Scientific Revolrrtions,
Revolutions, 2nd ed., Chicago 1970.
1970. A-discussion
Adiscussion of the applicability of insights developed in
stu ding the history and social
studing social structure of the natural sciences to the humarustic
humanistic sciences must be deferred, except to note that
Assyriology, with its narrow research consensus and positivist methodology can be said to resemble physicsphYsics or biology much more
closely than, say,
closely say, the study of French literature.

60
 QUESTION
POSING THE SUMERIAN QUESTION

and intellectual heritage of of Assyria and Babylonia bears the Sumerian imprint. This is what Assyriologists
believed when HalkvyHalevy published his first challenge in 1874, and this is what they believe now.
Superficially, Halevy seems to have proposed proposed a new paradigm, which was resisted by an
Assyriological establishment whose mentality and careers were bound up in the old. But Kuhn makes it
dear that it is not just
clear just any anomaly that triggers the kind of of crisis that leads to a paradigm
paradigm shift; thersare
ther'0are
many anomalies in any system, and the paradigm paradigm is often modified
modified to account for them, or they are even-
tually explained, or they are too minor or marginal to trigger a crisiss6. crisis 86 • The Sumerist paradigm
paradigm was firmly
grounded in the philological data for whose explanation it was originally constructed. Halevy's Halevy's anti-
paradigm was based on paradoxes and marginal anomalies (absence of
Sumerist paradigm of unambiguous reference
in ancient texts to Sumerians or their language; erroneous attempts by others to show that Sumerian is a
language; absurdity of
Turanian language; of denying to Assyro-Babylonians the credit for creating their own civiliza-
tion). In order to account for these, Halevy explained the philological data (the syllabary and the bilingual
lexical and literary texts) with a theory that both generated its own set of of anomalies and paradoxes, and
did a much less credible job job ofof accounting for the philological data.
In reality, Halevy's thesis in many respects resembles a case of of deviance rather than innovation. H.
Zuckerman has elaborated a theory of of deviant conduct in science, within the context of of Robert Merton's
Merton's
87
norms of of scientific behavior8'.
behavior".
behavior • These norms are of of two types, cognitive and moral. The cognitive norms
methodologieal, and here Halevy's search for Semitic etymologies to every Sumerian
are essentially methodological,
syllabic value went beyond the bounds accepted by most scholars of of his day and ours. "Ihm"Ihm fehlte eben,
Entwicklungsgang nicht verwunderlich ist, die strenge Zucht
wie es bei seinem eigenartigen Studien- und Entwicklungsgang
der M Methode"".
e t h ~ d e " ~The
~ . moral norms that he violated were two: universalism universalism and disinterestedness.
Universalism forbids ad hominem attacks of of the kind he made on Oppert, and which he was to continue
to make throughout his career. He never seemed to understand or respect respeet the limit beyond which scien-
tific attack became personal; tolerance for the former was unlimited, but the latter was dearly clearly considered
unseemly in a scientific communicacion
communicacionS9. 89 • Disinterestedness demands that ideological
ideological motives, such as
HaIevy's
Halevy's "unmistakable" though oft denied desire to prove that the Semites were capable of creating alone
all
a11 the institutions of a high civilization,
civilization, be kept out of the published scientific record. Of the possible
explanations of deviant behavior cited by Zuckerman, two apply here. Differential association theory
suggests that deviance would be most likely in an auto-didact like Halevy, who had not been socialized
suggests
through training and apprenticeship in the profession. And the persistence over decades of Halevy's Halevy's
deviant behavior, that is, is, his
bis wild etymologizing
etymologizing and personal attacks,
attacks, is perhaps explained by labeling
theory. That is, peer criticism ofthisof this method and stylestyle simply reinforced the behavior that was being criti-
cized.
The paradox of Halevy's thesis is that despite its deviant presentation, it remained an attractive
enough alternative to the reigning paradigm to win aver, over, if only temporarily, minds of the caliber of
Delitzsch and Thureau-Dangin. Somehow, Somehow, despite the almost universal rejection of the AssyriologicalAssyriological
community when it was first advanced in 1874, 1874, the thesis maintained a vitality thatjustified
that justified
justified the hundreds
of pages devoted to explicating and refuting it by Weissbach (1898) (1898) and Fossey (1904).
(1904). At the Interna-

86.
86. Stmcture
Stnlclure 82.
82.
87. H.
87. H. Zuckennan,
Zuckerman, "Deviant Behavior and Social
Zuckerman, Social Contral Science", pp. 87-138
Control in Science", 87-138 in E. (ed.), Deviance
E. Sagarin (ed.), Devienince and Social
Social
Change,
Change, Beverly Hills
Hills 1977.
1977.
Ost
Osl und West
88. F. Perles, OSI Wesr 17
Wesl17 (1917) 107.
17 (1917) 107.
89.
89. The cocksure
cocksue and stinging criticism by the 21 21 year old Paul Haupt of Oppert and Lenormant
Lenomant was no less
was Da less severe than that
of Halevy, cited above,
above, but it stuck strictly
strictly to philological matters. On Oppert:
üppert: "Wenn er diese
diese unverzeihlichen Fehler begeht, zu
denen noch
Dacb Hunderte von Beispielen
Beispielen def
der offenbarsten Unfahigkeit,
Unfihigkeit, auch nm
nur eine
eine Zeile Sumerisch
Sumerisch correct zu lesen, hinzukommen:
dann -- wir überlassen
iiberlassen
iiberlassen das
das Urtheil
URheil dem Leser!"
Leser!" On Lenonnant: "Bin Assyriologe,
Lenonnant: "Ein Assyriologe, der einen Funken von Begeisterung
Begeisterung f"tir
fir das
das
herrliche Studium des des Sumerischen besitzt,
hesitrt, könnte
k6nnte
kannte sich an seiner Wissenschaft nicht so versiindingen". (Die
so versündingen".
verstindingen". (Die sumerischen
Familiengesetze,
Familiengeselze, Leipzig 1879,
1879, 13f.).
1if.).

61
 JERROLD S.
S. COOPER

Congress in Paris in 1897,

tional Orientalist Congress 1897, so
so alive was Halevy's
Halevy's thesis that Assyriologists
Assyriologists were asked to
vote by a showshow of hands for for or against the Sumerians; only Thureau-Dangin and Jeremias supported
90
HalCvy and voted against
Halevy againstg0. • The theory's vitality can be explained partly by the fact that the new evidence

excavated in Sumer itself did not immediately and forcefully forcefully resolve
resolve the controversy in favor of the
majority view (see above).
(see above). But Halevy's cleverness
Halhy's cleverness and linguistic
linguistic genius
genius must have played some role as
well in preventing the rapid demise demise that the theory deserved. Halevy's Halkvy's countless publications -- literally
thousands of pages advocating his his anti-Sumerist position -- also contributed to the prominence of his
notions.
notions. His
His major outlet became the Revue semitique simitique d'epigraphie
d'rpigraphie et d'histoire ancienne,
ancienne, founded by him
1893 (one
in 1893 (one year before Oppert founded the Revue d'Assyriologie),d;lssyriologie), whose pages he dominated for for twen-
ty-one years.
years. Tom Jones implies
implies that by 1900,
1900, "Halevy was discredited"9!,
discredited"91,
di~credited"~', but as late as 1906,
1906, Eduard
Meyer could write that although he always always opposed Halevy's
Halkvy's thesis, current theories did not really counter
Halevy's
Hal6vy's objections
objections to the notion that Sumerians Sumerians ariginated
originated Babylonian culture. culture. "Halevy hat der grosse
und unbestreitbare Verdienst,
Verdienst, eine eine Neuprüfung
Neupriifung der oft vorschnell als sicher sieher betrachteten Hypothesen
herbeigefiihrt". Thanks to
herbeigeführt". Halkvy, continued Meyer, much more and deserved credit is given to the
to Halevy,
92
Semitic
Semitic contribution
contribution to Babylonian culture than had hitherto been been92.92..
Oppert had complained early on that Halevy was not really proposing a new paradigm (not Oppert's
word), but rather reverting to the original original untenable assumption that the Assyrians had invented the cune- cune-
iform writing system. In this sense,
iforrn sense, Halevy could be compared to scientistsscientists who cling cling to traditional views,
views,
refusing to accept a new scientific
scientific paradigm:
paradigm: "The source
saurce of resistance is the assurance
assurance that the older para-
digm
digm will ultimately solve solve allall its problems,
problems, that nature can be shoved into the box the paradigm provi-
des ...that assurance
des ... assurance seems
seems stubborn and pigheaded as indeed it sometimes sometimes becomes"93. Such people "are
simply read out of the profession,
simply profession, which
which thereafter ignores their work"".work"", Halevy always always thought he was
being ignored;
ignored; despite
despite the voluminous rebuttals rebuttals by his opponents, he complained incessantly that his
theory never recei
received deserved. Since he could demolish to his own satisfaction
ved the serious evaluation it deserved.
all
all arguments
arguments put forward
forward against him, the the scientific
scientific community should either come come up with better argu- argu-
ments or
ments convert95
or convert
convert" to his
95 to his anti-Sumerist position.
position. But eventually,
eventually, from
from at least 1905 1905 on,on, and from
from a much
earlier time
earlier time by many,
many, he he really
really was
was ignored. Halevy often chided other Assyriologists
ignored. Halevy Assyriologists forfor claiming asas their
own
own ideas
ideas hehe had already published, often often years
years be fore. Thureau-Dangin responded in 1907
before. 1907 to a Halevy
scolding
scolding as as follows:
follows: "Je"Je suis ... surpris
suis ... surpris que
que vous
vous ayez
ayez pu supposer que que j'aurais,
j'aurais, de
de propos delibere
delibkrk et pour
un motif queque d'ailleurs j'ignore, evite 6vite de
de eiter
citer votre
votre nom ...... Mon seul
seul tort est de de ne vous
vous avoir pas lu". To To
which
which Halevy retorted on on thethe same
same page:
page: "Votre
"Votre oubli de de lire
lire cece memoire,
mkmoire, m'explique votre recent rkcent
ralliement au
ralliement an sumerisme"96.
sum6ri~me"~ A~few
A few
. years
years later,
later, Bezold appealed to to Halevy's
Halkvy's "eminentes Sprachgefühl",
Sprachgefiihl",
Sprachgefiihl",
asking
asking him to to finally
finally recognize
recognize that Sumerian
Sumerian was a natural,
natural, non-Semitic language.language. "Denn erst dann dann
werden die die Fachgenossen die die Lust,
Lust, ja die
die Verpflichtung empfinden,
empfinden, nicht mehr achtlos achtlos an den vielen
vielen
Punkten
Punkten vorüberzugehen,
voriiberzugehen,
voriiberzugehen, die die Sie
Sie in
in Ihren
Ihren zahlreiche Schriften ... ... aufgezeigt
aufgezeigt haben". Halevy'sHal6vy's answer:
answer:
"Jamais je n'aurais em
"Jamais cru les
cm les adversaires
adversaires capables
capables dede me presenter
prksenter un marche
march6 aussi dkgradant! Libre ita
aussi degradaut! B eux
eux
de systime de
de continuer leur systeme de tabou
tahou et et de longtemps qu'ils voudront; je ne vendrai ita
de dedain aussi longtemps B aucun
ma conviction
prix ma
rna conviction scientifique"97.
scientifique"".

90. Weissbach,
90. Wcissbach, snrnerische Frage
Weissbach, Die sumerische Fruge iv.
iv.
tv.
91. Tom
91. Tom B. Jones, The Sumerian
Jones, The
B. lanes, Sumei.iun Problem,
Problem, New New York
York 1969, 47.
1969, 47.
92.
92. Meyer, Szimerier und
Meyer, Surnerier Semi ten 3f.
Semiten
undSemiten 3E
93. Knhn, Structure
93. Kuhn, Structure 151f.
ISlf.
151t
94.
94. Ibid.
Ibid. 19.
19.
95. Kuhn's description
95. Kuhn's description in Slnrcttrre 151
in Stnlcture 151 ofof the
the transfer
transfer of from one
of allegiance from one paradigm to
onc to another as
as a conversion process
that
that cannot
cannot be
be forced by logical
forced by logical argument
argument fits the Sumerist~anti~Sumerist
fits the Sumerist-anti-Sumerist controversy well.
well. Terminology of conversion
weIl. conversion and apostasy
apostasy
was
was used in contemporary
used in contemporary discussions
discussions ofof the
the issue.
issue.
" 96. Rev. semitique
96. Rev. s4mitique 15 15 (1-907)
(1~907)521.
521.
97. Rev. semitique
97. Rev. semitig~le17 17 (1909)
(1909) 189f.
189f.

62
 POSING THE SUMERIAN
SIJMERIAN QUESTION
OUESTION

Eventually, "after the last holdouts have died, the whole profession will again be practicing under a
single ... paradigm"98
single ... paradigmng8.In 1917,
paradigm"98. 1917, Halevy's
Halivy's thesis died with him.
him. On the occasion,
occasion, Moses
Moses SchoIT
Schorr wrote ofthe
of the
Halivy's
tragic aspect of Halevy's -
iiber vierzig JJahere
tiber
über ahere währende
wahrende Kampf, der die dle besten Geisteskräfte eines hochbegabten,
Geisteskrafte eines hochbegabten,
sehopferisch
schöpferisch absorbiert, in dessen
schopferisch veranlagten Mannes absorbiert, dessen Verlaufe
Verlaufe die
die anfangs
anfangs und auch
auc6 später
aucfi spater ganz
erkleckliche Zahl der Anhänger
erkleckliche Anhanger sich immer mehr abbröckelt, Fiihrer auf dem Gipfel
abbrockelt, bis der Führer
Fuhrer
seines arbeitsreichen Lebens
seines Lebens ganz vereinsamt dasteht ...
...99.
99.

Much in the same vein asas Meyer,

Meyer, quoted above,
above, SchoIT
Schon goes
Schorr goes on to stress the scientific value of Halevy's
Halivy's
consistent and penetrating opposition to the dominant view.
view. At the same time, across the battle-scarred
continent, Isidore Levy
continent, Livy echoed those sentiments:
sentiments:
kmdites ecriront
Quand les erudites kcriront l'histoire
l'histoire des origines et du developpement
dheloppement du systeme
systkme cuneiforme,
cunkiforme,
ant marque
lorsqu'ils retraceront les etapes qui ont marquk la transformation du sumerien sumkrien en une langne
langue
survkcu aussi longtemps a
savante ayant survecu A l'idiome
l'idiome vivant ... ... et feront le matiriaux
Ie tri des materiaux
susceptibles de mesurer la part des Semites
Skmites dans la collaboration entre Babyloniens et Sumeriens,
Sumkriens,
ils rendront hommage a l'inepuisable fertilitk d'invention, a
l'inkpuisable fertilite i l'incomparable
l'incomparable maitrise du
skmitique qui ont permis a
vocabulaire semitique a Halevy
Halkvy de rendre acceptable aux esprits les plus critiques
loo .•
1oo
superfi~ielle'~~.
un paradoxe qui choquait la vraisemblance superfieielle
superficielle

RACISM IN HISTORIANS, RACE IN HISTORY

1905, Halevy
In 1905, Halkvy managed to entice R. E. BfÜnnow Briinnow into a public cOITespondance
correspondance on the Sumerian ques-
correspondance
tion that would last fer five years. BfÜnnow's
for five discretion -- and willingness
Briinnow's courtesy and discretion willingness to admit a large
measure of Semitic influence on the Sumerian texts fmm Halivy to believe
from seventh-century Nineveh -- led Halevy
convert. In anticipation, he assured Briinnow
that he might win a new convert. BfÜnnow that "votre origine en dehors de la race
'infkrieure' epargne l'insinuation blessante de combattre pro domo et les traits encore plus penetrants de
'inferieure' vous ipargne
rabbin et de pans4mite
pansemite qui assaillent de tous cat& cotes celui qui a eu la malchance -
cötes - pour parler un instant avec
Henri Heine - - de naitre au sein du peuple kelu" l ~ "101.
' ~Halivy
WI. '.
Halevy had the perspicacity to distinguish between sugges-
tions that his own Jewishness
Jewishness fueled the passion of of his advocacy for
ofhis fer the Semitic origin of
of cuneiform,
cuneiform, and accu-
scholar, or that he believed the Semites to be the superior race.
sations that he is more rabbi than scholar, race. If
If he could
not escape what was certainly a correct COITect presumption that his anti-Snmerist
anti-Sumerist thesis was motivated by his
origins, he had every right to expect that he would be refuted on a scholarly basis, and that his views would
not be twisted to make him out to be not only wrong, hut but aaraeist.
racist.
racist.
So eager was Weissbach to discredit H a l k y on this point, that he misread a passage in which Halevy
Halevy
talks about "the most gifted races", whereby he meant, certainly, in accord with contemporary beliefs, the
Indo-Europeans and the Semites. Weissbach read the passage in the singular, singUlar, "the most gifted race",
race", and
triumphantly claimed to have finally exposed Halevy as a racist!'02 racistp02 Weissbach continues: "Halkvy
"Halevy fasst die
harmlosesten Bemerkungen seiner wissenschaftlichen Gegner (selbstverstandlich (selbstverständlich mit Ausnahmen
Oppert's)
Oppert's) als antisemitische Angriffe auf'. auf'. But what examples does he provide? In the 1887 Hibbard
Lectures, A. H. Sayce
Sayee argued that the prominence of of the dog "in
"in what I may call the zoological mythology
of
of Chaldaea"
Chaldaea" showed that "Babylonian totemism" totemism" was "pre-Semitic", because the dog is and was
"distasteful" to S
"distasteful" e m i t eJ03~•' ~Halevy
Semites ~. upbraided
upbraided Sayce Sayee for
far reviving "une
"une erreur ancienne",
ancienne", then cited
98. Kuhn, Strircture
Structure 152.
99. Deutsche Literatzrrzeilung
Literalurzeitung 1917 633.
100. Revue
Revue historique 126 (1917) 217.
101. Rev. semitigue
semitique 13 (1905) 275.
102. Surnerische F m e 138. Cf
SumerischeFrage
Sumerische Frage Cf. Halevy, semitique 6 (1898) 174.
Ha16vy, Rev. semiliqlre
103. Sayce,
Sayee, Lectures
Lectures 287.

63
 S. COOPER
JERROLD S.

evidence for respect for dogs in the ancient Semitic world, and suggested that Sayce Sayce was ignoring "ces faits
faits
antisimitisme"104.By "antisemitism"
qui contredisent son antisemitisme"!04. "antisemitism",, it is c1ear
"antisemitism", clear hefe HalCvy means Sayce's
here that HaIevy Sayee's
opposition to the Semitic origin of Babylonian religion, not hatred of Jews!
In the same lectures, Sayce remarked that to believe Halevy's theory "requires the robust faith of a
mediaeval rabbi"105. 106 ; after all,
rabbF". Halevy rightly objected
objectedIo6; aU,
all, one wouldn't
wouldn't disagree
disagree with a Catholic scholar by
referring to the faith of priests, nor would one disagree with DelitzschDeIitzsch by conjuring up astern stem Lutheran
a stern
pastor. Why should a Jewish lay scholar be tainted so? so? Weissbach totaUy
totally missed the point: "Aber"Aber wer
leugnen, dass
kann denn leugnen, dass die mittelalterlichen Rabbiner einen robusten Glauben entwickelt haben?" haben?" And,
Weissbach, perhaps Halevy has inherited some ofthis
continued Weissbach, of this faith.
faith. The proof?
proof? One ofHalevy's
of Halevy's
Halivy's wilder
etymologies connected Sumerian a-ra-Ii
a-ra-li "netherworld" with Hebrew 'ärel 'Ere1 "uncircumcised", because the
'arel
enemiesIo7.
Hebrew term is often used for dead enemies lO7
Weissbach, is "alarmingly" c10se
• This, according to Weissbach, close to the
rabbinic notion that the uncircumcised will aII Halkvy never aUuded
all go to hell! Halevy alluded to this; it is all
aII Weissbach's
fantasy.
fantasy.
108
Neither Sayce
Sayce nor Weissbach were antisemites
antisemitesIo8; ; rather, we mightsay
might saysay that they were "insensitive".
Weissbach was cIearly HalCvy's argnmentation,
clearly also offended by the tone of Halevy's argumentation, which,
which, as we have seen, devi-
accepted norms of scholarly discourse. In the same paragraph in which he accused HaJevy
ated from the accepted Halevy
racism, hypersensitivity and rabbinism, Weissbach complained: "Sprechen
of racism, "Sprecben wir nicht von der
ungeheuchelten Freude, die HalevyHalivy jedesmal empfindet, wenn er der sumeristischen Theorie den
'Guadenstoss' versetzt zu haben
'Gnadenstoss' baben glaubt, auch uicht nicht von dem höhnischen,
hohnischen, gelegentlich geradezu
hiihnischen,
wegwerfenden Tone, den er seinen Widersachern gegenüber gegeniiber anzuschlagen
anzuschlagen liebt"I09.
liebt"lo9. Halevy's
Haltvy's
idiosyncracies could bring out the least attractive side of his opponents,
idiosyncracies opponents, who reacted to his deviant
persona liD -- with deviance of their own.
discourse -- and, perhaps, to his exotic personau0
We cannot be so charitable, however, in judging John Dynley Prince, who in 1905 1905 talked of
decreasing Halevyan
the constanly deereasing
decreasing Halivyan school of Jewish Chauvinism ... ... In all fairness it should be
aU fairness
stated that the idea of the non-Semitic origin of the Sumerian idiom does not in the slightest
degree glories of the mental powers of the early Semites.
degree detract form the glories Semites. What other ancient
people has been able to adopt an entirely and radically
radically foreign
foreign idiom and so to alter it, that a
school of distinguished modern
modem scholars
scholars could be alm
almost
ost justified
justified in regarding
regarding the resulting
mixed idiom as the invention of the unconscious perverters?ll'
perverters?lll

It is as unfair to accuse Halevy of being a Jewish chauvinist for championing the ancient Mesopotamian
accuse Renan of being a French chauvinist on the basis of his belief in Aryan
Semites as it would be to accuse
superiority. And is it hypersensitive to understand,
superiority. understand, with Halevy y " ~that
H a l e ~112, , Prinee
Prince vaunts the perversion of
of
Sumerian as one of the great inteUectual
intei1ectual
intellectual achievements of the early Semites,
Semites, and to be appalled to find
such a statement in a work of scholarship?

104. Rev. de {,hiSl.

104. l'hisr. des
{,hist. des religions 17
17 (1888) 204.
105.
105. Sayce, Lectures 432.
Sayee, Lectzires
d'antisemitisme, delicatement change en antirabbinisme" (Rev.
106. He called the remark "un peu d'antiscmitisme,
106. 17
(Rev. de l'hist. des religions 17
[1888]175).
[I8881 175).
107. Ha1t~vy,
107. Melanges 293.
Haltvy, Mdlanges
108. Weissbach, an outspoken freemason, was banned from teaching at Leipzig by the Nazis the same year (1935) that they
drove out Landsberger (M. (M. Muller,
Miiller, Wiss.
Müller, Zeit. Karl-.&rx
Wiss Zeit. Karl-Marx Univ. Leipzig, Ges.-und Sprachwiss. R. 28 [1979]
Karf-Marx Univ. 85).
[I9791 85).
109.
109. Weissbach, Sumerische
Surnerische Frage 138.
138.
110. In his eulogy published in JA 1917
110. 1917 179f., the president ofthe Socit~te
of the Societe
Societt Asiatique characterized Halevy
HaMvy as follows:
follows: "Joseph
Halevy, par plus d'un trait, par certain tour d'esprit, faisait songer a a quelque maHre tcoles rabbiniques d'autrefois,
maitre des ecales
ecoles d'autrefois, transporte
transpolti
comme par miracle dans un milieu etrangement
Btrangement change,
changh, elargi, emancipt. :te
Clargi, emancipe. Jx respect que commandaient sa personne et son activite
activitt
mglait de je ne sais quel
se metait
1''': inten~t sympathique pour un passe lointain qui se renouvelait
que! interet renouwlait en lui"
Iui"..
Iui"
.' 11 1. iVfaterials
111. iWaterials
~Mnterialsfor Siimerian Lexicon Part I, Leipzig
for a Sz/merlan
Szimerian Leiprig 1905,
1905, iüf.
jiif.
iiif.
112. Rev,
112. Rev. sdmitiqtre
semitique 14
semltique 14 (1906) 184.
184.

64
 POSING THE SUMERIAN QUESTION

final insult of this sort, again, probably insensitive and ignorant rather than vicious
The final VlelOUS
VICIOUS or
ill-intentioned, came Budge, the author of
eame from E. Wallis Budge, of the only - alas! -
- alas! - history of
of Assyriology:
Assyriology:
Halevy
Halivy was a good Semitie
Semitic
Semitic scholar,
scholar, and a man of great learning; but he was obsessed with the
idea that the Semitie
Semitic peoples of Babylonia were the direct
direet ancestors
aneestors of the Jews and the founders
fouuders
of all
a11 eivilization
civilization in Western Asia, and the inventars
inventors of the writings, literature, science,
science, and the
seience,
arts and erafts,
crafts,
crafts, which
whieh had merely been adopted by later peoples. He would cordially eordially have
accepted the view of the eminent Talmudist who said that all modem
aeeepted modern learning was contained
eontained in
Talmtidh, and the belief of the chief mullah of Baghd2d
the Talmüdh,
Talmudh, Baghdad who was convinced
eonvineed that all Occi-
Oeei-
dental seiences
sciences
sciences were to be fouud
found in the Kur'an
Kur'2nH3.
"3 •

Nothiug
Nothing that Halevy Halivy wrote justifies these misrepreseutations,
misrepresentations, and it is a pity that HaMvy Halevy was not alive
when they were made, to give them the seornful, scornful,
scornful, mocking reply they deserve.
Victim as he was of raeial
Vietim racial prejudiee
prejudice and preconeeptions,
preconceptions, HilevyHalevy had his own prejudices,
prejudiees, as we have
seen from his referenees
references to "gifted raees"
races" and his disdain for "Turanian"
"Turanian" peoples. He also bore the preju-
dices ofhis
diees of his time, a time of growing nationalisms the world over, regarding eontaet contact between "races".
"races". One
of his strongest arguments against the existenee existence
existence of aseparate
a separate Sumerian ethno-linguistic
ethno-linguistie group was the lack
of evidenee
evidence in aneient
ancient texts for eonfliet
conflict between Sumerians and Semites. That is, is, it was unthinkable that
both groups
groups eould
could have existed side-by-side
side-by-side without eonfliet,conflict, so,
so, if there was no eonliet,
conlict, there eould
could not
have been two two ethno-linguistie
ethno-linguistic grolips
groups in ancient Babylonia. The cooperation of two different ethno-
linguistic groups
linguistie groups in elaborating
elaborating Babylonian eivilization
civilization was inconeeivable
inconceivable to him'l4,
him 'l4 , as
himH4, as was the possibility
that "les eonquerants
conquerants
conqukrants semitiques
skmitiques se se sont sisi bien penetres
pknktrb de ce genie gknie si complique
comp1iqu.i qu'ilsqu'ils ant
ont pu, non
seuIement nous transmettre it travers des
seulement des miliers
miliers d'annees,
d'annkes, ces combinaisons, dans les details ditails les plus
minutieux mais les appliquer aussi ita
mais les i la repn\sentation
representation
reprksentation de leur propre langue""'.1angue""j. Contact could only be
understood in terms terms of the conquered and the eonquerors, conquerors, and the conquerors would never have
preserved the the language
language ofthe
of the
the conquered
conquered for for millennia,
millennia, used it on their most sacred oceasions, occasions,
occasions, and givengiven it
priority over their own language in
own language in bilingual
bilingual contexts.
contexts.
If the
the absence
absence of explieit
explicit reference
reference to to raeial
racial
racial eonfliet
conflict in the sources was was taken by Halevy
Halivy asas proof that
only
only oneone race
race -- thethe Semitie
Semitic
Semitic -- was was of anyany signifieance
significance
significance in early Babylonia, the ever more persuasive
evidence
evidenee
evidence that therethere were
were two
two raees
races
races -- Sumerian
Sumerian and and Semitie
Semitic
Semitic -- meant,
meant, far
for
for Leonard W. W. King,
King, that "the early
early
history
history of SumerSumer and and Akkad is is dominated
dominated by the the raeiaI
racial confliet
conflict between Semites
Semites and Sumerians, in the
course of whieh
course which
which the the latter
latter were
were gradually
gradually worsted"'16.
worsted"'''.
~ o r s t e d " " ~The
. assumption of both seholars
The scholars
scholars was the same: same: if
two
two ethno-linguistie
ethno-linguistic
ethno-linguistic groups
groups were
were inin eontaet,
contact,
contact, eonfliet
conflict
conflict would
would result.
result. The
The differenee,
difference,
difference, however,
however, is is that King's
assumption
assumption distorted
distorted his
his historieal
historical
historical interpretation
interpretation of of the
the philologieal
philological
philological data,
data, whereas
whereas Halevy's
Halkvy's assumption
assumption
led him to distort the philological
philologieal
led him to distort the philological data itself.data itself.
King's His/ory
King's History
History 01 of
of Sumer
Sumer and and Akkad
Akkad of of 1910
1910 marked
marked the
the end
end of thethe Sumerist
Sumerist eontroversyl17.
controversyl17.
controversy"'.
Benefitting
Benefitting from from Thureau-Dangin's
Thureau-Dangin's work work onon the
the early
early Sumerian
Sumerian and
and Akkadian
Akkadian royal
royal inseriptions,
inscriptions,
inscriptions, as as well
well
as
as from
from aa more
more realistie
realistic
realistic approach
approach to to ehronology
chronology
chronology (see (see above),
above), King's work
work has
has remained "in "in aa eertain
certain
certain sense
sense
... aa definitive
... definitive work
work with
with reference
referenee
reference to to the
the early
early history
history of Mesopotamia"'18.
Mesopotamia"'''.
Me~opotamia"'~~. His
His assumption of "raeial "racial
"racial
eonfliet",
conflict", while unfortunately all too
tao much
mueh in tune with contemporary
conflict", while unfortunately all too much in tune with contemporary assumptions, assumptions,
assumptious, remained unchal-
unchal-

113.
113. E.E. W. Budge, The
W. Budge, The Rise
Rise and Progress 0/
and Progress of Assyriology, London
ofAssyriology, London 1925,
1925, 211f.
21 if.
114. E.g. Rev.
114. E.g. Rev. semitique
dmifique55 (1897)
(1897) 54.
54.
115.
115. Ibid.
Ibid. 64.
64.
116.
116. L.L. W. King, AA History
W. King, of
IIislory 01 Sumer and
ofSirmer and Akkad,
Akkad, London
London 1910,
1910, ix.
ix.
117.
1 17. "The
"The controversy
controversy has has now
now an
an historical
historical rather
rather than
than aa practical
practical importance
importance ... ...M.
M. HaIevy
Halevy himself
himself continues
continues courageously
courageously
to
to defend
defend his
his position ... but
position ... but his
his followers
followers have
have deserted him" (King~
deserted him"
hirn" (King, History
His109 66 n.l
n.1 ).).
118.
118. O. Carena, History
0. Carena, a/the
IIis1or.v ofthe
of the Near Eastern Historiography
Near Eastern Hisforiography andand its
its Problems:
Problem: 1852-1985 Part II (AOAT
1852-1985 Part (AOAT 218/1),
21811), -Kevelaer
Kevelaer
1989.51.
1989, 51.

65
 JERROLD S. COOPER

semina! "The Assumed Conflict Between Sumerians and Semites in Early

lenged until T. Jacobsen's seminal
Mesopotamian History" of of 1939"q.
1939 119 • No reference, explicit or implicit, can
1939'19. Can be found in ancient texts to any
product solely of
of scholars' assumptions about human behaviorI2" l20 ,
behavior!20,
behavior
such conflict; the "conflict" was the product and
these assumptions were heavily influenced by the times.
The assumptions and times that Jacobsen was reacting against in 1939 are well weil known. J.-P.
Vernant, speaking of of the "Aryan myth" that dominated nineteenth-century
nineteenth-century thinking about Indo-
"comment pourrions-nous aujourd'hui
Europeans and Semites, asked "comment aujourd'hui ne pas voir, comme camme i al'arrikre-plan
Parriere-plan
profiler I'ombre
obscur d'un tableau, se profiler l'ombre des camps et montermanter la fumke
fumee des f[our?"i2'.
[our?"i2I. Renan's
o ~ r ? " ' ~Renan's
'. notion that
Christianity's
Cbristianity's virtues are rooted in its northern origins, in the green and fertile Galilee, not in the stem stern
Semitic 122 , is only by degrees less racist than
Semitic"',
and rocky Judean desert, and hence Christianity is not really SemiticlL2,
lecture and more scurrilous Die grosse
Babel-Bibellecture
Friedrich Delitzsch's position, in his infamous third Babel-Bibel
Tauschung,
Tiiuschung,
Täuschung, that Jesus was not really a Jew, because the Galilee had been settled by the Assyrians with
Babylonian deportees, who were of of a mixed race with an Aryan component!I2'
component! 123 This is kin to the theory
that Delitzsch's teacher, Schrader, had propounded: whatever of of value ancient Israel produced must be
credited to the non-Semitic component of of the Babylonian civilization with which it came into contact (see
ofthe
above), A similar use of
above).
above). of
ofracial
racial mixing to somehow save something admired from the taint of of Semitism can
be found in another scholar's later monograph, nearly contemporary with Jacobsen's "Sumerians and
Semites" , in which the nobility of
Semites", of the Assyrian warriors (including the composition of of the Tuknlti-
Tukulti-
Ninurta Epic), was ascribed to the strong admixture of of Hurrian and Aryan peoples in Assyria, which was was.
l24 ,•
Krämertum versinkenden"
contrasted to a more Semitic, "im Kramertum versinkenden" B a b y l ~ n124
Babylonia ia'~~.
Babylonia, according to Delitzsch, that many Jews
So good was business in Babylonia, J ews preferred
preferred to remain
there and practice usury, even after Cyrus had gran granted
ted them freedom to return to the promised land.
Pelitzsch warned his fellow Germans
Delitzsch Gerrnans "dass ein solches absichtlich vaterlandsloses oder intemationales internationales
fUr
rur alle
Volk fur aUe iibrigen
übrigen Volker
Völker der Erde eine grosse, darstellt"I25. The warning -
grosse, eine furchtbare Gefahr dar~tellt"'~~.
darstellt"'25. - and
others like it -- was heeded only too weILwelL
well.
Durch den Labyrinth grosser Irrtümer
Irrtiimer ringt sich die Menschheit mühevoll
miihevoll zur Wahrheit empor.
Männer von Geist, die im Grossen irren, sind Marksteine und Wegweiser
Manner Wegweiser zugleich in der
Entwicklung dieses
dieses menschlichen Wahrheitstriebes. Daring liegt die Beduetung auch Joseph
Hal
H a levys
i v y126
~'~~.

Thus ends Moses Schorr's obituary of ofHalevy,

Halevy,
Halbvy, alluding to the schoIarly
scholarly
scholarly contribution ofofHalevy
Halevy
H a l h y as an intel-
lectual Halbvy had intimations of an evil that Schorr, in 1917,
lectual gadfly. Perhaps, too, Halevy 1917, would not have imag-
ined possible. The genius
genius and tragedy of Halevy
Halbvy was to perceive and strongly
strongly feel
feel that the very existence
of the Sumerians provided ammunition and comfort to the most base antisemitism. Trapped himself by
the racial assumptions of this times, he unwittingly sacrificed a scholar's dearest possession, his objec-
tivity,
tivity, in a lifelong
lifelong battle against a people and a language dead some four thousand years.

119. JAOS 59 (1939) 485-495.

119.
120. assumptions, unsupported by textual evidence,
120. Similar assumptions, evidence, mark Gelb's
Gelb's auempt Aspecfs du Contact
attempt to refute Jacobsen in Aspects Contact
Sumero-Akkadien Assyrialogique 9 == Genava
S~rmdreAkkadien(Rencontre Assyriologique Genava NS 8) 8) 261,
261, but Jacobsen's position has been supported, C.g., in Kraus, Sumerer
supported, e.g.,
und
lcnd Akkader.
Akkader Ein Problem
Problem der altmesopotamischen
altmesopotarnischen Geschichte,
Geschichle, Amsterdam 1970; Cooper, The
1970; Cooper, The Curse of
C~rrse01 Agade, Baltimore 1983;
ofAgade, 1983; Becker,
Becker,
Baghdader Mitteilungen
"Neusumerische Renaissance?" Baghdader
"Neusumerische ieriMittei11mngen16
16 (1985)
(1985) 229-316.
229-316.
121. I I, to Olender, Les langues
121. In the preface, p. 11, langues du paradis.
122. OIender,
122. Langues
Olender, Langtles
Langtie.7 99f.
99f.
123. Bibel-Babel58-63,
123. Johanning, Bibel-Babel 58-63, 78;
58-63, 78; Huffmon,
Huffman, "Babe! und
Huffmon, "Babel undBibei" 318.
Bibel" 318.
124.
124. W. Soden, Der Au./SUeg
W. von Soden, AufStieg des Assyrerreichs als geschichtlicJws
Atrfstieg des geschichtlickes Problem (Der alte
alte Orient val.
vol. 37
vol. 37 1/2),
112), Leipzig
112), Leiprig 1937.
1937.
Compare Delitzsch's blond and Aryan Assyrian queen of thc Babel-Bibel lecture (Johanning, Bibe!-BabeI34).
the first Babel-Bibellecture Bibel-Babel 34).
125. Johanning, Bibel-BabeI78f.
125. Bibel-Babel 78f.
78f.
126. Litel-alurzeitang 1917
Schorr, Deutsche Literaturzeitung
126. Scharr, 1917 633.
633.

66