Sumerians were Indians

[Guest guest]

Dr. II. R. Hall, of the Dept. Of Egyptian & Assyrian Antiquities of

> the British Museum, who contends that Mesopotamia was civilized by

a

> migration from India. "The ethnic type of the Sumerians, so

strongly

> marked in their statues and reliefs," says Dr. Hall, "was as

> different from those of the races which surrounded them as was

their

> language from those of the Semites, Aryans, or others; they were

> decidedly Indian in type. The face-type of the average Indian of

> today is no doubt much the same as that of his Dravidian race

> ancestors thousands of years ago. … And it is to this Dravidian

> ethnic type of India that the ancient Sumerian bears most

> resemblance, so far as we can judge from his monuments. … And it is

> by no means improbable that the Sumerians were an Indian race which

> passed, certainly by land, perhaps also by sea, through Persia to

the

> valley of the Two Rivers. It was in the Indian home (perhaps the

> Indus valley) that we suppose for them that their culture

developed.

> … On the way they left the seeds of their culture in Elam. … There

is

> little doubt that India must have been one of the earliest centers

of

> human civilization, and it seems natural to suppose that the

strange

> un-Semitic, un-Aryan people who came from the East to civilize the

> West were of Indian origin, especially when we see with our own

eyes

> how very Indian the Sumerians were in type." (The Ancient History

of

> the Near East, pp. 173–174, London, 1916.)