faces are refined and intellectual and often quite modern in aspect.  The skulls show that in the Late Stone Age the human brain was fully developed and that the racial types were fixed.  In every country in Europe we still find the direct descendants of the ancient Mediterranean race, as well as the descendants of the less highly cultured conquerors who swept westward out of Asia at the dawn of the Bronze Age; and everywhere there are evidences of crossment of types in varying degrees.  Even the influence of Neolithic intellectual life still remains.  The comparative study of mythology and folk beliefs reveals that we have inherited certain modes of thought from our remote ancestors, who were the congeners of the Ancient Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians.  In this connection it is of interest, therefore, to refer to the social ideals of the early peoples who met and mingled on the southern plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and especially the position occupied by women, which is engaging so much attention at the present day.

It would appear that among the Semites and other nomadic peoples woman was regarded as the helpmate rather than the companion and equal of man.  The birth of a son was hailed with joy; it was “miserable to have a daughter”, as a Hindu sage reflected; in various countries it was the custom to expose female children after birth and leave them to die.  A wife had no rights other than those accorded to her by her husband, who exercised over her the power of life and death.  Sons inherited family possessions; the daughters had no share allotted to them, and could be sold by fathers and brothers.  Among the peoples who observed “male right”, social life was reflected in the conception of controlling male deities, accompanied by shadowy goddesses who were often little else than figures of speech.

The Ancient Sumerians, on the other hand, like the Mediterranean peoples of Egypt and Crete, reverenced and exalted motherhood in social and religious life.  Women were accorded a legal status and marriage laws were promulgated by the State.  Wives could possess private property in their own right, as did the Babylonian Sarah, wife of Abraham, who owned the Egyptian slave Hagar.[26] A woman received from her parents a marriage dowry, and in the event of separation from her husband she could claim its full value.  Some spinsters, or wives, were accustomed to enter into business partnerships with men or members of their own sex, and could sue and be sued in courts of law.  Brothers and sisters were joint heirs of the family estate.  Daughters might possess property over which their fathers exercised no control:  they could also enter into legal agreements with their parents in business matters, when they had attained to years of discretion.  Young women who took vows of celibacy and lived in religious institutions could yet make business investments, as surviving records show.  There is only one instance of a Sumerian woman ascending the throne,