There is a presumption in favor of assuming a mixture of races in Southern Mesopotamia at an early day, and a possibility, therefore, that the earliest form of picture writing in this region, from which the Babylonian cuneiform is derived, may have been _used_ by a non-Semitic population, and that traces of this are still apparent in the developed system after the important step had been taken, marked by the advance from picture to phonetic writing.
The important consideration for our purpose is, that the religious conceptions and practices as they are reflected in the literary sources now at our command, are distinctly Babylonian.

With this we may rest content, and, leaving theories aside, there will be no necessity in an exposition of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians to differentiate or to attempt to differentiate between Semitic and so-called non-Semitic elements.

Local conditions and the long period covered by the development and history of the religion in question, are the factors that suffice to account for the mixed and in many respects complicated phenomena which this religion presents.
Having set forth the sources at our command for the study of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, and having indicated the manner in which these sources have been made available for our purposes, we are prepared to take the next step that will fit us for an understanding of the religious practices that prevailed in Mesopotamia,--a consideration of the land and of its people, together with a general account of the history of the latter.
FOOTNOTES: [5] Isaiah, xlv.

For the Babylonian views contained in this chapter, see Alfred Jeremias, _Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode_, pp.

112-116.
[6] Book i.sec.