Note 58 — Chapter II · THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL MATERIALS; THE EXCAVATIONS AT SUSA AND THE ORIGIN OF BRONZE

ANA-BAR. Bar is given as the Sumerian pronunciation of the word for “stone” (Syllabary 5, iv. 11, in Delitzsch’s Assyrische Lesestücke, 3rd edition). In Old Egyptian “iron” was similarly ba-n-pet, “stone of heaven,” while “silver” was “white gold,” “gold” being symbolized by a collar. We may compare the Indo-European “white” metal as a name of “silver.” The Sumerian azag-gi, “gold,” was a form of azagga, “precious,” more especially “precious metal”; the more specific word for “gold” was guskin, with which the Armenian oski must be connected. “Silver” was bábara, the “bright” metal, nagga being “lead,” the Armenian anag. The identity of the Armenian and Sumerian words for “gold” and “lead,” coupled with the Armenian origin of the vine, and the fact that the mountain on which the ark of the Babylonian Noah rested was Jebel Judi, south of Lake Van, raises an interesting question as to the origin of Sumerian civilization.