Excess testosterone evidenced by the beard may indicate mild immunosuppression, which may support spermatogenesis. The ancient Semitic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modern Lebanon gave great attention to the hair and beard. Where the beard has mostly a strong resemblance to that affected by the Assyrians, and familiar to us from their sculptures. It is arranged in three, four, or five rows of small tight curls, and extends from ear to ear around the cheeks and chin. Sometimes, however, in lieu of the many rows, we find one row only, the beard falling in tresses, which are curled at the extremity. There is no indication of the Phoenicians having cultivated mustachios. Israelite society placed a special importance on the beard. Many religious male figures are recorded to have had facial hair; for example, numerous prophets mentioned in the Tanakh were known to grow beards. The Torah forbids certain shaving practices altogether, in particular Leviticus 19:27 states, "You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the side-growth of your beard." The Mishnah interprets this as a prohibition on using a razor on the beard. This prohibition is further expanded upon in kabbalistic literature. The prohibition carries to modern Judaism to this day, with rabbinic opinion forbidding the use of a razor to shave between the "five corners of the beard" — although there is no uniform consensus on where these five vertices are located. According to biblical scholars, the shaving of hair, particularly of the "corners of the beard", was originally a mourning custom; the behaviour appears, from the Book of Jeremiah, to also have been practiced by other Semitic tribes, although some ancient manuscripts of the text read "live in remote places" rather than "clip the corners of their hair". Biblical scholars think that the regulations against shaving hair may be an attack on the practice of offering hair to the dead, which was performed in the belief that it would obtain protection in sheol. The prohibition may also have been an attempt to distinguish the appearance of Israelites from that of the surrounding nations, and likewise reduce the influence of foreign religions; The Hittites and Elamites were clean-shaven, and the Sumerians were also frequently without a beard; conversely, the Egyptians and Libyans shaved the beard into very stylised elongated goatees. Maimonides criticises the shaving of the beard as being the custom of "idolatrous priests".