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Sumer
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(Redirected from Ancient Sumerian)
"Sumeria" redirects here. For other uses, see Sumeria (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Sumer (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with summer.
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Proto-writing in the region dates back to c. 3500 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC; early cuneiform writing emerged in 3000 BC.[2]
Modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a language isolate.[3][4][5][6]
These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called "proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[7] and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia (Assyria).[8][9][10][11] The Ubaidians (though never mentioned by the Sumerians themselves) are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumer, draining the marshes for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery.[7]
However, some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. It has been suggested by them and others, that the Sumerian language was originally that of the hunter and fisher peoples, who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region, and were part of the Arabian bifacial culture.[12] Reliable historical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer of any kind that have been dated before Enmebaragesi (c. 26th century BC). Professor Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians were settled along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it flooded at the end of the Ice Age.[13]
Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdat Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism.[14] Sumerian culture seems to have appeared as a fully formed civilization, with no pre-history.
The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.[14] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund.[14] Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language.
Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Neo-Sumerian Empire or Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) approximately 2100-2000 BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use. The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is considered to have been the world's first city, where three separate cultures may have fused — that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.[15]
Contents
Origin of name
The term "Sumerian" is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga (cuneiform: 𒌦 𒊕 𒈪 𒂵), phonetically /uŋ saŋ giga/, literally meaning "the black-headed people", and to their land as ki-en-gi(-r) ('place' + 'lords' + 'noble'), meaning "place of the noble lords".[16] The Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain.[17] Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar(a), all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of Shumer.[17]City-states in Mesopotamia
Further information: Cities of the Ancient Near East and Geography of Mesopotamia
Map of Sumer
The five "first" cities said to have exercised pre-dynastic kingship:
- Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrain)
- Bad-tibira (probably Tell al-Madain)
- Larsa (Tell as-Senkereh)
- Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah)
- Shuruppak (Tell Fara)
- Uruk (Warka)
- Kish (Tell Uheimir & Ingharra)
- Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar)
- Nippur (Afak)
- Lagash (Tell al-Hiba)
- Girsu (Tello or Telloh)
- Umma (Tell Jokha)
- Hamazi 1
- Adab (Tell Bismaya)
- Mari (Tell Hariri) 2
- Akshak 1
- Akkad 1
- Isin (Ishan al-Bahriyat)
(2an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia)
Minor cities (from south to north):
- Kuara (Tell al-Lahm)
- Zabala (Tell Ibzeikh)
- Kisurra (Tell Abu Hatab)
- Marad (Tell Wannat es-Sadum)
- Dilbat (Tell ed-Duleim)
- Borsippa (Birs Nimrud)
- Kutha (Tell Ibrahim)
- Der (al-Badra)
- Eshnunna (Tell Asmar)
- Nagar (Tell Brak) 2
Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometres (205 miles) north-west of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having “exercised kingship” in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bābil, Diyala, Wāsit, Dhi Qar, Basra, Al-Muthannā and Al-Qādisiyyah governorates of Iraq.
History
Main article: History of Sumer
The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk
periods. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century BC
and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early
Dynastic III period, c. the 23rd century BC, when a now deciphered
syllabary writing system was developed, which has allowed archaeologists
to read contemporary records and inscriptions. Classical Sumer ends
with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following
the Gutian period, there is a brief Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st century BC, cut short in the 20th century BC by invasions by the Amorites. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) population.- Ubaid period: 6500 – 4100 BC (Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic)
- Uruk period: 4100 – 2900 BC (Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age I)
- Uruk XIV-V: 4100 – 3300 BC
- Uruk IV period: 3300 – 3100 BC
- Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III): 3100 – 2900 BC
- Early Dynastic period (Early Bronze Age II-IV)
- Early Dynastic I period: 2900–2800 BC
- Early Dynastic II period: 2800–2600 BC (Gilgamesh)
- Early Dynastic IIIa period: 2600–2500 BC
- Early Dynastic IIIb period: c. 2500–2334 BC
- Akkadian Empire period: c. 2334–2218 BC (Sargon)
- Gutian period: c. 2218–2047 BC (Early Bronze Age IV)
- Ur III period: c. 2047–1940 BC
The Samarra bowl, at the Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. The swastika in the center of the design is a reconstruction.[18]
Ubaid period
Main article: Ubaid period
The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. During this time, the first settlement in southern Mesopotamia was established at Eridu (Cuneiform: nun.ki), c. 6500 BC, by farmers who brought with them the Hadji Muhammed culture, which first pioneered irrigation agriculture. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran
culture from northern Mesopotamia. It is not known whether or not these
were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk
culture. Eridu remained an important religious center when it was
gradually surpassed in size by the nearby city of Uruk. The story of the passing of the me (gifts of civilization) to Inanna, goddess of Uruk and of love and war, by Enki, god of wisdom and chief god of Eridu, may reflect this shift in hegemony.[19]Uruk period
Main article: Uruk period
The archaeological transition from the Ubaid period to the Uruk
period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically
produced on a slow wheel
to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on
fast wheels. The Uruk period is a continuation and an outgrowth of
Ubaid with pottery being the main visible change.[20][21]By the time of the Uruk period (c. 4100–2900 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified, temple-centered cities (with populations of over 10,000 people) where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian cities began to make use of slave labor captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in the earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as central Iran.[22]
The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists (like that found at Tell Brak), had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force.[22]
Sumerian cities during the Uruk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king (ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women.[23] It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. There was little evidence of organized warfare or professional soldiers during the Uruk period, and towns were generally unwalled. During this period Uruk became the most urbanized city in the world, surpassing for the first time 50,000 inhabitants.
| Notable Sumerians | |
|---|---|
| Pre-dynastic kings: | Alulim • Dumuzid, the Shepherd • En-men-dur-ana |
| 1st Dynasty of Kish: | Etana • En-me-barage-si • Aga of Kish |
| 1st Dynasty of Uruk: | Enmerkar • Lugalbanda • Gilgamesh |
| 1st Dynasty of Ur: | Meskalamdug • Mesh-Ane-pada • Puabi • Mesilim of Kish |
| 2nd Dynasty of Uruk: | En-shag-kush-ana |
| 1st Dynasty of Lagash: | Ur-Nanshe • Eannatum • Entemena • Urukagina |
| Dynasty of Adab: | Lugal-Ane-mundu |
| 3rd Dynasty of Kish: | Kug-Bau |
| 3rd Dynasty of Uruk: | Lugal-zage-si |
| Dynasty of Akkad: | Sargon • Tashlultum • En-hedu-ana • Man-ishtishu • Naram-Sin of Akkad • Shar-kali-sharri • Dudu of Akkad • Shu-Durul |
| 2nd Dynasty of Lagash: | Puzer-Mama • Gudea |
| 5th Dynasty of Uruk: | Utu-hengal |
| 3rd dynasty of Ur: | Ur-Namma • Shulgi • Amar-Suena • Shu-Suen • Ibbi-Suen |
The end of the Uruk period coincided with the Piora oscillation, a dry period from c. 3200 – 2900 BC that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum.[24]
Early Dynastic Period
Main article: Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia)
The dynastic period begins c. 2900 BC and includes such legendary figures as Enmerkar and Gilgamesh—who
are supposed to have reigned shortly before the historic record opens
c. 2700 BC, when the now deciphered syllabic writing started to develop
from the early pictograms. The center of Sumerian culture remained in
southern Mesopotamia, even though rulers soon began expanding into
neighboring areas, and neighboring Semitic groups adopted much of
Sumerian culture for their own.The earliest dynastic king on the Sumerian king list whose name is known from any other legendary source is Etana, 13th king of the first dynasty of Kish. The earliest king authenticated through archaeological evidence is Enmebaragesi of Kish (c. 26th century BC), whose name is also mentioned in the Gilgamesh epic—leading to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might have been a historical king of Uruk. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, this period was associated with increased war. Cities became walled, and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared. (Gilgamesh is credited with having built the walls of Uruk).
1st Dynasty of Lagash
Fragment of Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures
Main article: Lagash
c. 2500–2270 BCThe dynasty of Lagash, though omitted from the king list, is well attested through several important monuments and many archaeological finds.
Although short-lived, one of the first empires known to history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur, and Larsa, and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma, arch-rival of Lagash. In addition, his realm extended to parts of Elam and along the Persian Gulf. He seems to have used terror as a matter of policy.[25] Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures depicts vultures pecking at the severed heads and other body parts of his enemies. His empire collapsed shortly after his death.
Later, Lugal-Zage-Si, the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He was the last ethnically Sumerian king before Sargon of Akkad.[15]
Akkadian Empire
Main article: Akkadian Empire
c. 2270–2083 BC (short chronology)The Eastern Semitic Akkadian language is first attested in proper names of the kings of Kish c. 2800 BC,[25] preserved in later king lists. There are texts written entirely in Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BC. Use of Old Akkadian was at its peak during the rule of Sargon the Great (c. 2270–2215 BC), but even then most administrative tablets continued to be written in Sumerian, the language used by the scribes. Gelb and Westenholz differentiate three stages of Old Akkadian: that of the pre-Sargonic era, that of the Akkadian empire, and that of the "Neo-Sumerian Renaissance" that followed it. Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted as vernacular languages for about one thousand years, but by around 1800 BC, Sumerian was becoming more of a literary language familiar mainly only to scholars and scribes. Thorkild Jacobsen has argued that there is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semitic vs. Sumerian" conflict.[26] However, it is certain that Akkadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were previously conquered by Sargon.
Gutian period
Main article: Gutian dynasty of Sumer
c. 2083–2050 BC (short chronology)2nd Dynasty of Lagash
Main article: Lagash
c. 2093–2046 BC (short chronology)Following the downfall of the Akkadian Empire at the hands of Gutians, another native Sumerian ruler, Gudea of Lagash, rose to local prominence and continued the practices of the Sargonid kings' claims to divinity. Like the previous Lagash dynasty, Gudea and his descendants also promoted artistic development and left a large number of archaeological artifacts.
Sumerian Renaissance
Main article: Sumerian renaissance
c. 2047–1940 BC (short chronology)Later, the 3rd dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu and Shulgi, whose power extended as far as southern Assyria, was the last great "Sumerian renaissance", but already the region was becoming more Semitic than Sumerian, with the rise in power of the Akkadian speaking Semites in Assyria and elsewhere, and the influx of waves of Semitic Martu (Amorites) who were to found several competing local powers including Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna and eventually Babylon. The last of these eventually came to dominate the south of Mesopotamia as the Babylonian Empire, just as the Old Assyrian Empire had already done so in the north from the late 21st century BC. The Sumerian language continued as a sacerdotal language taught in schools in Babylonia and Assyria, much as Latin was used in the Medieval period, for as long as cuneiform was utilized.
Decline
This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward the north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. During the Akkadian and Ur III phases, there was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley, but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three fifths.[27] This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akkadian was the major language. Henceforth Sumerian would remain only a literary and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied by Latin in medieval Europe.Following an Elamite invasion and sack of Ur during the rule of Ibbi-Sin (c. 1940 BC)[citation needed], Sumer came under Amorites rule (taken to introduce the Middle Bronze Age). The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries are summarized as the "Dynasty of Isin" in the Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1700 BC.
Later rulers who dominated Assyria and Babylonia occasionally assumed the old Sargonic title "King of Sumer and Akkad", such as Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria after ca. 1225 BC.
Population
Uruk, one of Sumer's largest cities, has been estimated to have had a population of 50,000-80,000 at its height;[28] given the other cities in Sumer, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumer's population might be 0.8 million to 1.5 million. The world population at this time has been estimated at about 27 million.[29]
It is speculated by some archaeologists that Sumerian speakers were farmers who moved down from the north, after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid period pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami transitional ware to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700 – 4900 BC C-14) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.[citation needed]
Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerians, from the indigenous hunter-fisherfolk traditions, associated with the Arabian bifacial assemblages found on the Arabian littoral. Professor Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians may have been the people living in the Persian Gulf region before it flooded at the end of the last Ice Age.[31]
Culture
Social and family life
A reconstruction in the British Museum of headgear and necklaces worn by the women in some Sumerian graves
- "Pottery was very plentiful, and the forms of the vases, bowls and dishes were manifold; there were special jars for honey, butter, oil and wine, which was probably made from dates. Some of the vases had pointed feet, and stood on stands with crossed legs; others were flat-bottomed, and were set on square or rectangular frames of wood. The oil-jars, and probably others also, were sealed with clay, precisely as in early Egypt. Vases and dishes of stone were made in imitation of those of clay."
- "A feathered head-dress was worn. Beds, stools and chairs were used, with carved legs resembling those of an ox. There were fire-places and fire-altars."
- "Knives, drills, wedges and an instrument which looks like a saw were all known, while spears, bows, arrows and daggers (but not swords) were employed in war."
- "Tablets were used for writing purposes. Daggers with metal blades and wooden handles were worn, and copper was hammered into plates, while necklaces or collars were made of gold."
- "Time was reckoned in lunar months."
Inscriptions describing the reforms of king Urukagina of Lagash (c. 2300 BC) say that he abolished the former custom of polyandry in his country, prescribing that a woman who took multiple husbands be stoned with rocks upon which her crime had been written.[33]
Though women were protected by late Sumerian law and were able to achieve a higher status in Sumer than in other contemporary civilizations, the culture was male-dominated. The Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest such codification yet discovered, dating to the Ur-III "Sumerian Renaissance", reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumerian law. Beneath the lu-gal ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The "lu" or free person, and the slave (male, arad; female geme). The son of a lu was called a dumu-nita until he married. A woman (munus) went from being a daughter (dumu-mi), to a wife (dam), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (numasu) and she could then remarry.
Language and writing
Main articles: Sumerian language and Cuneiform
Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer, 3100–3000 BC
The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no known language family; Akkadian, by contrast, belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian to other language families. It is an agglutinative language; in other words, morphemes ("units of meaning") are added together to create words, unlike analytic languages where morphemes are purely added together to create sentences. Some authors have proposed that there may be evidence of a substratum or adstratum language for geographic features and various crafts and agricultural activities, called variously Proto-Euphratean or Proto Tigrean, but this is disputed by others.
Understanding Sumerian texts today can be problematic even for experts.[citation needed] Most difficult are the earliest texts, which in many cases do not give the full grammatical structure of the language and seem to have been used as an "aide memoire" for knowledgeable scribes.
During the 3rd millennium BC a cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism.[14] The influences between Sumerian on Akkadian are evident in all areas including lexical borrowing on a massive scale—and syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.[14] This mutual influence has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian of the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund.[14]
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC,[34] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Babylonia and Assyria until the 1st century CE.[35]
Religion
Main article: Sumerian religion
Sumerian religion seems to have been founded upon two separate cosmogenic myths. The first saw creation as the result of a series of hieros gami
or sacred marriages, involving the reconciliation of opposites,
postulated as a coming together of male and female divine beings; the
gods. This continued to influence the whole Mesopotamian mythos. Thus in
the Enuma Elish the creation was seen as the union of fresh and salt water; as male Abzu, and female Tiamat. The products of that union, Lahm and Lahmu, "the muddy ones", were titles given to the gate keepers of the E-Abzu temple of Enki,
in Eridu, the first Sumerian city. Describing the way that muddy
islands emerge from the confluence of fresh and salty water at the mouth
of the Euphrates, where the river deposited its load of silt, a second
hieros gamos supposedly created Anshar and Kishar, the "sky-pivot" or
axle, and the "earth pivot", parents in turn of Anu (the sky) and Ki (the earth). Another important Sumerian hieros gamos was that between Ki, here known as Ninhursag or "Lady Sacred Mountain", and Enki of Eridu, the god of fresh water which brought forth greenery and pasture.At an early stage following the dawn of recorded history, Nippur in central Mesopotamia replaced Eridu in the south as the primary temple city, whose priests also conferred the status of political hegemony on the other city-states. Nippur retained this status throughout the Sumerian period.
Deities
Tell Asmar votive sculpture 2750-2600 BC.
The Sumerians worshiped:
- An as the full-time god equivalent to heaven; indeed, the word an in Sumerian means sky and his consort Ki, means earth.
- Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki was the god of beneficence, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath the earth, a healer and friend to humanity who in Sumerian myth was thought to have given humans the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law-book was considered his creation,
- Enlil, god of the north wind, in Nippur, husband of Ninlil, the south wind. King of the Sumerian gods, he gave mankind the spells and incantations that the spirits of good or evil must obey,
- Inanna, goddess of love and war, the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple (shared with An) at Uruk.
- The sun-god Utu at Larsa in the south and Sippar in the north,
- The moon god Sin at Ur.
Sumero-early Akkadian pantheon
Cosmology
Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).[36]The universe was divided into four quarters.
-
- To the north were the hill-dwelling Subartu who were periodically raided for slaves, timber, and raw materials.
- To the west were the tent-dwelling Martu, ancient Semitic-speaking peoples living as pastoral nomads tending herds of sheep and goats.
- To the south was the land of Dilmun, a trading state associated with the land of the dead and the place of creation.
- To the east were the Elamites, a rival people with whom the Sumerians were frequently at war.
Temples and temple organisation
Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) each had an individual name and consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification.[37] The temple itself had a central nave with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. After a time the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the Ziggurat style.[38]Funerary practices
It was believed that when people died, they would be confined to a gloomy world of Ereshkigal, whose realm was guarded by gateways with various monsters designed to prevent people entering or leaving. The dead were buried outside the city walls in graveyards where a small mound covered the corpse, along with offerings to monsters and a small amount of food. Those who could afford it sought burial at Dilmun.[39] Human sacrifice was found in the death pits at the Ur royal cemetery where Queen Puabi was accompanied in death by her servants. It is also said that the Sumerians invented the first oboe-like instrument, and used them at royal funerals.Agriculture and hunting
The Sumerians adopted an agricultural lifestyle perhaps as early as c. 5000 BC – 4500 BC. The region demonstrated a number of core agricultural techniques, including organized irrigation, large-scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping involving the use of plough agriculture, and the use of an agricultural specialized labour force under bureaucratic control. The necessity to manage temple accounts with this organization led to the development of writing (c. 3500 BC).
From the royal tombs of Ur, made of lapis lazuli and shell, shows peacetime
An account of barley rations issued monthly to adults and children written in cuneiform script on a clay tablet, written in year 4 of King Urukagina, circa 2350 BC
The Sumerians practiced similar irrigation techniques as those used in Egypt.[41] American anthropologist Robert McCormick Adams says that irrigation development was associated with urbanization,[42] and that 89% of the population lived in the cities.
They grew barley, chickpeas, lentils, wheat, dates, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. Sumerians caught many fish and hunted fowl and gazelle.[43]
Sumerian agriculture depended heavily on irrigation. The irrigation was accomplished by the use of shaduf, canals, channels, dykes, weirs, and reservoirs. The frequent violent floods of the Tigris, and less so, of the Euphrates, meant that canals required frequent repair and continual removal of silt, and survey markers and boundary stones needed to be continually replaced. The government required individuals to work on the canals in a corvee, although the rich were able to exempt themselves.
As is known from the "Sumerian Farmer's Almanac", after the flood season and after the Spring Equinox and the Akitu or New Year Festival, using the canals, farmers would flood their fields and then drain the water. Next they made oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. They then dragged the fields with pickaxes. After drying, they plowed, harrowed, and raked the ground three times, and pulverized it with a mattock, before planting seed. Unfortunately the high evaporation rate resulted in a gradual increase in the salinity of the fields. By the Ur III period, farmers had switched from wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley as their principal crop.
Sumerians harvested during the spring in three-person teams consisting of a reaper, a binder, and a sheaf handler.[44] The farmers would use threshing wagons, driven by oxen, to separate the cereal heads from the stalks and then use threshing sleds to disengage the grain. They then winnowed the grain/chaff mixture.
Architecture
The Tigris-Euphrates plain lacked minerals and trees. Sumerian structures were made of plano-convex mudbrick, not fixed with mortar or cement. Mud-brick buildings eventually deteriorate, so they were periodically destroyed, leveled, and rebuilt on the same spot. This constant rebuilding gradually raised the level of cities, which thus came to be elevated above the surrounding plain. The resultant hills, known as tells, are found throughout the ancient Near East.According to Archibald Sayce, the primitive pictograms of the early Sumerian (i.e. Uruk) era suggest that "Stone was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals. Brick was the ordinary building material, and with it cities, forts, temples and houses were constructed. The city was provided with towers and stood on an artificial platform; the house also had a tower-like appearance. It was provided with a door which turned on a hinge, and could be opened with a sort of key; the city gate was on a larger scale, and seems to have been double. The foundation stones — or rather bricks — of a house were consecrated by certain objects that were deposited under them."[32]
The most impressive and famous of Sumerian buildings are the ziggurats, large layered platforms which supported temples. Sumerian cylinder seals also depict houses built from reeds not unlike those built by the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq until as recently as 400 CE. The Sumerians also developed the arch, which enabled them to develop a strong type of dome. They built this by constructing and linking several arches. Sumerian temples and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques,[citation needed] such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and clay nails.
Mathematics
Main article: Babylonian mathematics
The Sumerians developed a complex system of metrology
c. 4000 BC. This advanced metrology resulted in the creation of
arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. From c. 2600 BC onwards, the
Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period.[45] The period c. 2700 – 2300 BC saw the first appearance of the abacus, and a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.[46]
The Sumerians were the first to use a place value numeral system. There
is also anecdotal evidence the Sumerians may have used a type of slide
rule in astronomical calculations. They were the first to find the area
of a triangle and the volume of a cube.[47]Economy and trade
Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in Shuruppak, Sumerian tablet, circa 2600 BC
The Epic of Gilgamesh refers to trade with far lands for goods such as wood that were scarce in Mesopotamia. In particular, cedar from Lebanon was prized. The finding of resin in the tomb of Queen Puabi at Ur, indicates it was traded from as far away as Mozambique.
The Sumerians used slaves, although they were not a major part of the economy. Slave women worked as weavers, pressers, millers, and porters.
Sumerian potters decorated pots with cedar oil paints. The potters used a bow drill to produce the fire needed for baking the pottery. Sumerian masons and jewelers knew and made use of alabaster (calcite), ivory, iron, gold, silver, carnelian, and lapis lazuli.[48]
Money and credit
Large institutions kept their accounts in barley and silver, often with a fixed rate between them. The obligations, loans and prices in general were usually denominated in one of them. Many transactions involved debt, for example goods consigned to merchants by temple and beer advanced by "ale women".[49]Commercial credit and agricultural consumer loans were the main types of loans. The trade credit was usually extended by temples in order to finance trade expeditions and was nominated in silver. The interest rate was set at 1/60 a month (one shekel per mina) some time before 2000 BC and it remained at that level for about two thousand years.[49] Rural loans commonly arose as a result of unpaid obligations due to an institution (such as a temple), in this case the arrears were considered to be lent to the debtor.[50] They were denominated in barley or other crops and the interest rate was typically much higher than for commercial loans and could amount to 1/3 to 1/2 of the loan principal.[49]
Periodically "clean slate" decrees were signed by rulers which cancelled all the rural (but not commercial) debt and allowed bondservants to return to their homes. Customarily rulers did it at the beginning of the first full year of their reign, but they could also be proclaimed at times of military conflict or crop failure. The first known ones were made by Enmetena and Urukagina of Lagash in 2400-2350 BC. According to Hudson, the purpose of these decrees was to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened fighting force which could happen if peasants lost the subsistence land or became bondservants due to the inability to repay the debt.[49]
Military
Early chariots on the Standard of Ur, c. 2600 BC.
Battle formations on a fragment of the Stele of the Vultures
The Sumerian military used carts harnessed to onagers. These early chariots functioned less effectively in combat than did later designs, and some have suggested that these chariots served primarily as transports, though the crew carried battle-axes and lances. The Sumerian chariot comprised a four or two-wheeled device manned by a crew of two and harnessed to four onagers. The cart was composed of a woven basket and the wheels had a solid three-piece design.
Sumerian cities were surrounded by defensive walls. The Sumerians engaged in siege warfare between their cities, but the mudbrick walls were able to deter some foes.
Technology
Examples of Sumerian technology include: the wheel, cuneiform script, arithmetic and geometry, irrigation systems, Sumerian boats, lunisolar calendar, bronze, leather, saws, chisels, hammers, braces, bits, nails, pins, rings, hoes, axes, knives, lancepoints, arrowheads, swords, glue, daggers, waterskins, bags, harnesses, armor, quivers, war chariots, scabbards, boots, sandals, harpoons and beer. The Sumerians had three main types of boats:- clinker-built sailboats stitched together with hair, featuring bitumen waterproofing
- skin boats constructed from animal skins and reeds
- wooden-oared ships, sometimes pulled upstream by people and animals walking along the nearby banks
Legacy
Evidence of wheeled vehicles appeared in the mid 4th millennium BC, near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia, the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe. The wheel initially took the form of the potter's wheel. The new concept quickly led to wheeled vehicles and mill wheels. The Sumerians' cuneiform script is the oldest (or second oldest after the Egyptian hieroglyphs) which has been deciphered (the status of even older inscriptions such as the Jiahu symbols and Tartaria tablets is controversial). The Sumerians were among the first astronomers, mapping the stars into sets of constellations, many of which survived in the zodiac and were also recognized by the ancient Greeks.[53] They were also aware of the five planets that are easily visible to the naked eye.[54]They invented and developed arithmetic by using several different number systems including a mixed radix system with an alternating base 10 and base 6. This sexagesimal system became the standard number system in Sumer and Babylonia. They may have invented military formations and introduced the basic divisions between infantry, cavalry, and archers. They developed the first known codified legal and administrative systems, complete with courts, jails, and government records. The first true city-states arose in Sumer, roughly contemporaneously with similar entities in what are now Syria and Lebanon. Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists to be applied for the first time, about 2600 BC, to messages and mail delivery, history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records, and other pursuits. Conjointly with the spread of writing, the first formal schools were established, usually under the auspices of a city-state's primary temple.
Finally, the Sumerians ushered in domestication with intensive agriculture and irrigation. Emmer wheat, barley, sheep (starting as mouflon), and cattle (starting as aurochs) were foremost among the species cultivated and raised for the first time on a grand scale.
See also
- Marsh Arabs(on the DNA distribution of Marsh Arabs)
- History of Iraq
- History of writing numbers
- Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement
- Toynbee's law of challenge and response
Notes
- The name is from Akkadian Šumeru; Sumerian 𒆠𒂗𒂠 ki-en-ĝir15, approximately "land of the civilized kings" or "native land". ĝir15 means "native, local", in some contexts is "noble"(ĝir NATIVE (7x: Old Babylonian) from The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary). Literally, "land of the native (local, noble) lords". Stiebing (1994) has "Land of the Lords of Brightness" (William Stiebing, Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture). Postgate (1994) takes en as substituting eme "language", translating "land of the Sumerian heart" (John Nicholas Postgate (1994). Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. Routledge (UK).. Postgate believes it likely that eme, 'tongue', became en, 'lord', through consonantal assimilation.)
References
- "Sumerian Questions and Answers". Sumerian.org. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
Further reading
-
- Ascalone, Enrico. 2007. Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians (Dictionaries of Civilizations; 1). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-25266-7 (paperback).
- Bottéro, Jean, André Finet, Bertrand Lafont, and George Roux. 2001. Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Crawford, Harriet E. W. 2004. Sumer and the Sumerians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Leick, Gwendolyn. 2002. Mesopotamia: Invention of the City. London and New York: Penguin.
- Lloyd, Seton. 1978. The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest. London: Thames and Hudson.
- Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea. 1998. Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. London and Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
- Kramer, Samuel Noah (1963). The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-45238-7.
- Kramer, Samuel Noah. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium BC.
- Roux, Georges. 1992. Ancient Iraq, 560 pages. London: Penguin (earlier printings may have different pagination: 1966, 480 pages, Pelican; 1964, 431 pages, London: Allen and Urwin).
- Schomp, Virginia. Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, And Assyrians.
- Sumer: Cities of Eden (Timelife Lost Civilizations). Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1993 (hardcover, ISBN 0-8094-9887-1).
- Woolley, C. Leonard. 1929. The Sumerians. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
- Ancient Sumer History --- The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium
- Iraq’s Ancient Past — Penn Museum
- The Sumerians
- Geography
- Map of The Fertile Crescent
- The History Files: Ancient Mesopotamia
- Language
- Sumerian Language Page, perhaps the oldest Sumerian website on the web (it dates back to 1996), features compiled lexicon, detailed FAQ, extensive links, and so on.
- ETCSL: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature has complete translations of more than 400 Sumerian literary texts.
- PSD: The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, while still in its initial stages, can be searched on-line, from August 2004.
- CDLI: Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative a large corpus of Sumerian texts in transliteration, largely from the Early Dynastic and Ur III periods, accessible with images.
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