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Sumer (or Šumer) was the earliest known civilization of the ancient Near East, located in lower Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) from the time of the earliest records in the mid 4th millennium BC until the rise of Babylonia in the late 3rd millennium BC. The term "Sumerian" applies to all speakers of the Sumerian language. Sumer, together with Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilization, is considered among the first settled societies in the world to have manifested all the features needed to qualify fully as a "civilization".
Origin of Name
The term "Sumerian" is the common name given to the ancient inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia by their successors, the Semitic Akkadians. The Sumerians called themselves sag-giga, literally meaning "the black-headed people"[1] and their land ki-en-gir[2], probably originally meaning "land of the Sumerian tongue"[3][4]. The Akkadian word Shumer may represent this name in dialect, but it is unknown why the Akkadians called the southern land Shumeru[2][4]. Biblical Shinar, Egyptian Sngr and Hittite Šanhar(a) could be western variants of Šumer[2].
History
Main article: History of Sumer
The Sumerian city states rose to power during the prehistorical Ubaid and Uruk periods. The historical record gradually opens with the Early Dynastic period from ca. the 29th century BC, but remains scarce until the Lagash period begins in the 26th century. Classical Sumer ends with the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century. Following the Gutian period, there is a brief "Sumerian renaissance" in the 22nd century, cut short in ca. 2000 BC by Amorite invasions. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persists until ca. 1730 BC when Mesopotamia is united under Babylonian rule.
Ubaid period 5300-3900 BC
Uruk IV period 3900-3200 BC
Uruk III period 3200-2900 BC
Early Dynastic I period 2900-2800 BC
Early Dynastic II period 2800-2600 BC
Early Dynastic IIIa period 2600-2500 BC
Early Dynastic IIIb period 2500-2334 BC
Lagash dynasty period 2550-2380 BC
Akkad dynasty period 2450-2250 BC
Gutian period 2250-2150 BC
Ur III period 2150-2000 BC
[edit] Ubaid period
Main article: Ubaid period
A distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf region in the Ubaid period, when the ancient Sumerian religious center of Eridu was gradually surpassed in size by the nearby city of Uruk. 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 date of this transition, from Ubaid 4 to Early Uruk, is in dispute, but calibrated radiocarbon dates from Tell Awayli would place it as early as 4500 BC.
Culture
Sumerian culture may be traced to two main centers, Eridu in the south and Nippur in the north. Eridu and Nippur may be regarded as contrasting poles of Sumerian religion.
The deity Enlil, around whose sanctuary Nippur had grown up, was considered lord of the ghost-land, and his gifts to mankind were said to be the spells and incantations that the spirits of good or evil were compelled to obey. The world he governed was a mountain (E-kur from E=house and Kur=Mountain); the creatures that he had made lived underground.
Eridu, on the other hand, was the home of the culture god Enki (absorbed into Babylonian mythology as the god Ea), the god of beneficence, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath the earth (the Abzu from Ab=water and Zu=far), a healer and friend to humanity who was thought to have given us the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law-book was considered his creation. Eridu had once been a seaport, and it was doubtless its foreign trade and intercourse with other lands that influenced the development of its culture. Its cosmology was the result of its geographical position: the earth, it was believed, had grown out of the waters of the deep, like the ever widening coast at the mouth of the Euphrates. Long before history is recorded, however, the cultures of Eridu and Nippur had coalesced. While Babylon seems to have been a colony of Eridu, Eridu"s immediate neighbor, Ur, may have been a colony of Nippur, since its moon god was said to be the son of Enlil of Nippur. However, in the admixture of the two cultures, the influence of Eridu was predominant.
Historian Alan Marcus has been quoted as saying that "Sumerians held a rather dour perspective on life." One Sumerian wrote: "Tears, lament, anguish, and depression are within me. Suffering overwhelms me. Evil fate holds me and carries off my life. Malignant sickness bathes me." Another wrote, "Why am I counted among the ignorant? Food is all about, yet my food is hunger. On the day shares were allotted, my allotted share was suffering."[citation needed]
There is much evidence that the Sumerians loved music. It seemed to be an important part of religious and civic life in Sumer. Lyres were popular in Sumer; see Sumerian music.
According to inscriptions describing the reforms of king Urukagina of Lagash, he is said to have abolished the former custom of polyandry, on pain of the woman taking multiple husbands having her teeth bashed out with a clay tablet.
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) who could remarry.
Economy and trade
Discoveries of obsidian from far-away locations in Anatolia and lapis lazuli from northeastern Afghanistan, beads from Dilmun (modern Bahrain), and several seals inscribed with the Indus Valley script suggest a remarkably wide-ranging network of ancient trade centered around the Persian Gulf.
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 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, gold, silver, carnelian and lapis lazuli.
[edit] Military
Early chariots on the Standard of Ur, ca. 2600 BC.The almost constant wars among the Sumerian city-states for 2000 years helped to develop the military technology and techniques of Sumer to a high level. The first war recorded was between Lagash and Umma in 2525 BC on a stele called the Stele of Vultures. It shows the king of Lagash leading a Sumerian army consisting mostly of infantry. The infantrymen carried spears, equipped with copper helmets and leather shields [2]. The spearmen are shown arranged in a phalanx formation, which required training and discipline, and so implies they were professional soldiers.
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 failed to deter some foes.
[edit] Religion
Main article: Sumerian mythology
Like other cities of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, Sumer was a polytheistic, or henotheistic, society. There was no organized set of gods, with each city-state having its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings; but the Sumerians were probably the first to write down their beliefs. Sumerian beliefs were also the inspiration for much of later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology.
The Sumerians worshipped Anu as the primary god, equivalent to "heaven"-- indeed, the word "an" in Sumerian means "sky", and his consort Ki, meaning "earth". Collectively the Gods were known as Anunnaki ((d)a-nun-na-ke-ne = "offspring of the lord"). An"s closest cohorts were Enki in the south at the Abzu temple in Eridu, Enlil in the north at the Ekur temple of Nippur and Inana, the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the Eanna temple (shared with An) at Uruk. The sun was Utu, was worshipped at Sippar, the moon was Nanna, worshipped at Ur and Nammu or Namma was one of the names of the Mother Goddess, probably considered to be the original matrix; there were hundreds of minor deities. The Sumerian gods (Sumerian dingir, plural dingir-dingir or dingir-a-ne-ne) thus had associations with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with the political power of the associated cities. The gods were said to have created human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. If the temples/gods ruled each city it was for their mutual survival and benefit - the temples organized the mass labor projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple which only towards the end of the third millennium were they able to avoid by a payment of silver instead. The temple-centered farming communities of Sumer had a social stability that enabled them to survive for four millennia.
Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a tin dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).
Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification (the Abzu). 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 later ziggurat style.
[edit] Technology
Examples of Sumerian technology include: the wheel, cuneiform, 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, sandal (footwear) and harpoons.
The Sumerians had three main types of boats:
skin boats comprising of animal skins and reeds
clinker-built sailboats stitched together with hair, featuring bitumen waterproofing
wooden-oared ships, sometimes pulled upstream by people and animals walking along the nearby banks
[edit] Language and writing
Main article: Sumerian language
The most important archaeological discoveries in Sumer are a large number of tablets written in Sumerian. Sumerian pre-cuneiform script has been discovered on tablets dating to around 3500 BC.
The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no known language family; Akkadian belongs to the Afro-Asiatic languages. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian to other language groups. It is an agglutinative language; in other words, morphemes ("units of meaning") are added together to create words.
Sumerians invented picture-hieroglyphs that developed into later cuneiform, and their language vies with Ancient Egyptian for credit as the oldest known written human language. An extremely large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in the Sumerian language has survived, the great majority of these on clay tablets. Known Sumerian texts include personal and business letters and transactions, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns and prayers, magical incantations, and scientific texts including mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects like statues or bricks are also very common. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes-in-training. Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become the ruling race.
Understanding Sumerian texts today can be problematic even for experts. Most difficult are the earliest texts, which in many cases don"t give the full grammatical structure of the language.
[edit] Legacy
Most authorities credit the Sumerians with the invention of the wheel, initially in the form of the potter"s wheel. The new concept quickly led to wheeled vehicles and mill wheels. The Sumerians" cuneiform writing system is the oldest there is evidence of (with the possible exception of the highly controversial Old European Script), pre-dating Egyptian hiero
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Seated along the Euphrates River, Sumer had a thriving agriculture and trade industry. Herds of sheep and goats and farms of grains and vegetables were held both by the temples and private citizens. Ships plied up and down the river and throughout the Persian Gulf, carrying pottery and various processed goods and bringing back fruits and various raw materials from across the region, including cedars from the Levant.
Sumer was one of the first literate civilizations leaving many records of business transactions, and lessons from schools. They had strong armies, which with their chariots and phalanxes held sway over their less civilized neighbors. Perhaps the most lasting cultural remnants of the Sumerians though, can be found in their religion.
The aggrandizement of the king was at times taken to an extreme, as indicated by the royal cemetery of Ur from the 26th century BC in which archaeologists found not only extraordinary wealth and precious objects but also the corpses of as many as 74 attendants.
As we see in the tale of Gilgamesh and other literature, the Sumerians believed in an underworld for the spirits of the dead; and some kings as gods felt they wanted their servants there also. Obviously this was a major violation of life, and this practice seemed to die out after the Early Dynastic period.
Below the king or governor society had three distinct classes: aristocratic nobles who were administrators, priests, and officers in the army rewarded with large estates; a middle class of business people, school teachers, artisans, and farmers; and the lowest being slaves, who had been captured in war or were dispossessed farmers or those sold by their families. Slavery was not stigmatized by race but was considered a misfortune out of which one could free oneself through service, usually in three years.
Some of the young women were married to the god in the temple and were not celibate; some were prostitutes, and their children were often legally adopted. Laws made clear distinctions between the three classes. Though women had some rights, they were not equal to men. Thus from the beginning of civilization the sexism of patriarchal rule in the state and families is seen in the oppression by male dominance. The Sumerians were quite bureaucratic, documenting major transactions and legal agreements of all kinds, being the first to develop a system of laws, which influenced the law codes of Eshnunna and Hammurabi.
How then did these social hierarchies develop? Given the limited knowledge available, our explanations are speculative and uncertain. As the pastoral peoples traded with the farmers and villagers, more complex social organizations could function more productively. The manufacturing of pottery and other products led to specialization and trading by barter, as the Sumerians had no money system except for the weighing of precious metals.
As irrigation systems became more complex, planners and managers of labor were needed. Protection of surplus goods and valuable construction was required to guard against raiding parties. Those with the ability to organize and manage more complex activities tended to give themselves privileges for their success, and eventually social inequalities grew, as those who failed lost their privileges. Religion also became a part of this system of inequality, as religious leaders placed themselves above others in their service of the deities.
Laws apparently were devised to prevent abuses and as a way to settle disputes. Cities took the step from police protection under law to the organization of retaliatory attacks by an army. The skills of hunters selected over a long period of evolution seem to have given men (more than women) a tendency to gang up and work together in violent attacks. However, when the objects of these attacks became other men and the valuables found in another city, this tendency became self-destructive for the species. The survival instincts kept it within bounds so that it has not practiced to extinction (so far), but individual leaders who could gain social rewards for initiating such adventures appeared with increasing regularity. Apparently those individuals with better methods of resolving conflicts were not able to persuade enough people all the time to avoid such brutality. Yet the history of Sumer shows that war was counter-productive for most people and eventually led to the decline and fall of their culture.
After the fall of the last Sumerian dynasty about 2000 BC, some Sumerian scribes wrote chronicles of their long past. Although these have been lost, lists of their kings and some accounts edited into later Babylonian chronicles have been found. These claimed that their kings go back more than 240,000 years before the flood and come forward about 30,000 years after the flood. Such figures would take us back before Atlantis to Lemuria, which seems unlikely, though as one of the few agglutinative languages Sumerian does resemble Polynesian. More than five thousand years ago their advanced architecture using vaults, arches, and domes indicated a long development.
The first dynasty after the deluge was in the Akkadian region northwest of Sumer in the city of Kish, ten miles east of what became Babylon. According to Georges Roux, twelve of the kings" names were Semitic rather than Sumerian.
Thus from its historical beginnings the Sumerian civilization was mixed with Semitic influences. The first legendary Etana was said to have ascended to heaven on the back of an eagle. The oldest historical king, Mebaragesi, ruled Kish about 2700 BC and apparently overcame the Sumerians" eastern neighbor at Elam, for he is said to have carried away their weapons as spoil.
The second dynasty at Uruk in Sumer itself must have overlapped with the first, because it was the legendary fifth king of that dynasty, Gilgamesh, who was attacked by the last Kish king Agga. An ancient account told the following story: Agga having besieged Uruk sent envoys to Gilgamesh with an ultimatum. Gilgamesh went to his city"s elders, suggesting that they not submit but fight with weapons. However, the elders came to the opposite conclusion.
So Gilgamesh took his proposal to the "men of the city," and they agreed with him. Gilgamesh was elated and said to his servant Enkidu, "Now, then, let the (peaceful) tool be put aside for the violence of battle." Gilgamesh then asked for a volunteer to go to Agga. Birhurturre, the head man, went and withstood torture; but when the awesome Gilgamesh ascended the wall and was seen by the foes, the foreigners felt overwhelmed and abandoned the siege.
The Uruk dynasty was well known in Sumerian tradition, as Gilgamesh was preceded by Meskiaggasher, son of the sun-god Utu, Enmerkar also sun of Utu who built Uruk, the shepherd Lugalbanda, who was also considered divine, and the fisherman Dumuzi, the legendary vegetation god who married the love goddess, Inanna. Tales of Gilgamesh became very popular.
Mesalim, who called himself King of Kish, erected a temple to Ningirsu in Lagash, for which he arbitrated a territorial dispute with Umma and set up a stele marking the border. However, he was overthrown, as was the last king of Uruk, by the founder of the Ur dynasty, Mesannepadda, whose name meant the hero chosen by An.
He and his successor rebuilt the Tummal temple at Nippur that had fallen into ruin. The peace between Lagash and Umma was maintained for about a century as Lagash king Ur-Nanshe built temples, dug canals, and imported wood from Dilmun. Meanwhile Mesannepadda sent gifts to the distant Mari. The rulers of Ur became extraordinarily wealthy as indicated by their royal tombs in the mid-27th century. A royal standard shows four-wheeled chariots pulled by asses and rows of prisoners presented to the king.
Eventually mountain people from Khamazi occupied Kish, while the Elamites encroached on Sumer. In Lagash Ur-Nanshe"s grandson, Eannatum, who also built temples and dug canals, became a warrior, fighting back against the Elamites, conquering Ur and Uruk, and taking the kingship of Kish. Closer to home was the local conflict with Umma. Claiming his god commanded it, the governor of Umma raided the disputed field of Gu-edin, removed the marker set up by Mesalim, and invaded the territory of Lagash. However, Eannatum won the battle with the help of his god Enlil and captured in a great net his enemies, who begged for life.
A peace treaty was agreed upon with Enakalli, the next governor of Umma, and Mesalim"s stele was restored to its former place. Umma was required to pay heavy taxes in barley, and Eannatum"s victory was commemorated by a stele depicting vultures tearing up the corpses of the defeated. Eannatum boasted of killing 3,600 men of Umma and had to bury twenty heaps of his own men.
Later Eannatum had to fight a coalition of forces from Kish and Mari led by the King of Akshak; though he claimed victory, his little empire was declining. Umma once again seized the disputed canal, destroyed the stele of the vultures, and defeated Eannatum. However, his nephew, Entemena, regained the canal from Umma even though they were backed by foreign kings (probably from Mari), and he assigned his own governor to control the irrigation Lagash needed. Entemena also constructed new canals, attained a "brotherhood pact" with Lugal-kinishe-dudu who had united Uruk and Ur, and for a reign of peace and prosperity was deified by a grateful people with statues for nearly a thousand years. A second Eannatum was succeeded by a high priest of the warrior god Ningirsu, and for a time peace prevailed as the people of Umma were allowed to live in Lagash with religious and civil liberties.
However, conditions deteriorated as they were ruled by the distant kings of Kish who appointed the local governors, and the priesthood became corrupted and greedy for land and taxes. Finally a strong leader arose named Urukagina, who threw off the allegiance to Kish, proclaimed himself king of Lagash, and instituted sweeping reforms directed against the extortion of the priesthood. A priest was no longer allowed to "come into the garden of a poor mother and take wood" nor to take fruit as tax. Burial fees were greatly reduced. Temple officials were forbidden to take the god"s revenues or to use temple lands and cattle as their own. Owners could refuse to sell their houses unless they got the price they asked. Widows and orphans were protected, and artisans did not have to beg for their food. At the same time as Urukagina was reforming the temple, he was rebuilding it and other shrines in Lagash.
Unfortunately after only eight years of this rule by the world"s first known reformer, the army of Umma led by its governor, Lugalzagesi, attacked Lagash possibly not resisted by Urukagina, burnt the shrines, and carried off the divine image of Ningirsu. Assuming the existence of moral justice the chronicler lamented, "The men of Umma, by the despoiling of Lagash, have committed a sin against the god Ningirsu.
As for Lugalzagesi, ensi of Umma, may his goddess Nidaba make him bear his mortal sin upon his head!" Lugalzagesi went on to conquer and become king of Uruk and claim all of Sumer under the god Enlil from the lower sea (Persian Gulf) including the Tigris and Euphrates all the way to the upper sea (Mediterranean). However, to do this he had to ally himself with the cupbearer of Kish, where Lugalzagesi had begun life himself as a vassal. His reign of 24 years was to mark the end of that Sumerian empire in about 2390 BC, for the name of that Akkadian cupbearer was Sargon.
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