The Sumerians

By Niam Shah and Aneesh Kashalikar

 Basic Info
Endonyms sa -gg-ga 'the people having Black Heads' (Sumerians)

Sumer - ki-en-gi( The place of the noble lords)

Less than a century ago, the existence of a Sumerian language and people was unsuspected

The archaeologists who found them were looking for Assyrians

The name for Sumerian comes from the Akkadian word umer
 Overview of Sumerian Civilization
c. 5400 BCE City of Eridu founded

c. 5000 BCE Sumer inhabited by Ubaid people

c. 5000 BCE - 750 BCE Sumerian Civilization in Tigris-Euphrates valley

c. 5000 BCE 4100 BCE Ubaid Period in Sumer

c. 4500 BCE City of Uruk founded

c. 4100 BCE 2900 BCE Uruk Period in Sumer

c. 5000 BCE Early Dynastic Period in Sumer

 Overview of Sumerian Civilization(continued)
c. 2500 BCE First Dynasty of Lagash under King Eannutum is first empire in Mesopotamia

c. 2350 BCE First code of laws by Urukagina, king of Lagash

2334 BCE - 2218 BCE The Akkadian Empire rules Sumer

2218 BCE 2047 BCE Gutian Period in Sumer

2047 BCE 1750 BCE Ur III Period in Sumer. Great Wall of Uruk still standing.

1750 BCE Elamite invasion and Amorite migration ends Sumerian civilization
 Ubaid Period
The name of Sumer's two life-giving rivers idiglat(Tigris) and buranun(Euphrates), are not Sumerian words. Nor are the names of Sumer's

most im- portant urban centersEridu, Ur, Larsa, Isin, Adab, Kullab, Lagash, Nippur, Kishwords which have a satisfactory Sumerian

etymology.

They were the first important civilizing force in ancient Sumer, its first farmers, cultivators, cattle raisers, and fishermen; its first weavers,

leatherworkers, carpenters, smiths, potters, and masons.

Proto-Euphrateans are known as the Ubaid people, that is, the people responsible for the cultural remains first unearthed in the tell

known as al-Ubaid not far from Ur and later in the very lowest levels of a number of tells throughout ancient Sumer. These remains

consisted of stone implements, such as hoes, adzes, querns, pounders, and knives, and of clay artifacts, such as sickles, bricks, loom

weights, spindle whorls, figurines, as well as a distinctive and characteristic type of painted pottery.
 Sumerian Origins
Sumerians themselves did not arrive in Sumer until sometime in the second half of the fourth millennium

B.C

Their arrival led to an extraordinarily fruitful fusion, both ethnic and cultural, with the native population

Brought about a creative spurt fraught with no little significance for the history of civilization

Sumer would reach new heights of political power and economic wealth, and witnessed some of its most

significant achievements in the arts and crafts, in monumental architecture, in religious and ethical thought,

and in oral myth, epic, and hymn

 Uruk Period/ Proto-Dynastic Period
By the 3rd millennium BCE the country was the site of at least 12 separate city-states: Kish, Uruk, Ur,

Sippar, Akshak, Larak , Nippur, Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa.

Each of these states comprised a walled city and its surrounding villages and land

Each worshiped its own deity, whose temple was the central structure of the city

Political power originally belonged to the citizens, but, as rivalry between the various city-states

increased, each adopted the institution of kingship

 King List(Antediluvian)
! After kingship had descended from heaven, Eridu became the seat of kingship.

1. Alulim

2. Alalgar

! Eridu was abandoned; kingship was carried off to Badtibira.

1. Enmenluanna

2. Enmengalanna

3. Dumuzi

! Badtibira was abandoned; kingship was carried off to Larak.

 King List(Antediluvian)
In Larak

1. Ensipazianna

Larak was abandoned; kingship was carried off to Sippar.

! In Sippar

1. Enmeduranna

Sippar was abandoned;kingship was carried off to Shuruppak.

In Shuruppak

1. Ubartutu

! The FLOOD HAPPENS!!! Ziusudra, King of Shuruppak, saved by God Enki

 Early Dynasty (Post-diluvian)
The first ruler of Sumer whose deeds are recorded, if only in the briefest kind of statement, is a king by the name of

Etana of Kish, who may have come to the throne quite early in the third millennium B.C. In the King List he is

described as "he who stabilized all the lands."

King List is an ancient manuscript listing kings of Sumer

According to the King List, the first three Sumerian dynasties after the Flood were those of Kish, Uruk, and Ur

Kish - Enmebaragesi of Kish (ca. 2600 BC), said to have defeated Elam and built the temple of Enlin in Nippur.

Enmebaragesi's successor, Aga, is said to have fought with Gilgamesh of Uruk, the fifth king of that city
 Early Dynasty (Post-diluvian)
Uruk:

Meskiaggasher founded an ambitious and powerful dynasty in the city of Uruk, which in his days was still known by the older name

Eanna, House of An (the heaven-god)

"He entered the seas (and) ascended the mountains," he may have tried to extend his sway over the lands all around Sumer and far

beyond

His son Enmerkar led a campaign against Aratta, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea, and subjugated it to Uruk.

Heroic herald of Enmerkar and companions-in-arms in his struggle with Aratta was Lugalbanda, who succeeded Enmerkar to the

throne of Uruk
 Early Dynasty (Post-diluvian)
By 2400 BCE Lugalbanda had been deified by the Sumerian theologians and given a place in the Sumerian pantheon

Lugalbanda followed by Dumuzi, a ruler who became the major figure in a Sumerian "holy-marriage rite" and

"dying-god" myth which left a deep impression on the ancient world

The women of Jerusalem, to the horror of the prophet Ezekiel, were still lamenting his death in the sixth century

BCE

Dumuzi is followed by Gilgamesh, a ruler whose deeds won him such wide renown that he became the supreme

hero of Sumerian myth and legend

!
Akkad Conquers Sumer
A Semite named Sargon conquered King Lugalzaggesi of Uruk and founded thepowerful Dynasty
of Akkad, which began the Semitization of Sumer that finally brought about the end of the
Sumerian people as an identifiable political and ethnic entity.
! The defeat of Naram-Sin at the hands of the Gutians, a ruthless barbaric horde from the
mountains to the east brought political confusion and anarchy to Sumer
 Ur III Period
Utuhegal of Uruk succeeds in breaking the Gutian yoke and in bringing back the kingship to Sumer

Utuhegals throne usurped by Ur-Nammu, one of his more ambitious governors, after seven years of rule

Ur-Nammu founds the last important Sumerian dynasty, the Third Dynasty of Ur

Ur-Nammu, who reigned for sixteen years, proved to be a capable military leader, a great builder, and an

outstanding administrator

Ur-Nammu promulgated the first law code in man's recorded history.

 Farewell, Sumer
Amorites, a Semitic people from the Syrian and Arabian desert, conquered all of Mesopotamia, the

Sumerians lost their separate identity, but they bequeathed their culture to their Semitic successors,

and they left the world a number of technological and cultural contributions, including the first

wheeled vehicles and potters wheels; the first system of writing, cuneiform; the first codes of law;

and the first city-states.

 Geographic Location/Natural Resources
! Sumer was the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), which is

generally considered the cradle of civilization.

! Mesopotamia is at the core of the region often called the Fertile Crescent, a land mass forming a huge arc from the

mountainous border between Turkey and Syria through Iraq and Irans Zagros Mountains

! It had an area of 10,000 square miles and was somewhat bigger than Massachusetts

! Its climate is extremely hot and dry and its soil is arid, wind-swept, and unproductive

! The land is flat and river-made, so it has no minerals and almost no stones

! Except for huge reeds in the marshes, there were no trees for timber
 Geography, Resources, and Trade
The cities of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial delta at head of an enormous dendritic transportation
system created by the north-to-south flowing rivers
Allowed them to procure information, labor, and commodities more efficiently than any potential
rivals upstream or away from the rivers
The crucial edge of southern cities - ability to import needed commodities in bulk from faraway
resource areas in the surrounding highlands at low cost, transported downstream on rivers by means
of simple log rafts, rafts mounted on inflated animal skins, coracles, or bitumen-coated boats and
canoes
The network of canals surrounding Mesopotamian cities and connecting them with the main courses
of the rivers allowed them to move bulky agricultural commodities across their immediate dependent
hinterlands with great efficiency, either by using simple boats or barges towed by draught animals or
human laborers.
 Beliefs and Value Systems
Love was a motivating emotional drive in Sumerian conduct

The Sumerian word for "love, ki , is a compound verb which seems to mean literally "to measure the earth," "to

mete out a place

how this developed into the meaning "love" is uncertain.

Love among the Sumerians was an emotion which varied in character and intensity.

There was the passionate, sensuous love between the sexes, which usually culminated in marriage; the love between

husband and wife, be- tween parents and children, between the various members of the family; the love between

friends and intimates; and the love between gods, kings, and people.
 Beliefs and Value Systems
Marriage in ancient Sumer was usually a practical arrangement in which the carefully weighed shekel counted

more than loves desire

Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that there was no little wooing and cooing before marriage

An illuminating example is furnished by a poem inscribed on a tablet in the Hilprecht Collection of the

Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, which might be entitled "Love Finds a Way" or "Fooling Mother"

The two main characters in the poem are Inanna, "Queen of Heaven," the Sumerian Venus, and Dumuzi,

her sweet-heart and husband-to-be

 Love Finds a Way
The poem, designated by the ancient scribe himself as a tigi, which is probably a song recited to the
accompaniment of the lyre divided into two stanzas
The first begins with a soliloquy by Inanna in which she relates that one day while she was innocently
singing and dancing about in heaven, Dumuzi met her, took her hand, and embraced her; she then
begged him to let go of her, since she did not know how she could keep this love from her mother
Ningal, wife of the moon-god, Sin
Then Dumuzi suggests that she deceive her mother by telling her that she whiled away the hours with
a girl friend in the public square. And with this as a ready excuse, they make love by the moonlight.
 More Values
it was normal for Sumerian parents to love and care for their children and for children to love and
heed their parents
In the eduhba essays dealing with the Sumerian schools and schoolmen, the relationship between
father and son, in particular, is revealed as close, intimate, and full of understanding. In the Sumerian
myths, admonition and advice by parents for the good and well-being of their children are common
and stereotyped
The goddess Ninmah, the mother of the storm-god, Ninurta, was filled with compassion for her son,
who had performed dangerous and heroic deeds in his struggle with the monsters of the Kur, to such
an extent that she was unable to rest and sleep until she had traveled to the Kur, in spite of the "fear
and terror of the battle" raging all about
 Even More Values
Sumerians prayed for the prolongation of their own life or for the life of those close to them
The royal hymnal prayers are replete with special prayers for the long life of the king. The vain and
pathetic quest for eternal life is a favorite theme of the Mesopotamian epic
While all peoples and cultures cherish life and value it dearly, the Sumerians clung to it with particular
tenacity because of their theological conviction that after death the emasculated spirit descended to
the dark and dreary nether world, where life was at best but a dismal, wretched reflection of life on
earth
There was no heart-lifting, soul-soothing hope of a life in paradise, although there are indications that
the good and deserving did have a happier fate than the wicked and evil
!
Ethics and Morals
Sumerians cherished and valued goodness and truth, law and order, justice and freedom, wisdom
and learning, courage and loyalty. Even mercy and compassion were treasured and practiced
! Ethics grew out of the extension of the love motive from the individual and his immediate family
to the community at large and even to humanity as a whole
! The Sumerians realized quite clearly that they were only part of a larger humanity which inhabited
the four ubdds, the four regions into which they divided the world as a whole.
! The Sumerian word for "man-kind," nam-l-lu, came to designate in Sumerian not only humans in
the collective sense but, like the English word humanity," all conduct and behavior characteristic of
humanity and worthy of it
 Religious and Theological Beliefs
In the eyes of the Sumerian teachers and sages, the major components of the universe were heaven
and earth
Term for universe was an-ki, a compound word meaning "heaven-earth." The earth was a flat disk
surmounted by a vast hollow space, completely enclosed by a solid surface in the shape of a vault
Between heaven and earth they recognized a substance which they called lil, a word which means
wind, air, breath, spirit; its most significant characteristics seem to be movement and expansion, it
corresponds roughly to our atmosphere
The sun, moon, planets, and stars were taken to be made of the same stuff as the atmosphere with
the quality of luminosity. Surrounding the "heaven-earth" on all sides, as well as top and bottom was
the boundless sea in which the universe somehow remained fixed and immovable.
 Religious and Theological Beliefs
The Sumerian gods(di ir) were entirely anthropomorphic
even the most powerful and most knowing among them were conceived as human in form, thought,
and deed
They plan and act, eat and drink, marry and raise families, support large households, and are addicted
to human passions and weaknesses
By and large they prefer truth and justice to falsehood and oppression, but their motives are by no
means clear
They were thought to live on the mountain of heaven and earth, the place where the sun rose
!
Gods and Goddesses
Anu god of heave
! Enlil - the father of the gods, the king of heaven and earth
! Enki- - god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge; Patron-god of Eridu
! Ereshkigal goddess of the underworld
! Inanna goddess of warfare, female fertility, and sexual love
! Nanna god of the moon
! Utu- god of the sun
 Sumerian Language
Its decipherment came from the decipherment of Semitic Akkadian, which is also written in the
cuneiform script
The key for Akkadian was found in Old Persian, an Indo-European tongue spoken by the ruling
Persians and Medes of Iran during the first millennium B.C.

Many rulers of the Achaemenid Dynasty, founded by Achaemenes in about 700 BC, found it
politic to have their cuneiform inscriptions in three languages: Persian, their own mother tongue;
Elamite, an agglutinative language spoken by the natives of western Iran, whose they conquered
and subjugated; and Akkadian, the Semitic language spoken by the Babylonians and Assyrians.
This group of trilingual cuneiform inscriptions, which was roughly the counterpart of the Egyptian
Rosetta stone, did not come from Iraq but from Iran
 Sumerian Language
Sumerian is an agglutinative tongue, not an inflected one like Indo- European or Semitic. Its roots, by
and large, are invariable. Its basic grammatical unit is the word complex rather than the individual
word
Its grammatical particles tend to retain their independent structure
 Cuneiform
The cuneiform script began as pictographic writing. Each sign was a picture of one or more concrete
objects and represented a word whose meaning was identical with, or closely related to, the object
pictured. The defects of a system of this type are twofold:
The complicated forms of the signs and the great number of signs required render it too unwieldy
for practical use. The Sumerian scribes overcame the first difficulty by gradually simplifying and
conventionalizing the forms of the signs until their pictographic originals were no longer apparent.
For the second difficulty, they reduced the number of signs and kept them within limits by resorting
to various helpful devices
The most significant device was substituting phonetic for ideographic values
 Government
!The Sumerian government was a monarchy. The king was responsible
for communicating with the gods and communicating their messages to
the common people. Commoners paid taxes via crops and often
volunteered for community service projects.
 Law of Lipit Ishtar
!The Code of Lipit-Ishtar in 1780BC pre-dates the better-known Law of
Hammurabi Lipit-Ishtar was the fifth King of Isin, a dynasty which
celebrated its 100 year anniversary during his reign. The Isin dynasty
ended about 150 years after Lipit-Ishtar's death. Lipit-Ishtar, as other
Sumerian and Babylonian kings of his era, presented himself as a son of
a god (the son of Enhil, aka Nunamir)
 Excerpt from the Law of Lipit Itar
!tukum-bi geme-arad-l- -uru-ka ba-zah lka a-itu-kam -tu-a ba-
an-gi-en sag sag-gim ba-ab-s-mu. tukum-bi sag nu-tuk h--gn-k-
babbar -l-e
!If the slave-girl or slave of a man fled into the midst of the city and
dwelt in the house of (another) man for one month and it is proved,
slave for slave shall be give. If he has no slave, he shall pay fifteen gns
(8.334 grams) of silver.
 Education
!Wealthy families sent male children to temples to study cuneiform
writing.
!Sumerians believed in practical learning, so did not study the sciences
and very rarely explored mathematics.
!Students were awarded for mastery of a topic and beaten/punished for
failure to understand an idea.
 Technological Advances
!Most likely invented the plow(digging sticks pulled by slaves/animals)
!Learned how to use the wheel and plow and how to control floods and
construct irrigation canals. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flooded
each year, so the Sumerians created a system of irrigation - dug canals
and used pulleys and levies to keep the water out of the fields. This
needed a lot of maintenance.
!Wheels used to move crops and other goods to urban areas;Used and
possibly invented the potters wheel
!Among the first to use bronze to create tools and weapons. The
Sumerians mainly traded the weapons. Sailing vessels were used for
trading and they may have reached the Indus Valley(Meluhha) in India!
 Technology(2)
Bitumen-caulked or covered boats and canoes made from reeds and/or wood planks, were usable for
hunting and fishing in the marshes and, more importantly, for the transport of both people and cargo.
Because such vessels are capable of operating in relatively shallow water, they were particularly well
suited for use in the expanded marshes that existed in southern Mesopotamia throughout the Ubaid
and Uruk periods.
Archaeological evidence indicates that reed and/or wood plank boats were widely used in the Tigris-
Euphrates fluvial system and the Persian Gulf from very early on, at least from the 6th millennium
onward. In addition, bitumen-caulked boats are also amply attested in cuneiform texts of the third
and later millennia
Wider sailboats capable of carrying heavier loads and travelling longer distances, were also available to
early southern Mesopotamian societies from relatively early on the coastline of the Persian Gulf.
 Division of Labor
!Sumerians were primarily craftsmen.
!They were carpenters, metalworkers, merchants, boatmen, soldiers, etc.
!Most Sumerians helped maintain the canals and operate the pulleys and
levies during the flood.
 Geography and Social Structure
Geography is important!!!
Absence in the landscape of many materials necessary for the creation
and maintenance of highly stratified social systems from the southern
Mesopotamian allowed early southern elites would use trade as one of
their most important tools to legitimize and extend their unequal access to
power and privilege
Materials included roofing-grade timber, wood, base and exotic metals,
various types of semiprecious minerals and stones, and exotic intoxicants
such as wine
Sumerians had an enduring and irrevocable advantage over their
neighbors in the form of lower transportation costs based on water
transport.
 Social Hierarchies
!There were three main social classes
!Upper class - nobles, priests, warriors, and government officials.
!Freemen class - merchants, traders, artisans, other craftsmen
!Slavery
Monetary System/Commercial Goods and Trade
!The Sumerians traded with the majority of the civilized world.
!They traded for gold from Anatolia and Egypt, silver from the Taurus
range, diorite from Egypt, copper from the Zagros, and timber from
Dilmun.
!The Sumerians traded river clay, mud, and reed.
!They used carts with wheels and boats for trading
!They used bartering, but later switched to a monetary system
!The shekel (she-wheat, kel-bushel), was a bronze coin, which was first
used to purchase wheat by the bushel. It later gained more value and was
used to buy everything.
!The shekel is the worlds oldest known currency
 Transportation
Advantages in ease of transport and communication accruing to southern Mesopotamian polities were more

pronounced during the late 5th and 4th millennia than later on

Enlarged marsh ecosystem existed in close proximity to many growing urban centers in the Mesopotamian

alluvium throughout the 4th millennium.

Marshes allowed lateral movement, creating a single transport and communication network integrating many

of the settlements across the alluvium at the time of initial urbanization in Sumer

Advantage would be greatly reduced after the 4th millennium, once the head of the Persian Gulf started to

recede and the main channels of the Tigris and Euphrates started to separate
 Transportation(2)
Contrast in the overall efficiency of the transportation networks accessible to southern Mesopotamian
societies of the Uruk period and those practicable in the rest of southwest Asia could not be greater
Outside of the Tigris-Euphrates Delta, reed boats benefited only polities that directly adjoined the
rivers and would have been useful only for downstream navigation
Because the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their tributaries are deeply incised as they cut across the
Upper Mesopotamian plains and surrounding highlands, lateral movement via water was impossible
anywhere within the Mesopotamian periphery.
Land-locked polities of the area had to rely to a much greater extent than did the Sumerian cities on
less efficient modes of overland transport and communication both for their long-distance exchange
needs and for the movement of subsistence resources across their immediate hinterlands.
Overland transportation includes: human portage, pack animals, or simple wheeled carts
 Cultural Arts
The ziggurat, the outstanding feature, was a rectangular tower whose base was some 200 feet in length
and 150 feet in width; its original height was about 70 feet(lengths specific to Ekishnugal at Ur)
The whole was a solid mass of brickwork with a cover of crude mud bricks and an outer layer of
burnt bricks set in bitumen
It rose in three irregular stages and was approached by three stairways consisting of a hundred steps
each
On its top there was probably a small shrine built entirely of blue enameled bricks. The ziggurat stood
on a high terrace surrounded by a double wall.
 Sources
! http://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/
docs/sumerians.pdf
! http://www.britannica.com/place/Mesopotamia-historical-region-
Asia#toc55467
! http://www.ancient.eu/timeline/sumer/
! http://home.comcast.net/~foxvog/Grammar.pdf
! http://www.sumerian.org/sumerian.pdf