The Stele of Hammurabi and a detail of the giving of the law by the sun god Shamesh |
CUNEIFORM We can say that History begins at Sumer because the earliest written records that have to this point come into our possession are of Sumerian origin. Without documents there can be no history; there may be tradition, there may be culture, but there can be no civilization and no history. To the extent of our present knowledge, there have been only three genuine writing systems created in human history: The Egyptian, the Sumerian, and the Chinese. In Sumeria, at least, we can say with relative certainty that writing was developed out of economic necessity. Fully 75% of the records that have been preserved are economic or administrative in nature. Deeds, loans, marriages, inventories, wills, census, and tax matters form the bulk of our knowledge of Sumerian life. There is also, however, a substantial body of literature, as well as such mundane conveniences as cookbooks, lists of familiar plants and animals, and most important, dictionaries. The earliest of these dictionaries contain about 2000 pictographs or icons. These symbols were meant to resemble that which they represented. The Egyptian and the Chinese systems of writing developed in much the same way. |
SUMERIA The first true civilization on planet earth (of which we are aware) developed in Mesopotamia, and the people who built this first civilization are known as the Sumerians. Ironically, little more than a century ago, nothing was known of the Sumerians. The first civilization in history had been lost to history. Slowly, over the past hundred years, and largely due to the efforts of the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania, the puzzle has been slowly pieced together. There are, however, more questions than answers. For instance, modern scholars have no idea where the Sumerians originated. We do know that the Sumerians were not the first inhabitants of the 'Land Between the Rivers.' The primary evidence that there were earlier inhabitants comes from the study of language, in much the same way that the names Chattahoochee, Tallapoosa, Etowah, Coosa, Kennesaw, Apalacheecola, and Alatoona indicate that those who now inhabit our own state were preceded by others. At present, the best scholarly guess is that the Sumerians came from the same area that would eventually give rise to the Indo-Europeans, though the Sumerian language does not appear to be related in any way to the Indo-European languages, or, for that matter, any other language that has ever been spoken on earth. The Sumerians occupied the lower half of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, roughly the area presently known as Iraq. It was an area about the size of Massachusetts and had a hot, dry, wind-swept climate. There were no trees, and therefore no timber. It would seem that the only natural resources were the silt-laden waters of the rivers and the huge reeds that grew in abundance along the river banks. For the resourceful Sumerians, however, this would prove to be sufficient. During the first half of this century an extremely important historian named Arnold Toynbee authored a twelve-volume work that revolved around his theory that civilizations develop or die as a result of the manner in which they respond to various challenges. In most instances, these challenges are environmental in nature. The environment of Sumeria and the Sumerian response provide an excellent example of Toynbee's theories in action. To begin, contrast the Tigris-Euphrates valley with the Nile, the cradle of Egyptian civilization. The Nile was predictable. Though it flooded, it flooded with regularity, at the same time and with basically the same intensity every year. As we will see next class, this predictability is the key to understanding the longevity as well as the static nature of Egyptian civilization. The flooding of the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the other hand, was violent and irregular, hence the mental life of the Mesopotamian civilizations became dominated by a sense of anxiety. The world was unpredictable and capricious, bringing life-giving rain and fertility one day and devastating destruction the next. Since the forces of nature were expressions of the whims of the gods, the gods were also unpredictable and capricious. Rather than the high estate which the Hebrews assigned to man as the representative of God on earth, for the inhabitants of Mesopotamia man was nothing more than the slave of the gods, designed to relieve them of their toils and subject to their whims. |
Mesopotamian Civilization: The Land Between the Rivers During the European Ice Ages the Near East was an uninhabitable, overgrown swamp. When the glaciers began to retreat the rainfall in the Near East began a steady decline. The grasslands became deserts and the swamps slowly became inhabitable lowlands, a valley formed by two neighboring rivers; the Tigris and the Euphrates. "Mesopotamia" is derived from two Greek terms mesos, meaning 'middle' and potamoi, 'rivers', so the name literally means 'between the rivers.' This valley forms the eastern leg of a large semi-circular area that begins on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and continues in an arch toward the Persian Gulf. Due to its fertility, this area has been regarded as a prize by both the hill people to the north and the desert dwellers to the south. James Henry Breasted, a prominent archaeologist during the early years of the twentieth century, noted the vast number of Neolithic villages established throughout the region, and gave this area the name "Fertile Crescent." |
SUMERIA The first true civilization on planet earth (of which we are aware) developed in Mesopotamia, and the people who built this first civilization are known as the Sumerians. Ironically, little more than a century ago, nothing was known of the Sumerians. The first civilization in history had been lost to history. Slowly, over the past hundred years, and largely due to the efforts of the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania, the puzzle has been slowly pieced together. There are, however, more questions than answers. For instance, modern scholars have no idea where the Sumerians originated. We do know that the Sumerians were not the first inhabitants of the 'Land Between the Rivers.' The primary evidence that there were earlier inhabitants comes from the study of language, in much the same way that the names Chattahoochee, Tallapoosa, Etowah, Coosa, Kennesaw, Apalacheecola, and Alatoona indicate that those who now inhabit our own state were preceded by others. At present, the best scholarly guess is that the Sumerians came from the same area that would eventually give rise to the Indo-Europeans, though the Sumerian language does not appear to be related in any way to the Indo-European languages, or, for that matter, any other language that has ever been spoken on earth. The Sumerians occupied the lower half of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, roughly the area presently known as Iraq. It was an area about the size of Massachusetts and had a hot, dry, wind-swept climate. There were no trees, and therefore no timber. It would seem that the only natural resources were the silt-laden waters of the rivers and the huge reeds that grew in abundance along the river banks. For the resourceful Sumerians, however, this would prove to be sufficient. During the first half of this century an extremely important historian named Arnold Toynbee authored a twelve-volume work that revolved around his theory that civilizations develop or die as a result of the manner in which they respond to various challenges. In most instances, these challenges are environmental in nature. The environment of Sumeria and the Sumerian response provide an excellent example of Toynbee's theories in action. To begin, contrast the Tigris-Euphrates valley with the Nile, the cradle of Egyptian civilization. The Nile was predictable. Though it flooded, it flooded with regularity, at the same time and with basically the same intensity every year. As we will see next class, this predictability is the key to understanding the longevity as well as the static nature of Egyptian civilization. The flooding of the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the other hand, was violent and irregular, hence the mental life of the Mesopotamian civilizations became dominated by a sense of anxiety. The world was unpredictable and capricious, bringing life-giving rain and fertility one day and devastating destruction the next. Since the forces of nature were expressions of the whims of the gods, the gods were also unpredictable and capricious. Rather than the high estate which the Hebrews assigned to man as the representative of God on earth, for the inhabitants of Mesopotamia man was nothing more than the slave of the gods, designed to relieve them of their toils and subject to their whims. |
CUNEIFORM We can say that History begins at Sumer because the earliest written records that have to this point come into our possession are of Sumerian origin. Without documents there can be no history; there may be tradition, there may be culture, but there can be no civilization and no history. To the extent of our present knowledge, there have been only three genuine writing systems created in human history: The Egyptian, the Sumerian, and the Chinese. In Sumeria, at least, we can say with relative certainty that writing was developed out of economic necessity. Fully 75% of the records that have been preserved are economic or administrative in nature. Deeds, loans, marriages, inventories, wills, census, and tax matters form the bulk of our knowledge of Sumerian life. There is also, however, a substantial body of literature, as well as such mundane conveniences as cookbooks, lists of familiar plants and animals, and most important, dictionaries. The earliest of these dictionaries contain about 2000 pictographs or icons. These symbols were meant to resemble that which they represented. The Egyptian and the Chinese systems of writing developed in much the same way. |
Possibly the world's oldest medical "text" |
In Sumeria, however, the pictographic character of the written language was soon lost, primarily due to the difficulty of making a curved line in soft clay. They were replaced by a series of signs based on wedge-shaped characters, or cuneiform. Eventually the limitations of such pictorial representations became obvious. Then the idea occurred to someone that the signs could represent sounds instead of things. This greatly increased the versatility of written language, since any spoken word could now be written. In the beginning the sounds that were represented were syllables rather than individual sounds, so extremely large numbers of signs were still necessary. For centuries writing would remain the property of the few who were able to invest years in mastering the system. |
A couple of interesting sites! |
THE FIRST SCHOOLS Obviously, the only one who could master such an elaborate system of writing would be a professional scribe. To meet this need there were a number of scribal schools in ancient Sumeria. As with our modern schools, discipline was something of a problem, however the Sumerians did not hesitate to use corporeal punishment. One old professor remembered his school days with something less than fondness: The headmaster read my tablet and said: " There is something missing." Then he caned me. The fellow in charge of the dress code said: "Why are your clothes so messy?" Then he caned me. The fellow in charge of silence said: "Why did you talk without permission?" Then he caned me. The fellow in charge of the assembly said: "Why did you stand at ease without permission?" Then he caned me. The fellow in charge of behavior said: "Why did you rise without permission?" Then he caned me. The fellow in charge of the gate said: "Why did you leave without permission?" Then he caned me. My teacher said: "Your penmanship is terrible." Then he caned me. And so I began to hate the scribal art. The story, contained in Samuel Noah Kramer's The Sumerians, goes on to relate how the future professor coaxed his father into bribing the boy's teachers into moving him to the top of the class. |
THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH The Sumerians were the first to produce epic tales about semi-legendary characters, the most famous of whom was Gilgamesh, ruler of the city-state of Uruk (known in the Bible as Erech) about 2700 B.C. Some seven hundred years later, an unknown Babylonian collected a series of ten tales about Gilgamesh and fused them into a whole. |
In literature the Sumerians provided us with the prototype of the tragic hero, perhaps the most enduring of all literary staples. From Gilgamesh to Indiana Jone's 'Last Crusade' we find the Holy Grail within our grasp, only to slip through our fingers at the last moment. |
AKKAD The Sumerians were never able to unify their society due primarily to the fierce independence of each of the eleven city-states. Unity was finally imposed from without, around 2340 BC, when Sargon, the king of the northern Mesopotamian territory, known as Akkad, and the first great world-conquerer, drove his forces into the south. |
SARGON According to one legend Sargon's mother abandoned him at birth, setting him to float down the Euphrates in a reed basket. A farmer fished him from the river and raised him as his own. Unlike the Sumerians, the Akkadians were a Semitic people. The name 'Semite,' from which we get such words as 'Anti-Semitic,' comes from the name 'Shem' one of the sons of Noah who was the ancestor of the Hebrew and Arab peoples. The inhabitants of Europe were supposedly descended from Japheth and those of Africa from Ham, two other sons of Noah, and references to the Japhetic and Hamitic nations will still be found in many older history books. To the modern reader, however, the term 'Semitic,' should be understood as a family of related languages, which includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Syrian (also known as Aramean), as well as a number of minor current languages and a large number of extinct languages. After Sargon, the Sumerian population was gradually absorbed by the Akkadians, and for four or five hundred years the ruler of Mesopotamia bore the title "King of Sumer and Akkad." As we will frequently find to be the case, however, civilization has a habit of conquering its conquerors. As time passed, the Sumerian cuneiform was adapted to write the Semitic Akkadian language, and most of the Sumerian culture superimposed itself upon the invaders from the north. |
Two views of an image believed by many to depict Sargon the Great. |
BABYLONIA Over the centuries the ability of the "Kings of Sumer and Akkad" to maintain order in Mesopotamia gradually weakened, a new tribe of Semites began to descend into the Euphrates Valley, just as the Akkadians had done under Sargon. These were the Amorites from Syria near the Mediterranean. They seized the city of Babylon, which is about 50 miles south of Baghdad, the current capital of Iraq. Now at that time Babylon was an insignificant town on the edge of the Euphrates river, but it was there that the Amorites established their capital and their king, thereby establishing what historians know as the Old Babylonian Empire. Eleven kings would occupy the throne of Babylon, and the sixth of these was Hammurabi. |
The Stele of Hammurabi and a detail of the giving of the law by the sun god Shamesh |
Hammurabi reigned from 1792-1750 B.C. His name means "My father, the Amorite," so the name "Amorite" in and of itself was a title of some weight. From the now-fortified city of Babylon, Hammurabi moved south into the Sumerian cities, which had been occupied by a militant tribe known as the Elamites, who had moved in from the eastern mountains. For thirty years he waged war against these hill people. When he was finally victorious, Babylon achieved such pre-eminence that the entire Tigris-Euphrates valley, both lands of Sumer and Akkad, were now known as Babylonia. Once he had consolidated his position through war he established his kingdom upon order, justice, and peace. From this time there survives a large body of correspondence and, more importantly, an eight foot column of black stone engraved with some 282 laws and statutes. The top of the stone shows Hammurabi receiving the law from the sun god, Shamesh. (The transcendent origin of law) Though it is a remarkable document, the code of "The King of Justice," is itself capable of what a contemporary American would consider extreme injustice. For instance, a contractor builds a home for a nobleman. As a result of shoddy workmanship, the house collapses and a son of the nobleman is killed. Rather than imposing a fine, or even executing the irresponsible builder, the code of Hammurabi requires that the son of the builder, by modern standards an innocent party, be put to death. The influence of the Mesopotamian legal codes upon the Mosaic body of laws (particularly in the area of property rights) is universally recognized as the foundation of the Western judicial corpus. |
KASSITES About 170 years after Hamurrabi (i.e. 1530 B.C.) the Old Babylonian kingdom fell to the Indo-Europeans. (Discuss Indo-Europeans) The first wave of invaders came from the eastern portion of what is now Turkey, and were known as the Hittites, pioneers in iron technology and horse warfare. The Hittites sacked Babylon, and were soon followed by another group of Indo-Europeans from Persia known as Kassites. Like other Indo-Europeans, the Kassites were masters of the horse and chariot, and with these mighty weapons they controlled Mesopotamia for four centuries, until 1100 B.C. and the rise of Assyria. It is at this point, however, that the Mesopotamian civilization begins to lose its distinctiveness. There will be a short-lived resurrection of the kingdom of Babylon in the seventh century under the familiar Nebuchadnezzer. By the middle of the sixth century BC, this kingdom, too, would fall, and Mesopotamia would be absorbed altogether by the mighty Persian Empire. |
THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF ANCIENT SUMERIA |
BULL-HEADED LYRE WITH DETAILS |
KING GUDEA OF LAGESH |
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">