Sumerian civilization. Briefly: who are the Sumerians, where did they live and who founded this civilization? Video

“According to most modern scientists, it is the Sumerian civilization that is the most ancient culture of mankind. This discovery was made only in the middle of the 19th century. The main share in the study of ancient civilization belongs not to archaeologists, anthropologists and ethnographers, but to linguists, who discovered the oldest culture of Mesopotamia to the scientific world, whose heritage was adopted by the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. For many centuries, the "black-headed" Sumerians have practically sunk into oblivion. They are not described even in the records of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The Bible speaks of the city of Ur. However, nothing is mentioned about this mysterious and unique people."

Many mysteries of the oldest civilization of Mesopotamia have not yet been solved and are subject to study, but the deciphered samples of cuneiform and the archaeological excavations that followed them prove that the people who lived in the territory between the rivers Tiger and Euphrates, for their era had a fairly developed culture. Their knowledge and scientific discoveries have become a cultural heritage for the next owners of this territory.

Some scholars claim that Sumerians settled in the territory Mesopotamia(more precisely, in the south) at the end of the 4th millennium BC. The remaining archaeologists and ethnographers date the first appearance of this people in the south of Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. It is known that by the time they arrived Mesopotamia, few tribes already lived here Ubaid culture. It is even believed that the Sumerians settled Mesopotamia after Flood, which is approximately dated to 2900 BC. (beginning of III millennium BC). However, there is a version that the "black-headed" (the self-name of the Sumerians) could have settled in South Mesopotamia and before the flood. Having settled at the mouth of the rivers, the Sumerians founded their first city, called Eris (now the archaeological town of Abu Shahrein in southern Iraq) and where, according to legend, the birth of a great civilization began. It is known that the local population living in the south was of Semitic origin. " Blackheads” had no anthropological or linguistic similarities with the autochthonous inhabitants. They were completely alien to each other peoples. By the beginning of the III millennium BC. Sumerians, conquering the entire valley Mesopotamia, founded their first cities: Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Larsa, Umma, Kish, Mari, Shuruppak, Nippur. In its development, this civilization has gone through several historical periods. The first stage in the development of civilization was called the Uruk period. The first city of the Sumerians Uruk, built presumably before the flood, in the XXVIII-XXVII centuries. BC, during the reign of Enmerkara, Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh subjugated almost the entire south of Mesopotamia under their rule. In the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, tribes of Akkadians, representatives of the eastern branch of the Semites, settled on the territory of the Southern Mesopotamia. Not far from Kish, they build the city of Akkad. The aliens begin to adopt their culture from the developed city-states, while not forgetting to fight with their neighbors. As the struggle between the Sumerian rulers for hegemony expanded, the role of Akkad increased as a new center for the unification of the entire Mesopotamia. In 2316 BC , Sargon the Ancient (2316-2261 BC), taking advantage of the capture of the ruler of Uruk, Lugalzaagesi Kish, founded in Upper Mesopotamia his kingdom. During his reign, all Mesopotamia was united under the rule of one king. By 2200 B.C. The Akkadian kingdom is weakening and is powerless before the invasion of nomads from the north - Guti (Kuti). The conquerors preserve the internal independence of the Sumerian city-states. The era of the interregnum begins. Supremacy passes to the III dynasty of Ur. From 2112 to 2003 to. AD the heyday of the Sumerian civilization lasts. In 2003 BC Elam, located in the southwest of modern Iran and a longtime rival of the Mesopotamian cities, invaded the territory of Mesopotamia and captured the last ruler of Ur. After this, an era of anarchy begins. The Amorites gained complete control over Mesopotamia. In the 19th century BC Elamites founded new cities on the territory of Mesopotamia. The foundations were laid on the site of ancient Kadingirr Babylon, the center of the future kingdom of the same name, the founder of which was the Amorite leader Sumuabum. of its greatest power Babylonian kingdom reached under the king Hammurabi(1792 - 1750 BC). Under this ruler, the borders of the state were significantly expanded. The main opponents in the struggle for hegemony were Larsa and Elam. In 1787 BC Issin and Uruk were captured. In 1764 BC the army of the Babylonian kingdom defeated the allied forces Eshnunna, Malgium and Elam. In 1763 BC Larsa was conquered by the troops of Hammurabi, and in 1761 BC. the Babylonian king was recognized by the rulers of Malgium and Mari. The conquests of Babylon ended with the annexation in 1757 - 1756. BC. Assyrian cities Ashshura and Nineveh, as well as the kingdom of Eshnunna. All of Southern Mesopotamia and part of Northern Mesopotamia came under the rule of the Babylonian kingdom. Subsequently, several dynasties changed in Babylon, the state survived several crises and was captured by Assyria. Even during the invasion of the Elamites, Semites by origin, the ethnic balance was disturbed. The Sumerian language in written documents is being replaced by the Akkadian language, being used only in religious rites and as the language of science. Sumerians become a cult people, leaving behind only a rich store of knowledge for the following civilizations.

Religion was the first to be borrowed by the further peoples of this region. AT Sumer there was a large pantheon of deities, their customs and rituals. Initially, An, the heavenly god, was considered the supreme deity. Then his son Enlil, the god of the wind, took his place. The wife of the main god was Ninlil, who gave birth to the patron god of the moon - Nanna. The pantheon of deities was supplemented by Ninurta - the god of war, Nergal - the lord of the underworld, Namtar - the deity of fate, Enki - the owner of the oceans and a symbol of wisdom, Inanna - the patroness of agriculture, Utu the sun god and other deities. The main spiritual center of the Sumerians was the city of Nippur. Extremely high was the belief in spirits, both evil and good, incarnations of illness and adversity. The kings were considered earthly personifications of the gods. No less significant role in the Sumerian cities-states was played by priests. They were not only executors of the will of deities and kings, but also participated in the rites of sacrifice. Doctors, astronomers and oracles came out of their midst. The caste of priests had a hereditary status. The high priest of the city was elected by a kind of competition. In the early Babylonian kingdom, the main god was considered Marduk. Another supreme god was Shamash- Sun God. There is a cult of worship of dead kings.

The main role in the origin and development civilization writing played, without which it was impossible to make calculations and mark memorable moments in the history of the people. The Sumerians, as an ethnic group, differed significantly from the autochthonous population of Mesopotamia. Northern part Mesopotamia was inhabited by Semites. The language of the local population was named after the settled Mesopotamia eastern branch of the Akkadian Semites. The Sumerians, due to the difficulty of determining their anthropological type and the complete lack of relationship of their language with other language groups, raise many questions. However, the creation of cuneiform writing is attributed specifically to the Sumerians. Their writing consisted of hundreds of pictograms, which were carefully applied to clay, which was the only material for writing. The writing tool was a reed stick, the tip of which had a trihedral sharpening (wedge shape). Then they were fired, which gave them strength. Moreover, each sign could mean several words at the same time. Ancient written samples were a peculiar form of puzzles. As you improve pictograms both duplicated and recorded at some distance from each other. Akkadians, who ousted the Sumerians from the historical arena, due to differences in languages, they could not fully adopt the script of their territorial neighbors. However, most of the elements served as the basis for Akkadian writing. Most of the historical material about the Sumerians, Akkadians and their historical successors in the person of the Babylonians and Assyrians was obtained after the sensational discovery in 1849 by the British archaeologist O. Layard of the remains of the famous library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. There were over 30 thousand clay books with cuneiform writing. On them, both folklore works of different historical eras, and the scientific calculations of the priests. The most famous discovery was the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells about the period of the reign of the king. Uruk, explains the essence of human life and the meaning of immortality. Another work found in the famous library is the ancient Babylonian " Poem about Atrachis”, reporting the famous flood and the creation of the human race. Many tablets with astrological records have been preserved. Most of the clay books were transcribed copies of the ancient Sumerian, Akkadian and ancient Babylonian legends. The fire did not destroy the ancient works. However, some of the clay tablets were broken. The key to deciphering the cuneiform script was the Behistun inscription, discovered in 1835 by the English officer Henry Rawlinson on the territory of Iran, near Hamadan. The inscription was carved on a rock in honor of the military victories of the Persian king Darius I and dates back to around 516 BC. This historical monument consists of a relief image of a scene with a king, and under it a long inscription and its copies in other ancient languages. Over 14 years of deciphering, it was determined that this is the same record in 3 languages. The first group of signs is in the Old Persian language, the second in the Elamite language, and the third in the Babylonian language, which contained elements Old Babylonian borrowed from the Akkadians. Thus, it becomes clear that the Sumerians created their own unique script for future civilizations, while they themselves disappeared from the historical scene.

The main occupation of the population of the city-states of Sumer was agriculture. There was a fairly developed irrigation system. The agrarian document of Sumerian literature, the "Agricultural Almanac", contained advice on improving soil fertility and planting crops. In the Sumerian cities, the breeding of cattle and small cattle was no less developed. Sumerians also produced various metal products from bronze. They were familiar with the potter's wheel and wheel. The first brick kiln also belongs to the inventions of this people. They invented the first state seal. Sumerians were excellent doctors, astrologers and mathematicians. In library Ashurbanipal Clay tablets were found containing basic medical knowledge about body hygiene, disinfection of wounds, and simple operations. Astronomical calculations were mainly carried out in Nippur. The movements of the Sun, Moon and planets were studied. They founded their own calendar, where there were 354 days in a year. The cycle consisted of 12 lunar months, and to approach the solar year, an additional 11 days were added. The Sumerians were also familiar with the planets of the Milky Way. Even then, they have the center of the system is the Sun, around which the planets are located. The mathematical knowledge of the Sumerians was based on the sexagesimal system of calculation and is closer to modern geometry than to classical geometry.

The architecture of the Sumerian city-states was no less developed. Sumerians had no idea about stone buildings. Therefore, raw brick served as the main material for construction. Due to the fact that most of the territories inhabited by the Sumerians were swamps, architectural structures were built on artificial platforms. During the construction, arches and vaults were used. Archaeological excavations in the territory of modern Iraq have revealed many monuments of the Sumerian civilization. Of greatest interest are 2 temples (White and Red), found on the territory of the ancient city Uruk and built in honor of the goddesses Anu and Inanna. Another monument of the Sumerian era is the temple of the goddess Ninhursag in the city of Ur. The entrance to the temple is guarded by two lion sculptures made of wood. The most famous form of architectural construction was the ziggurats, small rectangular stepped towers with a small platform superstructure on top, which was considered the dwelling of the deities. Sculpture was also a developed business in the cities of Sumer. In 1877 in the area Tello miniature statuette of a priest discovered Lagash. Similar figurines of rulers and priests have been found throughout the archaeological complex in Iraq.

Sumerian civilization was the ancestor of all the cultures of Mesopotamia. She shared her cultural heritage with her heirs in the person of Babylon and Assyria, while remaining mysterious and legendary for future generations. Despite the decoding of some records, the anthropological type, language and historical ancestral home of the Sumerians still remain unknown.

The Sumerians are the first civilization on Earth. It appeared in the region of Mesopotamia more than six thousand years ago.

In their calculations, the ancient Sumerians used the ternary system, they were familiar with the legends of this people contain descriptions of the origin, structure and development of the solar system. Her image, created by the ancient Sumerians, is kept in Berlin, in the State Museum. However, the planet Nibiru is present on the ancient map. It is located between Jupiter and Mars and crosses the system once every 3600 years, so it is not visible to modern people.

The Sumerian civilization developed largely under the influence of Nibiru. According to legends, the ancient people could contact with According to the Sumerians, the Anunaki from Nibiru came to earth.

Ancient stories about the cosmos point to an event that happened about four billion years ago. The Sumerians called it "heavenly battle". According to history, a catastrophe occurred that changed the general appearance of the entire solar system.

The Sumerian civilization left ancient manuscripts that contain information about the origin of intelligent life on Earth. Legends say that the modern human race was created with the help of methods more than three hundred thousand years ago. In other words, the Sumerians indicated that modern people are a civilization of biorobots.

Ancient clay tablets testify to the first appearance of man in some detail. They depict the process of its creation in the form of chronicles, including the mixing of divine and earthly elements, which is similar to fertilization in a test tube.

The Sumerian civilization had a fairly large amount of knowledge. The people were well aware of astronomy, chemistry, herbal medicine, and mathematics.

The Sumerian civilization was very well developed. This is indicated by the organization of their state administration. The Sumerians had elected and other bodies corresponding to the structure of power in the modern sense.

Torah (Hebrew Bible), created on the ruins of Sumer, attributed to Elohim. This name is indicated in and can be interpreted as "Gods". The Torah quite accurately defined the purpose of the creation of man as necessary for cultivating the land.

Sumerian legends testify to the creation of Adam. According to the chronicles, the chief scientist of the Anunaki Enki was called to the ruler Anu. Together they created Adam. This name comes from the ancient Sumerian name for the earth (“Adamah”). Thus, Adam means "Earthling".

The Sumerian civilization, in particular its origin, causes a lot of controversy among scientists. The version about its cosmic origin is described in the book by Zecharia Sitchin "The 12th Planet".

According to archaeological data and documentary facts, the Sumerian culture appeared already fully developed, with its own written language. The religion of the people had cosmogonic roots, a whole pantheon of Gods was present in it and was responsible for natural forces. The main deities were considered to be KI and AN, personifying the male and female principles. The gods had to work quite hard, so they created people to help themselves.

The Sumerians left the world a huge number of items used in the modern world: money, wheels and others. The ancient people had knowledge of the production of various alloys, mainly bronze.

The Sumerians introduced the Zodiac to carry out astronomical calculations, without reference to months, they were also aware of the precessional cycle, they divided the sphere of the sky into twelve segments and combined groups of stars into constellations.

Civilization lasted two thousand years. During this relatively short period, she gave invaluable knowledge for the development of mankind in the future.

Sumer was the first of the three great civilizations of antiquity. It originated on the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in 3800 BC. e.

The Sumerians invented the wheel, were the first to build schools and created a bicameral parliament.

It was here that the first historians appeared. Here the first money was in circulation - silver shekels in the form of ingots, cosmogony and cosmology arose, taxes began to be introduced for the first time, medicine and a number of institutions appeared that “survived” to this day. Various disciplines were taught in the Sumerian hotels, and the legislative system of this state was similar to ours. There were laws protecting the employed and the unemployed, the weak and the helpless, and there was a system of judges and juries.

In the library of Ashurbanipal discovered in 1850 in Mesopotamia, 30 thousand clay tablets were found containing a lot of information, much of which remains undeciphered to this day.

Meanwhile, clay tablets with records were found before the discovery of the library, and then, and in many of them, in particular in the Akkadian texts, it is indicated that they were copied from earlier Sumerian originals.

The construction business was well established in Sumer, and the first brick kiln was also created here. The same furnaces were used to smelt metals from ore, a process that became necessary in the early stages, as soon as the supply of natural native copper was exhausted.

Researchers of ancient metallurgy were extremely surprised how quickly the Sumerians learned the methods of ore enrichment, metal smelting and casting. They mastered these technologies only a few centuries after the emergence of civilization.

Even more striking is the fact that the Sumerians mastered the methods of obtaining alloys. They pioneered the production of bronze, a hard but workable alloy that changed the course of human history.

The ability to alloy copper with tin was the greatest achievement. Firstly, because it was necessary to choose their exact ratio, and the Sumerians found the optimal one: 85% copper to 15% tin.

Secondly, in Mesopotamia there was no tin, which is generally rare in nature, it had to be found somewhere and brought. And thirdly, the extraction of tin from ore - tin stone - is a rather complicated process that could not be discovered by chance.

Unlike scientists of later centuries, the Sumerians knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun, the planets moved, and the stars were stationary.

They knew all the planets of the solar system, and Uranus, for example, was discovered only in 1781. Moreover, the clay tablets tell about the catastrophe that happened to the planet Tiamat, which is now commonly called Transpluto in science and science fiction literature, and the existence of which was indirectly confirmed in 1980 by the American spacecraft Pioneer and Voyager, directed to the borders solar system.

All the knowledge of the Sumerians regarding the movement of the Sun and the Earth was combined in the world's first calendar they created.

This solar-lunar calendar came into force in 3760 BC. e.

The Sumerians are the first civilization on Earth.

in the city of Nippur. And it was the most accurate and complex of all subsequent ones. And the sexagesimal number system created by the Sumerians made it possible to calculate fractions and multiply numbers up to millions, extract roots and raise to a power.

The division of an hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds was based on the sexagesimal system. Echoes of the Sumerian number system were preserved in the division of a day into 24 hours, a year into 12 months, a foot into 12 inches, and in the existence of a dozen as a measure of quantity.

This civilization lasted only 2 thousand years, but how many discoveries were made!

It can't be!

And yet this impossible Sumer existed and enriched mankind with such an amount of knowledge that no other civilization gave him.

Moreover, the civilization of Sumer, mysteriously born six thousand years ago, just as suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. On this score, orthodox scientists have several versions. But the reasons they call the death of the Sumerian kingdom are as unconvincing as the versions with which they try to explain its emergence and a truly fantastic, incomparable rise.

The Sumerian civilization perished as a result of the invasion from the west of warlike Semitic nomadic tribes.

In the 24th century BC, the king of Akkad, Sargon the Ancient, defeated the king Lugalzaggisi, the ruler of Sumer, uniting northern Mesopotamia under his power. On the shoulders of Sumer, the Babylonian-Assyrian civilization was born.

Sumerian architecture

The development of the architectural thought of the Sumerians is most clearly traced by how the external appearance of the temples changes.

In the Sumerian language, the words "house" and "temple" sound the same, so the ancient Sumerians did not share the concepts of "build a house" and "build a temple." God is the owner of all the wealth of the city, his master, mortals are only unworthy of his servants. The temple is the dwelling of God, it should become a testament to his power, strength, military prowess. In the center of the city, on a high platform, a monumental and majestic structure was erected - a house, the dwelling of the gods - a temple, stairs or ramps led to it from both sides.

Unfortunately, from the temples of the most ancient buildings, only ruins have survived to this day, according to which it is almost impossible to restore the internal structure and decoration of religious buildings.

The reason for this is the humid, damp climate of Mesopotamia and the absence of any durable building material other than clay.

In ancient Mesopotamia, all buildings were built of brick, which was formed from raw clay mixed with reeds. Such buildings required annual restoration and repair and were extremely short-lived. Only from ancient Sumerian texts do we learn that in early temples the sanctuary was moved to the edge of the platform on which the temple was erected.

The center of the sanctuary, its sacred place, where sacraments and rituals were performed, was the throne of God. He required special care and attention. The statue of the deity, in whose honor the temple was erected, was located in the depths of the sanctuary. She, too, had to be carefully taken care of. Probably, the interior of the temple was covered with paintings, but they were destroyed by the humid climate of Mesopotamia.

At the beginning of the III century BC. the uninitiated were no longer allowed into the sanctuary and its open courtyard. At the end of the 3rd century BC, another type of temple building appeared in Ancient Sumer - a ziggurat.

It is a multi-stage tower, the “floors” of which look like pyramids or parallelepipeds tapering upwards, their number could reach up to seven. On the site of the ancient city of Ur, archaeologists discovered a temple complex built by the king Ur-Nammu from the III dynasty of Ur.

This is the best preserved Sumerian ziggurat that has survived to this day.

It is a monumental three-story brick building, over 20m high.

The Sumerians built temples carefully and thoughtfully, but residential buildings for people did not differ in special architectural delights. Basically, these were rectangular buildings, all of the same raw brick. Houses were built without windows, the only source of light was the doorway.

But in most buildings there was a sewerage system. There was no planning of developments, houses were built haphazardly, so often narrow crooked streets ended in dead ends. Each residential building was usually surrounded by an adobe wall. The same wall, but much thicker, was built around the settlement. According to legend, the very first settlement that surrounded itself with a wall, thereby assigning itself the status of a “city”, was ancient Uruk.

The ancient city remained forever in the Akkadian epic "Uruk Fenced".

Mythology

By the time the first Sumerian city-states were formed, the idea of ​​an anthropomorphic deity had formed.

The patron deities of the community were, first of all, the personification of the creative and productive forces of nature, with which the ideas about the power of the military leader of the tribe-community, combined with the functions of the high priest, are combined.

From the first written sources, the names (or symbols) of the gods Inanna, Enlil, and others are known, and from the time of the so-called.

n. period of Abu-Salabiha (settlements near Nippur) and headlights (Shuruppak) 27-26 centuries. - theophoric names and the most ancient list of gods. The earliest actually mythological literary texts - hymns to the gods, lists of proverbs, exposition of some myths also date back to the period of Fara and come from the excavations of Fara and Abu-Salabih. But the bulk of the Sumerian texts of mythological content dates back to the end of the 3rd - the beginning of the 2nd millennium, to the so-called Old Babylonian period - the time when the Sumerian language was already dying out, but the Babylonian tradition still retained the system of teaching in it.

Thus, by the time writing appeared in Mesopotamia (end.

4th millennium BC BC) a certain system of mythological representations is recorded here. But each city-state retained its own deities and heroes, cycles of myths and its own priestly tradition.

Until the end of the 3rd mill.

BC e. there was no single systematized pantheon, although there were several common Sumerian deities: Enlil, “lord of the air”, “king of gods and people”, god of the city of Nippur, the center of the ancient Sumerian tribal union; Enki, the lord of underground fresh waters and the oceans (later also the deity of wisdom), the main god of the city of Eredu, the ancient cultural center of Sumer; An, the god of keba, and Inanna, the goddess of war and carnal love, the deity of the city of Uruk, which rose at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC.

BC e.; Naina, the moon god worshiped in Ur; the warrior god Ningirsu, who was revered in Lagash (this god was later identified with the Lagash Ninurta), etc. The oldest list of gods from Farah (c. 26 century BC) identifies six supreme gods of the early Sumerian pantheon: Enlil, An, Inanna , Enki, Nanna and the sun god Utu.

Valery Gulyaev

Sumer. Babylon. Assyria: 5000 years of history

Where did the Sumerians come from?

Even if we assume that the Sumerians were already carriers of the Ubeid culture, the question of where these Ubeid Sumerians came from still remains unanswered. “Where did the Sumerians themselves come from,” notes I.M. Dyakonov, is still completely unclear.

32. Impressions of cylinder seals of the Jemdet-Nasr period: a) a seal depicting a sacred boat;

b) a seal from the temple of Inanna in Uruk.

Early III millennium BC e.

Their own legends make us think of an eastern or southeastern origin: they considered their oldest settlement to be Eredu - in the Sumerian "Ere-du" - "Good City", the southernmost of the cities of Mesopotamia, now the settlement of Abu-Shakhrain; the place of origin of mankind and its cultural achievements, the Sumerians attributed to the island of Dilmun (possibly Bahrain in the Persian Gulf); Cults associated with the mountain played an important role in their religion.

From an archaeological point of view, the connection between the ancient Sumerians and the territory of Elam (southwestern Iran) is probable.”

The anthropological type of the Sumerians can be judged to a certain extent by bone remains, but not by their sculpture, as scientists believed in the past, since it is apparently highly stylized and the emphasis on some facial features (large ears, large eyes, nose) is not due to physical traits of the people, but the requirements of the cult.

The study of skeletons allows us to conclude that the Sumerians of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. e. belonged to the anthropological type that has always dominated Mesopotamia, that is, to the Mediterranean small group of the Caucasoid large race. If the Sumerians in the Southern Mesopotamia had predecessors, then, obviously, they belonged to the same anthropological type. This is not surprising: in history it very rarely happens that newcomers completely exterminate the old inhabitants; much more often they took wives from the local population.

Aliens could be less than local residents. Therefore, even if the Sumerians actually came from afar and brought their language from afar, this could have almost no effect on the anthropological type of the ancient population of Lower Mesopotamia.

As for the language of the Sumerians, it continues to remain a mystery for the time being, although there are few languages ​​in the world with which they would not try to establish its relationship: here are Sudanese, and Indo-European, and Caucasian, and Malayo-Polynesian, and Hungarian, and many others.

For a long time, a theory was widespread that attributed Sumerian to the number of Turkic-Mongolian languages, but quite numerous comparisons were made (for example, Turk. tengri"sky, god" and Sumerian. dingir"god") were eventually dismissed as coincidences. Also, the long list of proposed Sumerian-Georgian comparisons was not accepted by science.

There is no relationship between the Sumerian and its peers in ancient Asia Minor - Elamite, Hurrian, etc.

Who are the Sumerians - a people who firmly occupied the arena of Mesopotamian history for a good thousand years (3000-2000 BC).

BC e.)? Do they really represent a very ancient layer of the prehistoric population of Iraq, or did they come from some other country? And if this is so, then where exactly and when did fate bring the “blackheads” to Mesopotamia (the self-name of the Sumerians is sang ngig, "blackheads")? This important problem has been debated in scientific circles for more than 150 years, but so far its final solution is still very far away. Most scientists, however, believe that the ancestors of the Sumerians first appeared in the Southern Mesopotamia in Ubeid times and, thus, the Sumerians are an alien people.

33. Stone vessel with colored inlays. Uruk (Varka).

Kon. IV millennium BC

Sumerian civilization briefly

“One thing is indisputable,” writes the Polish historian M. Belitsky, “they were a people ethnically, linguistically and culturally alien to the Semitic tribes that settled Northern Mesopotamia at about the same time ... Speaking about the origin of the Sumerians, one should not forget about this circumstance.

Long-term searches for a more or less significant language group related to the Sumerian language did not lead to anything, although they searched everywhere - from Central Asia to the islands of Oceania.

Evidence that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia from some mountainous country is their way of building temples, which were erected on artificial embankments or on terraces made of mud bricks. It is unlikely that such a method could have arisen among the inhabitants of the plain.

It, along with beliefs, had to be brought from their ancestral homeland by the highlanders, who paid honors to the gods on the mountain peaks. Moreover, in the Sumerian language, the words "country" and "mountain" are spelled the same.

The Sumerians themselves do not say anything about their origin. The most ancient myths begin the history of the creation of the world with individual cities, “and it is always that city,” notes the Russian historian V.V. Emelyanov - where the text was created (Lagash), or the sacred cult centers of the Sumerians (Nippur, Eredu).

The texts of the beginning of the 2nd millennium are called the island of Dilmun as the place of origin of life, but they were compiled just in the era of active trade and political contacts with Dilmun, therefore, they should not be taken as historical evidence.

Much more serious is the information contained in the most ancient epic - "Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta". It tells about the dispute between two rulers for the settlement of the goddess Inanna in their city. Both rulers equally revere Inanna, but one lives in the south of Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian Uruk, and the other in the east, in the country of Aratta, famous for its skilled craftsmen. Moreover, both rulers bear Sumerian names - Enmerkar and Ensukhkeshdanna.

Do not these facts speak of the eastern, Iranian-Indian (of course, pre-Aryan) origin of the Sumerians?

ill. 34. Vessel with the image of animals. Susa. Kon. IV millennium BC e.

Another piece of epic evidence. The Nippur god Ninurta, fighting on the Iranian highlands with certain monsters seeking to usurp the Sumerian throne, calls them "children of An", and meanwhile it is well known that An is the most respected and oldest god of the Sumerians, and, therefore, Ninurta is with his opponents in kindred.

Thus, the epic texts make it possible to determine, if not the area of ​​origin of the Sumerians, then at least the eastern, Iranian-Indian direction of the Sumerians' migration to the Southern Mesopotamia. Where, you ask, did the word “Sumer” come from in this case, and by what right do we call the people Sumerians?

Like most questions of Sumerology, this question is still open.

The non-Semitic people of Mesopotamia - the Sumerians - were named so by their discoverer Yu.

Oppert on the basis of Assyrian royal inscriptions, in which the northern part of the country is called "Akkad", and the southern "Sumer". Oppert knew that mostly Semites lived in the north, and their center was the city of Akkad, which means that people of non-Semitic origin must have lived in the south, and they should be called Sumerians.

And he identified the name of the territory with the self-name of the people. As it turned out later, this hypothesis turned out to be incorrect. As for the word "Sumer", there are several versions of its origin. According to the hypothesis of the Assyriologist A. Falkenstein, this word is a phonetically modified term Ki-en-gi(r)- the name of the area in which the temple of the common Sumerian god Enlil was located. Subsequently, this name spread to the southern and central part of Mesopotamia and already in the era of Akkad, in the mouths of the Semitic rulers of the country, it was distorted to Shu-me-ru. Danish Sumerologist A.

Westenholtz proposes to understand "Sumer" as a distortion of the phrase ki-eme-geer -"the land of the noble language" (as the Sumerians themselves called their language). There are other, less convincing hypotheses. Nevertheless, the term "Sumer" has long been given the rights of citizenship in both special and popular literature, and no one is going to change it yet.

And this is all that can be said now about the origins of the Sumerian civilization.

As one of the venerable Assyriologists put it, "the more we discuss the problem of the origin of the Sumerians, the more it turns into a chimera."

So, by the beginning of the third millennium

BC e. Southern Mesopotamia (from the latitude of Baghdad to the Persian Gulf) was the birthplace of about a dozen autonomous city-states, or "nomes." From the moment of their appearance, they waged a fierce struggle for dominance in this region. In the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain (Mesopotamia), the most influential force was the rulers of the city of Kish, in the south, either Uruk or Ur alternately took the lead.

Nevertheless, “despite the lack of complete cultural unity (which is manifested in the existence of local cults, local mythological cycles, local and often very different schools in sculpture, glyptics, arts and crafts, etc.), there are also features of the cultural community of the whole country ... To these features belong to the common self-name - "black-headed" ( saiga—pgiga)… common for the entire Mesopotamia cult of the supreme god Enlil in Nippur, with which all local communal cults and all genealogies of deities were gradually correlated; mutual language; distribution of carved cylinder seals with realistic images of hunting, religious processions, killing of prisoners, etc.

P.; well-known common features of style in glyptic in general, as well as in sculpture. The most interesting thing is that the Sumerian writing system, for all its complexity and with the disunity of individual political centers, is practically identical throughout Mesopotamia. The textbooks used are also identical - lists of signs, which were copied without changes until the second half of the 3rd millennium BC.

e. One gets the impression that writing was invented at a time, in one center, and from there, in a finished and unchanged form, it was distributed to separate “nomes” of Mesopotamia.”

The center of the cult union of all the Sumerians was Nippur (Sumerian Niburu, modern Niffer). Here was E-kur - the temple of the common Sumerian god Enlil. Enlil was revered as the supreme god for another millennium by all the Sumerians and the eastern Semites-Akkadians.

And although Nippur has never been an important political and administrative center, it has always been the "sacred" capital of all the "blackheads". Not a single ruler of the city-state ("noma") was considered legitimate if he did not receive blessings for power in the main temple of Enlil in Nippur.

Who ruled the Sumerians at the dawn of their history?

What were the names of their kings and leaders? What was their social status? What kind of business did they do? The inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, like the Greeks, Germans, Hindus, Slavs, had their own "heroic age" - the time of the existence of demigods, half-heroes, brave warriors and powerful kings who stood almost on a par with the gods and performed extraordinary feats, proving their prowess and greatness. And only now we are beginning to understand that at least some of these heroes are by no means mythical characters from old fairy tales, but quite real historical figures.

The Sumerians used a six-decimal number system. Only two signs were used to depict numbers: the “wedge” denoted 1; 60; 3600 and further degrees from 60; "hook" - 10; 60 x 10; 3600 x 10 etc.

Sumerian civilization

The digital notation was based on the positional principle, but if you, based on the basis of numeration, think that numbers in Sumer were displayed as powers of 60, then you are mistaken.

The base in the Sumerian system is not 10, but 60, but then this base is strangely replaced by the number 10, then 6, and then back to 10, and so on. And thus, positional numbers line up in the following row:

1, 10, 60, 600, 3600, 36 000, 216 000, 2 160 000, 12 960 000.

This cumbersome sexagesimal system allowed the Sumerians to calculate fractions and multiply numbers up to millions, extract roots and raise to a power.

In many respects this system even surpasses the decimal system we currently use. Firstly, the number 60 has ten prime divisors, while 100 has only 7. Secondly, this is the only system that is ideal for geometric calculations, and this is why it continues to be used in our time from here, for example, dividing a circle into 360 degrees.

We rarely realize that not only our geometry, but also the modern way of calculating time, we owe to the Sumerian sexagesimal number system.

The division of the hour into 60 seconds was not at all arbitrary - it is based on the sexagesimal system. Echoes of the Sumerian number system were preserved in the division of a day into 24 hours, a year into 12 months, a foot into 12 inches, and in the existence of a dozen as a measure of quantity.

They are also found in the modern counting system, in which numbers from 1 to 12 are singled out, and then numbers like 10 + 3, 10 + 4, etc. follow.

It should no longer surprise us that the zodiac was also another invention of the Sumerians, an invention that was later adopted by other civilizations. But the Sumerians did not use the signs of the zodiac, tying them to each month, as we do now in horoscopes. They used them in a purely astronomical sense - in the sense of the deviation of the earth's axis, the movement of which divides the full cycle of precession of 25,920 years into 12 periods of 2160 years.

With the twelve-month movement of the Earth in orbit around the Sun, the picture of the starry sky, which forms a large sphere of 360 degrees, changes. The concept of the zodiac arose by dividing this circle into 12 equal segments (zodiacal spheres) of 30 degrees each. Then the stars in each group were combined into constellations, and each of them received its own name, corresponding to their modern names. Thus, there is no doubt that the concept of the zodiac was first used in Sumer.

The inscriptions of the signs of the zodiac (representing imaginary pictures of the starry sky), as well as their arbitrary division into 12 spheres, prove that the corresponding signs of the zodiac used in other, later cultures, could not have appeared as a result of independent development.

Studies of Sumerian mathematics, much to the surprise of scientists, showed that their number system is closely related to the precessional cycle. The unusual moving principle of the Sumerian sexagesimal number system focuses on the number 12,960,000, which is exactly equal to 500 great precessional cycles occurring in 25,920 years.

The absence of any other than astronomical possible applications for the products of the numbers 25920 and 2160 can only mean one thing - this system is designed specifically for astronomical purposes.

It seems that scientists are avoiding answering the uncomfortable question, which is this: how could the Sumerians, whose civilization lasted only 2,000 years, notice and fix the cycle of celestial movements that lasts 25,920 years?

And why does the beginning of their civilization refer to the middle of the period between the changes of the zodiac? Does this not indicate that they inherited astronomy from the gods?

Introduction

History of civilization: discoveries

Sumerian architecture

Mythology

Practical work: the Sumerians and nature

Conclusion

Introduction

Civilization is a way of human survival in the world by changing the world. It originates from the creation of tools for labor and hunting, from the conquest of power over fire and the domestication of animals. This radical leap from animal to man changed the world fundamentally: new entities appeared in the world, which man developed, gradually more and more adapting the world to himself and his needs. Physical objects and phenomena changed their meaning, or rather, acquired it.

It has already been proven that the Sumerian civilization is the oldest on Earth, which appeared more than 6 thousand years ago. Their first civilization arose at least 445 thousand years ago. Many scientists have fought and are fighting to solve the mystery of the most ancient people on the planet, but there are still a lot of mysteries. A little over a hundred years ago, nothing at all was known about the Sumerians and their civilization.

Sumer as a country and the Sumerians as a people did not leave any noticeable traces in the literature that was available to enthusiasts and scientists who began excavations in Mesopotamia in the last century in search of the palaces of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings mentioned in the Bible.

History of civilization

Sumer was the first of the three great civilizations of antiquity. It originated on the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in 3800 BC. e.

The Sumerians invented the wheel, were the first to build schools and created a bicameral parliament. It was here that the first historians appeared. Here the first money was in circulation - silver shekels in the form of ingots, cosmogony and cosmology arose, taxes began to be introduced for the first time, medicine and a number of institutions appeared that "survived" to this day. Various disciplines were taught in the Sumerian hotels, and the legislative system of this state was similar to ours. There were laws protecting the employed and the unemployed, the weak and the helpless, and there was a system of judges and juries.

In the library of Ashurbanipal discovered in 1850 in Mesopotamia, 30 thousand clay tablets were found containing a lot of information, much of which remains undeciphered to this day. Meanwhile, clay tablets with records were found before the discovery of the library, and then, and in many of them, in particular in the Akkadian texts, it is indicated that they were copied from earlier Sumerian originals.

The construction business was well established in Sumer, and the first brick kiln was also created here. The same furnaces were used to smelt metals from ore - this process became necessary already in the early stages, as soon as the supply of natural native copper was exhausted. Researchers of ancient metallurgy were extremely surprised how quickly the Sumerians learned the methods of ore enrichment, metal smelting and casting. They mastered these technologies only a few centuries after the emergence of civilization.

Even more striking is the fact that the Sumerians mastered the methods of obtaining alloys. They were the first to learn how to produce bronze, a hard but workable alloy that changed the entire course of human history. The ability to alloy copper with tin was the greatest achievement. Firstly, because it was necessary to choose their exact ratio, and the Sumerians found the optimal one: 85% copper to 15% tin. Secondly, in Mesopotamia there was no tin, which is generally rare in nature, it had to be found somewhere and brought. And thirdly, the extraction of tin from ore - tin stone - is a rather complicated process that could not be discovered by chance.

Unlike scientists of later centuries, the Sumerians knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun, the planets moved, and the stars were stationary. They knew all the planets of the solar system, and Uranus, for example, was discovered only in 1781. Moreover, the clay tablets tell about the catastrophe that happened to the planet Tiamat, which is now commonly called Transpluto in science and science fiction literature, and the existence of which was indirectly confirmed in 1980 by the American spacecraft Pioneer and Voyager, directed to the borders solar system.

All the knowledge of the Sumerians regarding the movement of the Sun and the Earth was combined in the world's first calendar they created. This solar-lunar calendar came into force in 3760 BC. e. in the city of Nippur. And it was the most accurate and complex of all subsequent ones. And the sexagesimal number system created by the Sumerians made it possible to calculate fractions and multiply numbers up to millions, extract roots and raise to a power.

The division of an hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds was based on the sexagesimal system. Echoes of the Sumerian number system were preserved in the division of a day into 24 hours, a year into 12 months, a foot into 12 inches, and in the existence of a dozen as a measure of quantity.

This civilization lasted only 2 thousand years, but how many discoveries were made!

It can't be! And yet this impossible Sumer existed and enriched mankind with such an amount of knowledge that no other civilization gave him. Moreover, the civilization of Sumer, mysteriously born six thousand years ago, just as suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. On this score, orthodox scientists have several versions. But the reasons they call the death of the Sumerian kingdom are as unconvincing as the versions with which they try to explain its emergence and a truly fantastic, incomparable rise.

The Sumerian civilization perished as a result of the invasion from the west of warlike Semitic nomadic tribes. In the 24th century BC, the king of Akkad, Sargon the Ancient, defeated the king Lugalzaggisi, the ruler of Sumer, uniting northern Mesopotamia under his power. On the shoulders of Sumer, the Babylonian-Assyrian civilization was born.

Sumerians civilization cuneiform mythology

Sumerian architecture

The development of the architectural thought of the Sumerians is most clearly traced by how the external appearance of the temples changes. In the Sumerian language, the words "house" and "temple" sound the same, so the ancient Sumerians did not share the concepts of "build a house" and "build a temple." God is the owner of all the riches of the city, his master, mortals are only his unworthy servants. The temple is the dwelling of God, it should become a testament to his power, strength, military prowess. In the center of the city, on a high platform, a monumental and majestic structure was erected - a house, the dwelling of the gods - a temple, stairs or ramps led to it from both sides.

Unfortunately, from the temples of the most ancient buildings, only ruins have survived to this day, according to which it is almost impossible to restore the internal structure and decoration of religious buildings. The reason for this is the humid, damp climate of Mesopotamia and the absence of any durable building material other than clay.

In ancient Mesopotamia, all buildings were built of brick, which was formed from raw clay mixed with reeds. Such buildings required annual restoration and repair and were extremely short-lived. Only from ancient Sumerian texts do we learn that in early temples the sanctuary was moved to the edge of the platform on which the temple was erected. The center of the sanctuary, its sacred place, where sacraments and rituals were performed, was the throne of God. He required special care and attention. The statue of the deity, in whose honor the temple was erected, was located in the depths of the sanctuary. She, too, had to be carefully taken care of. Probably, the interior of the temple was covered with paintings, but they were destroyed by the humid climate of Mesopotamia. At the beginning of the III century BC. the uninitiated were no longer allowed into the sanctuary and its open courtyard. At the end of the 3rd century BC, another type of temple building appeared in Ancient Sumer - the ziggurat.

It is a multi-stage tower, the “floors” of which look like pyramids or parallelepipeds tapering upwards, their number could reach up to seven. On the site of the ancient city of Ur, archaeologists discovered a temple complex built by the king Ur-Nammu from the III dynasty of Ur. This is the best preserved Sumerian ziggurat that has survived to this day.

It is a monumental three-story brick building, over 20m high.

The Sumerians built temples carefully and thoughtfully, but residential buildings for people did not differ in special architectural delights. Basically, these were rectangular buildings, all of the same raw brick. Houses were built without windows, the only source of light was the doorway. But in most buildings there was a sewerage system. There was no planning of developments, houses were built haphazardly, so often narrow crooked streets ended in dead ends. Each residential building was usually surrounded by an adobe wall. The same wall, but much thicker, was built around the settlement. According to legend, the very first settlement that surrounded itself with a wall, thereby assigning itself the status of a “city”, was ancient Uruk. The ancient city remained forever in the Akkadian epic "Uruk Fenced".

Mythology

By the time the first Sumerian city-states were formed, the idea of ​​an anthropomorphic deity had formed.

The patron deities of the community were, first of all, the personification of the creative and productive forces of nature, with which the ideas about the power of the military leader of the tribe-community, combined with the functions of the high priest, are connected.

From the first written sources, the names (or symbols) of the gods Inanna, Enlil, and others are known, and since the time of the so-called. period of Abu-Salabiha (settlements near Nippur) and headlights (Shuruppak) 27-26 centuries. - Theophoric names and the most ancient list of gods. The earliest actually mythological literary texts - hymns to the gods, lists of proverbs, exposition of some myths also date back to the period of Fara and come from the excavations of Fara and Abu-Salabih. But the bulk of the Sumerian texts of mythological content dates back to the end of the 3rd - the beginning of the 2nd millennium, to the so-called Old Babylonian period - the time when the Sumerian language was already dying out, but the Babylonian tradition still retained the system of teaching in it.

Thus, by the time writing appeared in Mesopotamia (the end of the 4th millennium BC), a certain system of mythological ideas was recorded here. But each city-state retained its own deities and heroes, cycles of myths and its own priestly tradition.

Until the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. there was no single systematized pantheon, although there were several common Sumerian deities: Enlil, “lord of the air”, “king of gods and people”, god of the city of Nippur, the center of the ancient Sumerian tribal union; Enki, the lord of underground fresh waters and the oceans (later also the deity of wisdom), the main god of the city of Eredu, the ancient cultural center of Sumer; An, the god of keba, and Inanna, the goddess of war and carnal love, the deity of the city of Uruk, which rose at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e.; Naina, the moon god worshiped in Ur; the warrior god Ningirsu, who was revered in Lagash (this god was later identified with the Lagash Ninurta), etc. The oldest list of gods from Farah (c. 26 century BC) identifies six supreme gods of the early Sumerian pantheon: Enlil, An, Inanna , Enki, Nanna and the sun god Utu.

Practical work: Sumerians and nature

The problems of modern civilization that threaten the existence of mankind and life on the planet - the danger of nuclear war, ecological catastrophe, depletion of non-renewable resources, drug addiction and much more - are the result of a long evolution of society, a change in its place and role in the history of our planet. They are generated by the active activity of mankind and the features of the “nature” of man that has been formed over millions of years, which also requires consideration of the formation of civilization within the framework of global or universal evolutionism.

In other words, penetration into the nature of civilization, the search for its foundations, reflections on the future of civilization, on the possible prospects for the existence of the human race require reliance on a certain common vision of the world, and such a “picture of the world” should include the principle of evolution and the person himself.

This means that the past, the history of man and his civilization should be covered from the standpoint of universal evolutionism, when earthly life arises in the course of cosmic evolution, when biological evolution leads to the emergence of man and civilization.

If you look at the mythology and architecture of the Sumerian civilization, you can highlight some facts:

There are few trees and stone in Mesopotamia, so the first building material was raw bricks from a mixture of clay, sand and straw.

The deities - patrons of the community were primarily the personification of the creative and productive forces of nature

The priests also played a paramount role in the formation of the Sumerian states.

The Sumerian civilization was highly developed

From the above facts, we can conclude that the impact of the Sumerian civilization on nature was clearly controlled and, in fact, not global, given that deities and priests played an important role in the formation of this civilization.

Conclusion

Modern science cannot provide answers to all the questions that arise when studying the history of the Sumerians. Too few sources and monuments of that period have survived to this day. However, the civilization of Sumer is one of the most mysterious, significant and developed in the history of the Ancient World. And, perhaps, the key to understanding the whole history of antiquity lies in understanding and appreciating the significance of the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization.

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In the south of modern Iraq, in the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates, almost 7000 years ago, a mysterious people settled - the Sumerians. They made a significant contribution to the development of human civilization, but we still do not know where the Sumerians came from and what language they spoke.

Mysterious language

The valley of Mesopotamia has long been inhabited by tribes of Semitic pastoralists. It was they who were driven north by the Sumerian aliens. The Sumerians themselves were not related to the Semites, moreover, their origin is still unclear. Neither the ancestral home of the Sumerians nor the language family to which their language belonged is known.

Fortunately for us, the Sumerians left many written monuments. From them we learn that neighboring tribes called this people "Sumers", and they themselves called themselves "Sang-ngiga" - "black-headed". They called their own language the “noble language” and considered it the only one suitable for people (in contrast to the not so “noble” Semitic languages ​​spoken by their neighbors).
But the Sumerian language was not homogeneous. It had special dialects for women and men, fishermen and shepherds. How the Sumerian language sounded is unknown to this day. A large number of homonyms suggests that this language was tonal (as, for example, modern Chinese), which means that the meaning of what was said often depended on intonation.
After the decline of the Sumerian civilization, the Sumerian language was studied for a long time in Mesopotamia, since most religious and literary texts were written in it.

Ancestral home of the Sumerians

One of the main mysteries remains the ancestral home of the Sumerians. Scientists build hypotheses based on archaeological data and information obtained from written sources.

This Asian country, unknown to us, was supposed to be located on the sea. The fact is that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia along the riverbeds, and their first settlements appear in the south of the valley, in the deltas of the Tigris and Euphrates. At first, there were very few Sumerians in Mesopotamia - and not surprisingly, because the ships can not accommodate so many settlers. Apparently, they were good sailors, since they were able to climb up unfamiliar rivers and find a suitable place to land on the shore.

In addition, scientists believe that the Sumerians come from a mountainous area. No wonder the words “country” and “mountain” are spelled the same in their language. Yes, and the Sumerian temples "ziggurats" in their appearance resemble mountains - these are stepped structures with a wide base and a narrow pyramidal top, where the sanctuary was located.

Another important condition is that this country had to have developed technologies. The Sumerians were one of the most advanced peoples of their time, they were the first in the entire Middle East to use the wheel, create an irrigation system, and invent a unique writing system.
According to one version, this legendary ancestral home was located in southern India.

flood survivors

It was not in vain that the Sumerians chose the valley of Mesopotamia as their new homeland. The Tigris and Euphrates originate in the Armenian Highlands, and carry fertile silt and mineral salts to the valley. Because of this, the soil in Mesopotamia is extremely fertile, with fruit trees, cereals, and vegetables growing in abundance. In addition, there were fish in the rivers, wild animals flocked to the watering place, and there was plenty of food for livestock in the water meadows.

But all this abundance had a downside. When the snow began to melt in the mountains, the Tigris and Euphrates carried streams of water into the valley. Unlike the floods of the Nile, the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates could not be predicted, they were not regular.

Strong floods turned into a real disaster, they destroyed everything in their path: cities and villages, eared fields, animals and people. Probably, having first encountered this disaster, the Sumerians created the legend of Ziusudra.
At the meeting of all the gods, a terrible decision was made - to destroy all of humanity. Only one god Enki took pity on the people. He appeared in a dream to King Ziusudra and ordered him to build a huge ship. Ziusudra fulfilled the will of God, he loaded his property, family and relatives, various masters to preserve knowledge and technology, livestock, animals and birds onto the ship. The ship's doors were tarred on the outside.

The next morning a terrible flood began, which even the gods were afraid of. Rain and wind raged for six days and seven nights. Finally, when the water began to recede, Ziusudra left the ship and offered sacrifices to the gods. Then, as a reward for his loyalty, the gods granted Ziusudra and his wife immortality.

This legend is not just reminiscent of the legend of Noah's Ark, most likely the biblical story is borrowed from the Sumerian culture. After all, the first flood poems that have come down to us date back to the 18th century BC.

Priest kings, builder kings

Sumerian lands have never been a single state. In fact, it was a collection of city-states, each with its own law, its own treasury, its own rulers, its own army. Only language, religion and culture were common. City-states could be at enmity with each other, could exchange goods or enter into military alliances.

Each city-state had three kings. The first and most important was called "en". It was a priest-king (however, a woman could also be enom). The main task of the king-en was to conduct religious ceremonies: solemn processions, sacrifices. In addition, he was in charge of all temple property, and sometimes the property of the entire community.

An important area of ​​life in ancient Mesopotamia was construction. The Sumerians are credited with the invention of fired bricks. City walls, temples, barns were built from this more durable material. The priest-builder ensi was in charge of the construction of these structures. In addition, the ensi kept an eye on the irrigation system, because canals, locks and dams allowed at least a little control over irregular spills.

For the duration of the war, the Sumerians elected another leader - the military leader - lugal. The most famous military leader was Gilgamesh, whose exploits are immortalized in one of the most ancient literary works - the Epic of Gilgamesh. In this story, the great hero defies the gods, defeats monsters, brings a precious cedar tree to his hometown of Uruk, and even descends into the afterlife.

Sumerian gods

Sumer had a developed religious system. Three gods enjoyed special reverence: Anu, the sky god, Enlil, the earth god, and Ensi, the god of water. In addition, each city had its own patron god. Thus, Enlil was especially revered in the ancient city of Nippur. The inhabitants of Nippur believed that Enlil gave them such important inventions as a hoe and a plow, and also taught them how to build cities and build walls around them.

Important gods for the Sumerians were the sun (Utu) and the moon (Nannar), replacing each other in the sky. And, of course, one of the most important figures of the Sumerian pantheon was the goddess Inanna, whom the Assyrians, who borrowed the religious system from the Sumerians, would call Ishtar, and the Phoenicians - Astarte.

Inanna was the goddess of love and fertility and, at the same time, the goddess of war. She personified, first of all, carnal love, passion. No wonder that in many Sumerian cities there was a custom of "divine marriage", when the kings, in order to ensure the fertility of their lands, livestock and people, spent the night with the high priestess Inanna, who embodied the goddess herself.

Like many ancient gods, Inanna was capricious and fickle. She often fell in love with mortal heroes, and woe was to those who rejected the goddess!
The Sumerians believed that the gods created humans by mixing their blood with clay. After death, the souls fell into the afterlife, where there was also nothing but clay and dust, which the dead fed on. To make the lives of their dead ancestors a little better, the Sumerians sacrificed food and drink to them.

Cuneiform

The Sumerian civilization reached amazing heights, even after the conquest by the northern neighbors, the culture, language and religion of the Sumerians were borrowed first by Akkad, then by Babylonia and Assyria.
The Sumerians are credited with inventing the wheel, bricks, and even beer (although they most likely made the barley drink using a different technology). But the main achievement of the Sumerians was, of course, a unique writing system - cuneiform.
Cuneiform got its name from the shape of the marks left by a reed stick on wet clay, the most common writing material.

Sumerian writing originated from a system for counting various goods. For example, when a person counted his flock, he made a ball of clay to designate each sheep, then he put these balls in a box, and left notes on the box - the number of these balls. But after all, all the sheep in the herd are different: different sex, age. Marks appeared on the balls, according to the animal they denoted. And, finally, the sheep began to be denoted by a picture - a pictogram. It was not very convenient to draw with a reed stick, and the pictogram turned into a schematic image consisting of vertical, horizontal and diagonal wedges. And the last step - this ideogram began to designate not only a sheep (in Sumerian “udu”), but also the syllable “udu” as part of complex words.

At first, cuneiform was used to draw up business documents. Extensive archives have come down to us from the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. But later, the Sumerians began to write down literary texts, and even whole libraries of clay tablets appeared, which were not afraid of fires - after all, after firing, the clay only became stronger. It is thanks to the fires in which the Sumerian cities, captured by the warlike Akkadians, that the unique information about this ancient civilization has come down to us.