Sumerians: the most mysterious people

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the south of modern Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a mysterious people - the Sumerians - settled almost 7000 years ago. 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 herders. It was they who were driven to the north by the newcomers-Sumerians. The Sumerians themselves were not related to the Semites, moreover, their origin is unclear to this day. 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 the neighboring tribes called this people "Sumerians", and they called themselves "sang-ngiga" - "black-headed". They called their language a "noble language" and considered it the only one suitable for people (in contrast to the less "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 (like, 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 of the religious and literary texts were written in it.

The ancestral home of the Sumerians

One of the main mysteries remains the ancestral home of the Sumerians. Scientists make hypotheses based on archaeological data and information obtained from written sources. This unknown Asian country was supposed to be located on the sea. The fact is that the Sumerians got to Mesopotamia along the river beds, 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 this is not surprising, because the ships can accommodate not so many settlers. Apparently, they were good navigators, since they were able to climb up unfamiliar rivers and find a suitable place to land on the shore. In addition, scholars believe that the Sumerians come from mountainous areas. It is not for nothing that the words "country" and "mountain" are spelled the same in their language. And the Sumerian temples "ziggurats" in their appearance resemble mountains - they are stepped structures with a wide base and a narrow pyramidal peak, where the sanctuary was located. Another important condition is that this country should have had advanced technologies. The Sumerians were one of the most advanced peoples of their time, they were the first in the entire Middle East who began to use the wheel, created an irrigation system, and invented a unique writing system. According to one version, this legendary ancestral home was located in the south of 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 bring fertile silt and mineral salts to the valley. Because of this, the soil in Mesopotamia is extremely fertile, fruit trees, grains and vegetables grew in abundance there. In addition, there were fish in the rivers, wild animals flocked to the watering hole, and in the flooded meadows there was plenty of food for livestock. But all this abundance had a downside. When the snows 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, ears of corn, animals and people. Probably, when they 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 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 craftsmen to preserve knowledge and technology, livestock, animals and birds on the ship. The ship's doors were tarred from the outside. In the morning, a terrible flood began, which even the gods were afraid of. The rain and wind raged for six days and seven nights. Finally, when the water began to recede, Ziusudra left the ship and made sacrifices to the gods. Then, as a reward for his loyalty, the gods granted immortality to Ziusudra and his wife. This legend not only reminds of the legend of Noah's ark, most likely the biblical story is borrowed from the Sumerian culture. After all, the first surviving poems about the flood date back to the 18th century BC.

Kings-priests, kings-builders

The Sumerian lands have never been a single state. In fact, it was a set 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 join military alliances. Each city-state was ruled by three kings. The first and most important was called "en". It was a priest-king (however, a woman could also be an enom). The main task of the tsar-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. Construction was an important area of life in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians are credited with inventing the fired brick. This more durable material was used to build city walls, temples, barns. The construction of these structures was supervised by the priest-builder Ensi. In addition, the ensi oversaw the irrigation system, as canals, sluices and dams allowed for at least a little control of irregular spills. At the time of the war, the Sumerians elected another leader - a 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 challenges the gods, defeats monsters, brings a precious cedar tree to his hometown of Uruk and even descends into the afterlife.

Sumerian Gods

There was a developed religious system in Sumer. Three gods enjoyed special reverence: the sky god Anu, the earth god Enlil and the water god Ensi. 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 the hoe and plow, and also taught them how to build cities and erect 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. It is not for nothing that in many Sumerian cities there was a custom of "divine marriage", when kings, in order to provide fertility to their lands, cattle 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 ate. To make the life of their deceased ancestors a little better, the Sumerians sacrificed food and drinks to them.

Cuneiform

The Sumerian civilization reached amazing heights, even after the conquest by northern neighbors, the culture, language and religion of the Sumerians were borrowed first by Akkad, then 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 writing got its name from the shape of the marks that a reed stick left on wet clay, the most common writing material. Sumerian writing originated from the system of counting various goods. For example, when a person was counting his flock, he made a ball of clay to designate each sheep, then put these balls in a box, and left notes on the box - the number of these balls.

But all the sheep in the flock are different: different sex, age. Marks appeared on the balls, corresponding to the animal they designated. And, finally, the sheep began to be designated with a picture - a pictogram. Drawing with a cane stick was not very convenient, and the pictogram turned into a schematic image consisting of vertical, horizontal and diagonal wedges. And the last step - this ideogram began to denote not only a sheep (in Sumerian “oudu”), but also the syllable “oudu” 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 perished, captured by the warlike Akkadians, that unique information about this ancient civilization has come down to us.