Sumer
Sumer (or Shumer, Sumeria, Shinar) formed the southern part of Mesopotamia from the time of settlement by the Sumerians until the time of Babylonia. Sumerian cuneiform script may pre-date any other form of writing, and dates to no later than about 3500 BC.
Early History
The term "Sumerian" is actually an exonym, first applied by the Akkadians. It has remained an exonym for a people who referred to their land as "Kiengi," composed of the elements "ki," meaning land, "en," meaning lord or ancestor, and "gi," meaning just, noble, or native. Although the precise meaning is unclear, it seems to be an assertion of ownership of the land by right of virtue or nativity. The Akkadian word "Shumer" possibly represents this name in dialect.
The Sumerian people, with a language, culture, and, perhaps, appearance different from their Semitic neighbors and successors are widely believed to have been invaders or migrants, although it has proven quite difficult to say exactly when such an event would have occurred. Some archeologists have advanced claims that the Sumerians were, in fact, local to the Mesopotamian plains.
City-States
The Sumerians inhabited various city-states, each centered around a temple dedicated to the patron god of the city and ruled over by a king, who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites.
Some of their major cities included Eridu, Kish, Uruk and Ur. As these cities developed, they sought to assert primacy over each other, falling into a millenium of almost incessant warfare over water rights, trade routes, and tribute from nomadic tribes.
Agriculture and Hunting
The Sumerians grew barley, chickpeas, lentils, millet, wheat, turnips, Dates, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. They also farmed cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. They used oxen as their primary beasts of burden and donkeys as their primary transport animal. Sumerians hunted fish and fowl.
Sumerian agriculture depended heavily on irrigation. The irrigation was accomplished by the use of shadufs, canals, channels, dykes, weirs, and reservoirs. The canals required frequent repair and continual removal of silt. The government required individuals to work on the canals, although the rich were able to exempt themselves.
Using the canals, farmers would flood their fields and then drain the water. Next they let oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. They then dragged the fields with pickaxes. After drying, they plowed, harrowed, raked thrice, and pulverized with a mattock.
Sumerians harvested during the dry fall season in three-person teams consisting of a reaper, a binder, and a sheaf arranger. The farmers would use threshing wagons to separate the cereal heads from the stalks and then use threshing sleds to disengage the grain. They then winnowed the grain/chaff mixture.
Architecture
Although remembered for the ziggurat, typical urban Sumerian dwellings were modest mudbrick structures. Sumerian cylinder seals also depict houses built from reeds not unlike those built by the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq until rececnt years.
Sumerian temples and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and clay nails.
Arts and Crafts
Sumerian potters decorated pots with cedar oil paints. The potters used a bow drill to produce the fire needed for baking the pottery.
Sumerian masons and jewelers knew and made use of ivory, gold, silver, and galena.
Culture
Historian Alan Marcus says: "Sumerians held a rather dour perspective on life".
A Sumerian writes: "Tears, lament, anguish, and depression are within me. Suffering overwhelms me. Evil fate holds me and carries off my life. Malignant sickness bathes me."
Another Sumerian writes, "Why am I counted among the ignorant? Food is all about, yet my food is hunger. On the day shares were alloted, my allotted share was suffering."
Though females could achieve a higher status in Sumer than in some other civilizations, the culture remained predominantly male-dominated.
Economy
Through discoveries of obsidian from far-away locations in Anatolia and Afghanistan, beads from Dilmun (modern Bahrain), and several seals inscribed with the Indus Valley script, archeologists have uncovered a remarkably wide-ranging network of ancient trade centered around the Persian Gulf.
The Epic of Gilgamesh refers to trade with far lands for goods such as wood that were scarce in Mesopatamia.
The Sumerians used slaves, although they were not a major part of the economy. Slave women worked as weavers, pressers, millers, and porters.
Medicine
As with any pre-modern society, the Sumerians had a limited understanding of medical diagnosis and treatment.Laxatives, purgatives, and diuretics formed the majority of Sumerian medicines. Some surgery was also practiced.
Sumerians manufactured saltpeter from urine, lime, ash, and salt. They would combine this with milk, snakeskin, turtle shell, cassia, myrtle, thyme, willow, fig, pear, fir, and/or date. They would mix these agents with wine and spread the result as a salve, or mix it with beer and consume orally.
Sumerians explained disease as the consequence of a demon becoming trapped within the body and trying to eat its way out. The medicines aimed to persuade the demon that continued residence within the body would prove distasteful. They often placed a lamb next to a diseased person and hoped to entice the demon into the lamb, which they would then butcher. Failing available lambs, they would try using a statue which, should the demon enter the statue, they would cover in bitumen.
Military
City walls defended Sumerian cities. The Sumerians engaged in siege warfare between their cities, and the mudbrick walls failed to deter foes who had the time to pry out the bricks.
Sumerian armies consisted mostly of infantry. Light infantrymen carried battle-axes, daggers, and spears. The regulary infantry also used copper helmets, felt cloaks, and leather kilts.
The Sumerians invented the chariot, which they harnessed to onagers. These early chariots functioned less effectively in combat than did later designs, and some have suggested that chariots served primarily as transports, though the crew carried battle-axes and lances. The Sumerian chariot comprised a four-wheeled device manned by a crew of two and harnessed to four onagers. The carriage was composed of a woven basket and the wheels had a solid three-piece design.
Sumerians used slings and simple bows. (Only later did mankind invent the composite bow.)
Religion
Sumerian temples consisted of a central nave with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. Over time, many of these temples were raised up over their cities on mudbrick platforms. Some of these evolved further into the multi-layered form of the ziggurat.
The Sumerians worshipped Anu, the sun god, Nammu the Mother Goddess, Inanna the goddess of love (who is equivalent to the Akkadian goddess Ishtar), Enlil the god of the wind, and Marduk the god of thunder.
The Sumerian dingirs (gods) each had associations with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with the political power of the associated cities. The dingirs allegedly created humans from clay for the purpose of serving them. The dingirs often expressed their anger and frustration through earthquakes: the gist of Sumerian religion stressed that all of humanity stood at the mercy of the gods.
Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a tin dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a vile nether-world to spend eternity in a wretched existence.
See also: Sumerian mythology
Technology
Examples of Sumerian technology include: saws, leather, chisels, hammers, braces, bits, nails, pins, rings, hoes, axes, knives, lancepoints, arrowheads, swords, glue, daggers, waterskins, bags, harnesses, boats, armor, quivers, scabbards, boots, sandals, and harpoons.
The Tigris-Euphrates plain lacked minerals and trees. Sumerian structures comprised plano-convex mudbrick, not fixed with mortar or with cement. As plano-convex bricks (being rounded) are somewhat unstable in behaviour, Sumerian bricklayers would lay a row of bricks perpendicular to the rest every few rows. They would fill the gaps with bitumen, grain stalks, marsh reeds, and weeds.
The Sumerians had three main types of boats:
- skin boats comprised reeds and animal skins
- sailboats featured bitumen waterproofing
- wooden-oared ships, sometimes pulled upstream by people and animals walking along the nearby banks.
Downfall
As the local states grew in strength, the Sumerians began to lose their political hegemony over most parts of Mesopotamia. The Amorites conquered Sumer and founded Babylon. The Hurrians of Armenia established the empire of Mitanni in northern Mesopotamia around 2000 BC, while the Babylonians controlled the south. Both groups defended themselves against the Egyptians and the Hittites. The Hittites defeated Mitanni but were repulsed by the Babylonians; but the Kassites defeated the Babylonians in 1460 BC. The Kassites were in turn defeated by the Elamites around 1150 BC.
Legacy
The Sumerians are perhaps remembered most for their many inventions. Many authorities credit them with the invention of the wheel and the potter's wheel. Their cuneiform writing system was the first we have evidence of, perhaps even pre-dating Egyptian hieroglyphics. They were also among the first formal astronomers and cartographers.
See also:
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