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The History of Sumer
The history of Sumer, taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods, spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BC, ending with the downfall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BC, followed by a transition period of Amorite states before the rise of Babylonia in the 18th century BC.
The Sumerians claimed that their civilization had been brought, fully formed, to the city of Eridu (possibly from Dilmun, later identified with Bahrain) by their god Enki or by his advisor or Abgallu (from Ab=water, Gal=great, Lu=man), Adapa U-an (the Oannes of Berossus). This claim may be in part based upon fact, as Eridu was then on the coastline of the Persian Gulf, and was the oldest city of southern Mesopotamia.
The list of Sumerian kings contains a traditional list of the early dynasties; however much of it is likely mythical, and only a few of the early names have been authenticated through archaeology. The best-known dynasty, that of Lagash, is not listed there at all.
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Background
The Sumerians were a non-Semitic people and were at one time believed to have been invaders, as a number of linguists believed they could detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian. However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the Early Ubaid period (5200-4500 BC C-14, 6090-5429 BC calBC) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
The challenge for any population attempting to dwell in Iraq's arid southern floodplain, where rainfall is currently less than 5 inches a year, was to manage the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to supply year-round water for farming and drinking. The Sumerian language has many terms for canals, dikes, and reservoirs. Sumerian speakers were farmers who moved down from the north after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami Transitional ware to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700-4900 BC C-14, 6640-5816 BC calBC) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where 8 levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. Farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.
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Ubaid Period
A distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf region in the Ubaid period, when the ancient Sumerian religious center of Eridu was gradually surpassed in size by the nearby city of Uruk. The archaeological transition from the Ubaid period to the Uruk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically produced on a slow wheel, to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on fast wheels. The date of this transition, from Ubaid 4 to Early Uruk, is in dispute, but calibrated radiocarbon dates from Tell Awayli would place it as early as 4500 BC.
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Uruk Period
By the time of the Uruk period (4500-3100 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large temple-centered cities where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian cities began to make use of slave labor (Subartu) captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in the earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area - from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as Central Iran.
The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists (like that found at Tell Brak), had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force.
The end of the Uruk period coincided with the Priora oscillation, a dry period from c. 3200-2900 BC that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum. When the historical record opens, the Sumerians appear to be limited to southern Mesopotamia — although very early rulers such as Lugal-Anne-Mundu are indeed recorded as expanding to neighboring areas as far as the Mediterranean, Taurus and Zagros, and not long after legendary figures like Enmerkar and Gilgamesh, who are associated in mythology with the historical transfer of culture from Eridu to Uruk, were supposed to have reigned.
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The Early Dynasty
The ancient Sumerian king list recounts the early dynasties. Like many other archaic lists of rulers, it may include legendary names. The first king on the list whose name is known from any other source is Etana, 13th king of the first Dynasty of Kish. The first king authenticated through archaeological evidence is that of Enmebaragesi of Kish, the 22nd and penultimate king of that Dynasty, whose name is also mentioned in the Gilgamesh epic, and who may have been king at the time hegemony passed from Kish to Uruk once again. This has led to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself really was a historical king of Uruk.
Lugal-Zage-Si, the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty, took Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He is the last ethnically Sumerian king before the arrival of the Semitic named king, Sargon of Akkad.
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The Lagash Dynasty
The dynasty of Lagash is well known through important monuments, and one of the first empires in recorded history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur, and Larsa, and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma, arch-rival of Lagash. In addition, his realm extended to parts of Elam and along the Persian Gulf. He seems to have used terror as a matter of policy - his stele of the vultures has been found, showing violent treatment of enemies.
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The Akkadian Dynasty
The Semitic Akkadian language is first attested in proper names around 2800 BC. From about 2500 BC one finds texts written entirely in Old Akkadian. The Old Akkadian language period was at its height during the rule of Sargon the Great (2350 - 2330), but most administrative tablets even during that period are still written in Sumerian, as that was the language used by the scribes. Gelb and Westenholz differentiate between three dialects of Old Akkadian - from the pre-Sargonic period, the period of rule by king Sargon and the city of Agade, and the Ur III period. Speakers of Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted for about one thousand years, from 2800 to 1800, at the end of which Sumerian ceased to be spoken. Thorkild Jacobsen has argued that there is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semitic vs. Sumerian" conflict. However, it is certain that Akkadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were conquered by Sargon.
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Religion
Like other cities of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, Sumer was a polytheistic, or henotheistic, society. There was no organized set of gods, with each city-state having its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings; but the Sumerians were probably the first to write down their beliefs. Sumerian beliefs were also the inspiration for much of later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology.
The Sumerians worshipped Anu as the primary god, equivalent to "heaven"-- indeed, the word "an" in Sumerian means "sky", and his consort Ki, meaning "earth". Collectively the Gods were known as Anunnaki ((d)a-nun-na-ke-ne = "offspring of the lord"). An's closest cohorts were Enki in the south at the Abzu temple in Eridu, Enlil in the north at the Ekur temple of Nippur and Inana, the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the Eanna temple (shared with An) at Uruk. The sun was Utu, was worshipped at Sippar, the moon was Nanna, worshipped at Ur and Nammu or Namma was one of the names of the Mother Goddess, probably considered to be the original matrix; there were hundreds of minor deities. The Sumerian gods (Sumerian dingir, plural dingir-dingir or dingir-a-ne-ne) thus had associations with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with the political power of the associated cities. The gods were said to have created human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. If the temples/gods ruled each city it was for their mutual survival and benefit - the temples organized the mass labor projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple which only towards the end of the third millenium were they able to avoid by a payment of silver instead. The temple-centered farming communities of Sumer had a social stability that enabled them to survive for four millenia.
Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a tin dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).
Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification (the Abzu). The temple itself had 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. After a time the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the later ziggurat style.
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