Text - History - Sumeria

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SUMER, BABYLON, AND HITTITES
1
Sumer, Babylon, and Hittites
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SUMER, BABYLON, AND HITTITES
2
Sumer, Babylon, and Hittites
Sumer
Sargon the Akkadian
Sumerian Revival
Sumerian Literature
Epic of Gilgamesh
Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Mari, Assur, and Babylon
Hammurabi's Babylon
Kassites, Hurrians, and Assyria
Babylonian Literature
Hittites
Although cereals were being harvested with flint-bladed sickles and ground by limestone in the
Nile valley more than 15,000 years ago, plants and animals were not domesticated for food until
about 10,000 years ago in the fertile crescent of southwestern Asia and soon after that in
Mesoamerica, Peru, and China. While the ice was melting and the climate was warming up, the
reindeer and horses retreated to the north, and the mammoths disappeared. Forests spread, and
those animals were replaced by red deer, wild pigs, and cattle. Dogs had already been
domesticated for a few thousand years. Sedentary communities settled down in southwest Asia
about a thousand years before wheat and barley were domesticated, supported by herds of wild
sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs, which were all domesticated by 6000 BC.
Women were probably responsible for learning how to cultivate plants, as they seemed to have
done most of the plant gathering. Women also probably invented potting, spinning, and weaving.
Men used to hunting probably took care of the herds and, after the plow was invented, castrated
bulls to use oxen to pull plows and carts, though a Sumerian poem refers to a woman in the fields
with the plow. Dug-out canoes were used for fishing and as transportation for trading such items
as obsidian, shells, salt, food, and clothing. As more farmland was needed, the invention of the
ax enabled people to cut down trees and use wood for building houses. At first houses were
round like the communal caves and huts, but soon rectangles were used so that additional rooms
could be added. In such villages the family replaced the band as the basic social group.
The oldest city discovered so far is Jericho, which had two thousand people between 8350 and
7350 BC. A large stone wall surrounded the settlement. In the Zagros mountains people living at
Ali Kosh hunted gazelles, wild asses, and pigs, fished in the Mehmeh River, and caught wild
fowl about 7500 BC. Soon they were growing two-rowed barley and emmer wheat. Between
6250 and 5400 BC Catal Huyuk in the Taurus mountains of Anatolia had a population of about
5,000. Numerous bull skulls and horns found in the houses indicate that people probably engaged
in rituals as families. Corpses were put out somewhere to be picked clean by vultures before their
bones were buried under the floor in their houses. The simplicity of most grave objects indicates
that this probably was a fairly egalitarian society. Before the use of metal there seems to have
been little warfare and much greater equality between men and women. Pottery vessels, which
have been found in Japan as old as 12,000 BC, became widespread in the Near East by 6500 BC.
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The earliest civilization with writing developed in the lands around and between the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers which flow southeast into the Persian Gulf. Large-scale irrigation began along
the Euphrates River as early as 6000 BC, while those living around the Nile and the Indus were
only using dikes and ditches to protect their homes and crops from floodwaters. About 5400 BC
the first city established in Mesopotamia was Eridu, which a Sumerian creation story credits with
being the first city to emerge from the primeval sea. The oldest known temple was constructed
there, and what is called the Ubaid culture developed from 5300 to 3600 BC. Soon the stone age
was transcended, as people learned how to melt and shape copper, gold, and silver.
Sumer
The city of Uruk had 10,000 people in 3800 BC, and with pottery manufacturing increasing eight
hundred years later 50,000 people were protected by defensive walls. Most settlements by this
time were fortified, and documents written about 2600 BC describe major conflicts between the
city-states of Ur, Uruk, Umma, and others. With cities came civilization and its organized
violence - war.
In addition to pottery, other specializations included stonecutters, bricklayers, metalsmiths,
farmers, fishers, shepherds, weavers, leather-workers, and sailors. The wheel was invented for
carts, chariots, and pottery-making. Iron was smelted about 2500 BC. Seals had been used to
stamp a carved insignia on clay before cylindrical seals became widespread for labeling
commodities and legal documents. Pictographic writing was first used by the Sumerians about
3400, and by 3000 BC this had evolved into cuneiform words and syllables.
The Sumerian language was not deciphered until the nineteenth century of our era when it was
found to be different from both the Indo-European and Semitic language groups. Fifteen hundred
cuneiform symbols were reduced in the next thousand years to about seven hundred, but it did
not become alphabetic until about 1300 BC. By 2500 BC libraries were established at Shuruppak
and Eresh, and schools had been established to train scribes for the temple and state
bureaucracies as well as to legally document contracts and business transactions. Schools were
regularly attended by the sons of the aristocracy and successful; discipline was by caning.
Religion was the central organizing principle of the city states, each city belonging to a different
deity who was worshipped in a large temple. Families also had their own special gods or
goddesses, and people prayed by clasping their hands in front of their chests. The temple was
built on top of the ruins of the previous temple until in Uruk the temple of Anu, the god of
heaven, rose fifty feet above the plain. Eventually these temples became man-made mountains,
like the
ziqqurats
of Ur, Uruk, Eridu, and Nippur. About a third of the land was owned by the
temple which employed many people; some of their land was loaned out at interest or leased for
a seventh or eighth of the harvest.
A ruler was called a lord
(en)
and was often deified. Each city had a governor
(ensi)
or a king
(
lugal
meaning literally "great man") who lived in a great house
(egal)
, and they often had
religious duties as well, particularly to build and maintain temples. The wife of the king was
called a lady or queen
(nin)
, and she might take on important projects such as managing the
affairs of a temple goddess.
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The aggrandizement of the king was at times taken to an extreme, as indicated by the royal
cemetery of Ur from the 26th century BC in which archaeologists found not only extraordinary
wealth and precious objects but also the corpses of as many as 74 attendants. As we shall see in
the tale of Gilgamesh and other literature, the Sumerians believed in an underworld for the spirits
of the dead; and some kings as gods felt they wanted their servants there also. Obviously this was
a major violation of life, and this practice seemed to die out after the Early Dynastic period.
Below the king or governor society had three distinct classes: aristocratic nobles who were
administrators, priests, and officers in the army rewarded with large estates; a middle class of
business people, school teachers, artisans, and farmers; and the lowest being slaves, who had
been captured in war or were dispossessed farmers or those sold by their families. Slavery was
not stigmatized by race but was considered a misfortune out of which one could free oneself
through service, usually in three years.
Some of the young women were married to the god in the temple and were not celibate; some
were prostitutes, and their children were often legally adopted. Laws made clear distinctions
between the three classes. Though women had some rights, they were not equal to men. Thus
from the beginning of civilization the sexism of patriarchal rule in the state and families is seen
in the oppression by male dominance. The Sumerians were quite bureaucratic, documenting
major transactions and legal agreements of all kinds, being the first to develop a system of laws,
which influenced the law codes of Eshnunna and Hammurabi.
How then did these social hierarchies develop? Given the limited knowledge available, our
explanations are speculative and uncertain. As the pastoral peoples traded with the farmers and
villagers, more complex social organizations could function more productively. The
manufacturing of pottery and other products led to specialization and trading by barter, as the
Sumerians had no money system except for the weighing of precious metals. As irrigation
systems became more complex, planners and managers of labor were needed. Protection of
surplus goods and valuable construction was required to guard against raiding parties. Those
with the ability to organize and manage more complex activities tended to give themselves
privileges for their success, and eventually social inequalities grew, as those who failed lost their
privileges. Religion also became a part of this system of inequality, as religious leaders placed
themselves above others in their service of the deities.
Laws apparently were devised to prevent abuses and as a way to settle disputes. Cities took the
step from police protection under law to the organization of retaliatory attacks by an army. The
skills of hunters selected over a long period of evolution seem to have given men (more than
women) a tendency to gang up and work together in violent attacks. However, when the objects
of these attacks became other men and the valuables found in another city, this tendency became
self-destructive for the species. The survival instincts kept it within bounds so that it has not
practiced to extinction (so far), but individual leaders who could gain social rewards for initiating
such adventures appeared with increasing regularity. Apparently those individuals with better
methods of resolving conflicts were not able to persuade enough people all the time to avoid
such brutality. Yet the history of Sumer shows that war was counter-productive for most people
and eventually led to the decline and fall of their culture.
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After the fall of the last Sumerian dynasty about 2000 BC, some Sumerian scribes wrote
chronicles of their long past. Although these have been lost, lists of their kings and some
accounts edited into later Babylonian chronicles have been found. These claimed that their kings
go back more than 240,000 years before the flood and come forward about 30,000 years after the
flood. Such figures would take us back before Atlantis to Lemuria, which seems unlikely, though
as one of the few agglutinative languages Sumerian does resemble Polynesian. More than five
thousand years ago their advanced architecture using vaults, arches, and domes indicated a long
development.
The first dynasty after the deluge was in the Akkadian region northwest of Sumer in the city of
Kish, ten miles east of what became Babylon. According to Georges Roux, twelve of the kings'
names were Semitic rather than Sumerian.1 Thus from its historical beginnings the Sumerian
civilization was mixed with Semitic influences. The first legendary ruler Etana was said to have
ascended to heaven on the back of an eagle. The oldest historical king, Mebaragesi, ruled Kish
about 2700 BC and apparently overcame the Sumerians' eastern neighbor at Elam, for he is said
to have carried away their weapons as spoil.
The second dynasty at Uruk in Sumer itself must have overlapped with the first, because it was
the legendary fifth king of that dynasty, Gilgamesh, who was attacked by the last Kish king
Agga. An ancient account told the following story: Agga having besieged Uruk sent envoys to
Gilgamesh with an ultimatum. Gilgamesh went to his city's elders, suggesting that they not
submit but fight with weapons. However, the elders came to the opposite conclusion. So
Gilgamesh took his proposal to the "men of the city," and they agreed with him. Gilgamesh was
elated and said to his servant Enkidu, "Now, then, let the (peaceful) tool be put aside for the
violence of battle."2 Gilgamesh then asked for a volunteer to go to Agga. Birhurturre, the head
man, went and withstood torture; but when the awesome Gilgamesh ascended the wall and was
seen by the foes, the foreigners felt overwhelmed and abandoned the siege.
The Uruk dynasty was well known in Sumerian tradition, as Gilgamesh was preceded by
Meskiaggasher, son of the sun-god Utu, Enmerkar also sun of Utu who built Uruk, the shepherd
Lugalbanda, who was also considered divine, and the fisherman Dumuzi, the legendary
vegetation god who married the love goddess Inanna. Tales of Gilgamesh became very popular.
Mesalim, who called himself King of Kish, erected a temple to Ningirsu in Lagash, for which he
arbitrated a territorial dispute with Umma and set up a stela marking the border. However, he
was overthrown, as was the last king of Uruk, by the founder of the Ur dynasty, Mesannepadda,
whose name meant the hero chosen by An. He and his successor rebuilt the Tummal temple at
Nippur which had fallen into ruin. The peace between Lagash and Umma was maintained for
about a century as Lagash king Ur-Nanshe built temples, dug canals, and imported wood from
Dilmun. Meanwhile Mesannepadda sent gifts to the distant Mari. The rulers of Ur became
extraordinarily wealthy as indicated by their royal tombs in the mid-27th century. A royal
standard shows four-wheeled chariots pulled by asses and rows of prisoners presented to the
king.
Eventually Kish was occupied by mountain people from Khamazi, while the Elamites
encroached on Sumer. In Lagash Ur-Nanshe's grandson, Eannatum, who also built temples and
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