The island of bliss Dilmun and the underworld in the myths of Sumer and Akkad The Sumerian tale of Enki and Ninhursag, one of the oldest poems in the world, tells of the blissful island of Dilmun, now associated with Bahrain: “Dilmun is a blessed land. Dilmun is an immaculate country. Dilmun

In the south of modern Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a mysterious people, the Sumerians, settled almost 7,000 years ago. They made a significant contribution to the development of human civilization, but we still do not know where the Sumerians came from or what language they spoke.

Mysterious language

The Mesopotamian valley has long been inhabited by tribes of Semitic herders. It was they who were driven north by the Sumerian aliens. The Sumerians themselves were not related to the Semites; moreover, their origins are still unclear to this day. Neither the ancestral home of the Sumerians nor the linguistic family to which their language belonged is known.

Luckily for us, the Sumerians left many written monuments. From them we learn that neighboring tribes called these people “Sumerians”, and they themselves 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 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. What the Sumerian language sounded like is unknown to this day. A large number of homonyms suggests that this language was a tonal language (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 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 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 river beds, and their first settlements appeared 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 only 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 mountainous areas. It’s not for nothing that in their language the words “country” and “mountain” are written the same way. And the Sumerian temples “ziggurats” resemble mountains in appearance - they 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 the south of India.

Flood survivors

It was not for nothing that the Sumerians chose the Mesopotamia Valley 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, grains and vegetables growing in abundance. In addition, there were fish in the rivers, wild animals flocked to watering holes, and in the flooded meadows there was plenty of food for livestock.

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 Nile floods, the Tigris and Euphrates floods could not be predicted; they were not regular.

Heavy floods turned into a real disaster; they destroyed everything in their path: cities and villages, fields, animals and people. It was probably when they first encountered this disaster that the Sumerians created the legend of Ziusudra.
At a 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 craftsmen to preserve knowledge and technology, livestock, animals and birds onto the ship. The doors of the ship were tarred on the outside.
The next 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 Ziusudra and his wife immortality.

This legend not only resembles the legend of Noah's Ark; most likely, the biblical story is borrowed from Sumerian culture. After all, the first poems about the flood that have reached us date back to the 18th century BC.

King-priests, king-builders

The Sumerian lands were never a single state. In essence, it was a collection of city-states, each with its own law, its own treasury, its own rulers, its own army. The only things they had in common were language, religion and culture. City-states could be at enmity with each other, could exchange goods or enter into military alliances.

Each city-state was ruled by three kings. The first and most important was called “en”. This was the king-priest (however, the enom could also be a woman). The main task of the king was to conduct religious ceremonies: solemn processions and 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 baked brick. City walls, temples, and barns were built from this more durable material. The construction of these structures was supervised by the priest-builder ensi. In addition, the ensi monitored the irrigation system, because canals, locks and dams made it possible to at least somewhat control irregular spills.

During 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

Sumer had a developed religious system. Three gods were especially revered: 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 people of Nippur believed that Enlil gave them such important inventions as the hoe and the 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), which replaced 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 and passion. It is not for nothing that in many Sumerian cities there was a custom of “divine marriage”, when kings, in order to ensure fertility for their lands, livestock and people, spent the night with the high priestess Inanna, who embodied the goddess herself.

Like many ancient gods, Inannu was capricious and fickle. She often fell in love with mortal heroes, and woe to those who rejected the goddess!
The Sumerians believed that the gods created people by mixing their blood with clay. After death, 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 drink to them.

Cuneiform

Sumerian civilization reached amazing heights, even after being conquered by its 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 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 that a reed stick left on wet clay, the most common writing material.

Sumerian writing came from a system of counting various goods. For example, when a man counted his flock, he made a clay ball to represent each sheep, then put these balls in a box, and left marks on the box indicating the number of these balls. But all the sheep in the herd are different: different sexes, different ages. Marks appeared on the balls according to the animal they represented. And finally, the sheep began to be designated by a picture - a pictogram. Drawing with a reed 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 “udu”), but also the syllable “udu” as part of compound words.

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

It has already been proven that the Sumerian civilization is the most ancient on Earth. Their first civilization arose in a mind-boggling time: no less than 445 thousand years ago. Many scientists have struggled and are struggling to resolve the mystery of the most ancient people on the planet, but mysteries still remain.

More than 6 thousand years ago, in the region of Mesopotamia, a unique Sumerian civilization appeared out of nowhere, having all the signs of a highly developed one. It is enough to mention that the Sumerians used the ternary counting system and knew Fibonacci numbers. Sumerian texts contain information about the origin, development and structure of the solar system. Their depiction of the solar system, in the Middle East section of the State Museum in Berlin, has the Sun at the center of the system, surrounded by all the planets known today. However, there are differences in their depiction of the solar system, the main one of which is that the Sumerians place an unknown large planet between Mars and Jupiter - the 12th planet in the Sumerian system! The Sumerians called this mysterious planet Nibiru, which means “crossing planet.” The orbit of this planet is a highly elongated ellipse, crossing the solar system once every 3600 years.

Niberu's next passage through the solar system is expected between 2100 and 2158. According to the Sumerians, the planet Niberu was inhabited by conscious beings - the Anunaki. Their lifespan was 360,000 Earth years. They were real giants: women were from 3 to 3.7 meters tall, and men from 4 to 5 meters.

It is worth noting here that, for example, the ancient ruler of Egypt Akhenaten was 4.5 meters tall, and the legendary beauty Nefertiti was about 3.5 meters tall. Already in our time, two unusual coffins were discovered in Akhenaten’s city of Tel el-Amarna. In one of them, directly above the head of the mummy, an image of the Flower of Life was engraved. And in the second coffin, the bones of a seven-year-old boy, whose height was about 2.5 meters, were found. Now this coffin with the remains is on display in the Cairo Museum.

In Sumerian cosmogony, the main event is called the “celestial battle,” a catastrophe that occurred 4 billion years ago and changed the appearance of the solar system. Modern astronomy confirms the data on this catastrophe!

A sensational discovery by astronomers in recent years has been the discovery of a set of fragments of some celestial body that have a common orbit corresponding to the orbit of the unknown planet Nibiru.

The Sumerian manuscripts contain information that can be interpreted as information about the origin of intelligent life on Earth. According to these data, the genus Homo sapiens was created artificially as a result of genetic engineering about 300 thousand years ago. Thus, perhaps humanity is a civilization of biorobots.
I’ll immediately make a reservation that there are some temporary inconsistencies in the article. This is due to the fact that many deadlines are set only with a certain degree of accuracy.

Six thousand years ago... Civilizations ahead of their time, or the mystery of the climate optimum.

The deciphering of Sumerian manuscripts shocked researchers. Let us give a short and incomplete list of the achievements of this unique civilization, which existed at the dawn of the development of Egyptian civilization, long before the Roman Empire, and even more so Ancient Greece. We are talking about a time about 6 thousand years ago.
After deciphering the Sumerian tables, it became clear that the Sumerian civilization had a number of modern knowledge from the field of chemistry, herbal medicine, cosmogony, astronomy, modern mathematics (for example, it used the golden ratio, the ternary number system, used after the Sumerians only when creating modern computers, used Fibonacci numbers! ), had knowledge of genetic engineering (this interpretation of the texts was given by a number of scientists in the order of the version of the deciphering of the manuscripts), had a modern government system - a jury trial and elected bodies of people's (in modern terminology) deputies, and so on...

Where could such knowledge come from at that time? Let's try to figure it out, but let's look at some facts about that era - 6 thousand years ago. This time is significant because the average temperature on the planet was then several degrees higher than it is now. The effect is called the temperature optimum. The approach of the double system of Sirius (Sirius-A and Sirius-B) to the Solar system dates back to the same period. At the same time, for several centuries of the 4th millennium BC, instead of one Moon, two were visible in the sky - the second celestial body, comparable in size to the Moon at that time, was the approaching Sirius, an explosion in the system of which occurred again in the same period - 6 thousand years ago! At the same time, absolutely independent of the development of the Sumerian civilization in central Africa, there was a Dogon tribe, leading a rather isolated way of life from other tribes and nationalities, however, as it became known in our time, the Dogon knew the details of not only the structure of the Sirius star system, but also owned other information from the field of cosmogony. These are the parallels. But if the Dogon legends contain people from Sirius, whom this African tribe perceived as gods who descended from the sky and flew to Earth due to a catastrophe on one of the inhabited planets of the Sirius system associated with an explosion on the star Sirius, then if you believe the Sumerian According to texts, the Sumerian civilization was associated with settlers from the lost 12th planet of the solar system, the planet Nibiru.

Crossing planet.

According to Sumerian cosmogony, the planet Nibiru, not without reason called “crossing”, has a very elongated and inclined elliptical orbit and passes between Mars and Jupiter once every 3600 years. For many years, information from the Sumerians about the lost 12th planet of the solar system was classified as legend. However, one of the most amazing discoveries of the last two years was the discovery of a collection of fragments of a previously unknown celestial body, moving along a common orbit in a way that only fragments of a once single celestial body can do. The orbit of this aggregate crosses the solar system once every 3600 years precisely between Mars and Jupiter and exactly corresponds to the data from the Sumerian manuscripts. Where could the ancient civilization of Earth have such information 6 thousand years ago?

“Those who descended from heaven” - myth or reality?

The planet Nibiru plays a special role in the formation of the mysterious Sumerian civilization. So, the Sumerians claim that they had contact with the inhabitants of the planet Nibiru! It was from this planet, according to Sumerian texts, that the Anunaki came to Earth, “descending from heaven to Earth.”

Here we are dealing with evidence of the possible assimilation of settlers from Nibiru. By the way, if you believe these legends, of which there are many in various cultures, then humanoids not only belonged to the protein form of life, but were also so compatible with earthlings that they were able to have common offspring. Biblical sources also testify to such assimilation. Let us add that in most religions, the gods met with earthly women. Doesn't what has been said indicate the reality of paleocontacts, that is, contacts with representatives of other inhabited celestial bodies that occurred from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years ago?

How incredible is it that creatures close to human nature exist outside of Earth? Among the supporters of the plurality of intelligent life in the Universe there were many great scientists, among whom it is enough to mention Tsiolkovsky, Vernadsky and Chizhevsky.

However, the Sumerians report much more than the biblical books. According to Sumerian manuscripts, the Anunaki first arrived on Earth approximately 445 thousand years ago, that is, long before the emergence of the Sumerian civilization.

People or... biorobots?

Let's try to find an answer in the Sumerian manuscripts to the question: why did the inhabitants of the planet Nibiru fly to Earth 445 thousand years ago? It turns out that they were interested in minerals, primarily gold. Why?

If we take as a basis the version of an environmental disaster on the 12th planet of the solar system, then we could talk about creating a protective gold-containing screen for the planet. Note that technology similar to the proposed one is now used in space projects.

The Sumerians were excellent travelers and explorers - they are also credited with inventing the world's first ships. One dictionary of Sumerian words contained no less than 105 designations for various types of ships - according to their size, purpose and type of cargo. One inscription talks about ship repair capabilities and lists the types of materials that a local ruler brought to build a temple to his god around 2200 BC. The breadth of the range of these goods is amazing - from gold, silver, copper - to diorite, carnelian and cedar. In some cases, these materials were transported over thousands of miles.

In Sumer, cosmogony and cosmology arose for the first time, the first collection of proverbs and aphorisms appeared, and literary debates were held for the first time; here the first book catalog appeared, the first money began to circulate (silver shekels in the form of “weight bars”), taxes began to be introduced for the first time, the first laws were adopted and social reforms were carried out, medicine appeared, and for the first time attempts were made to achieve peace and harmony in society.

The Sumerian civilization died as a result of the invasion of warlike Semitic nomadic tribes from the west. In the 24th century BC, King Sargon the Ancient of Akkad defeated King Lugalzaggisi, the ruler of Sumer, uniting Northern Mesopotamia under his rule. The Babylonian-Assyrian civilization was born on the shoulders of Sumer.

This is exactly how, according to the ancient civilization of the Sumerians, MAN appeared on earth.

But who were the Sumerians?

Message quote Sumerian civilization

INTRODUCTION

What happened on the land called Mesopotamia by the Greeks, that
meant between two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates), can be called a turning point in
history of mankind: civilization was born here. Descendants of landowners
Stone Age, timidly settling along the banks of the swamps - people known to us as
Sumerians - managed to turn all the seeming shortcomings of their native land into
enormous benefits that have influenced the development of all mankind.
The sun burns the earth, killing the sparse vegetation that gave
shoots after rare spring rains. Hot wind born from the south
desert, raises dust storms that walk across the dull plain. On the horizon
not a single hill is visible. You can hardly find a tree in these parts to
its shadows to hide from the heat. The monotony of the landscape is broken only by two rivers.
Water attracts life. Above the swamp, where the rivers are during the rains
overflow their banks, birds circle, schools of fish gather in shallow water. By
People live on the banks of the swamps in simple huts made of clay and silt. Digging up the ground
they cultivate small plots of land. This was the valley that lay between
rivers Tigris and Euphrates 9 thousand years ago. The lands seemed completely
infertile. But, nevertheless, about 3000 BC
a different picture would appear. All along the valley there were magnificent
cities. And all around were fields sown with grain crops. Wind
walked in the groves of date palms. Temples rose everywhere. Seen
stone palaces, mansions and streets lined with spacious houses, hundreds
workshops with a variety of goods from pottery to precious
decorations
Who were the first Sumerians, where did they come from in the Tigris Valley and
Euphrates - these questions are destined to remain unanswered. The homeland of these
dark-haired and light-skinned people should be considered east or northwest
Mesopotamia, their language is very similar to the language of the peoples of the Caspian coast
seas. The Sumerians probably settled in the valley around 3500 BC -
around the time when primitive agricultural farms were founded there
settlements. In any case, the first Sumerians settled in the south of the valley, building their
huts along the banks of swamps overgrown with reeds, of which there were many in the delta,
where the Tigris and Euphrates flowed into the Persian Gulf.
The history of the discovery and life of the Sumerians is still a mystery to
historians and is compared in complexity to the discovery of space.

Chapter 1. The mystery of the discovery of the Sumerians.

1.1. The first explorers

Mesopotamia has attracted travelers and
researchers. This country is mentioned in the Bible, ancient stories tell about it
geographers and historians. The history of Mesopotamia was little known and
reason that Islam later reigned here, so it was difficult for non-believers
get here. Interest in the past, the desire to know what came before us, always
were the main factors motivating people to take action, often
risky and dangerous.
The earliest studies of Mesopotamia were written in 1178 and
printed in 1543 in Hebrew, and 30 years later in
Latin - with a detailed report, which deals with the monuments of ancient
Mesopotamia.
The first explorer of Mesopotamia was a rabbi from Tudela (Kingdom
Navarre) Benjamin, son of Jonah, who in 1160 went to Mesopotamia and
Traveled around the East for 30 years. Hills with ruins buried in them,
protruding from the sands, made a strong impression on him and
awakened a passionate interest in the past of the ancient people.
The assumptions of the first European travelers were not always true
believable but always entertaining. They excited and awakened hope
find Nineveh - the city about which the prophet Nahum said: “Nineveh is devastated! Who
will she regret it? Nineveh, in 612 BC. e. destroyed and set on fire
Median troops, who defeated the hated
Assyrian kings, cursed and forgotten, became for Europeans the embodiment
legends. The search for Nineveh contributed to the discovery of Sumer. None of
travelers did not even imagine that the history of Mesopotamia was fading
roots in such distant times. The Neapolitan merchant did not think about it either.
Pietro della Valle, setting off in 1616 on a journey to the East. We
owe him information about bricks found on Mukaiyar hill, covered
some amazing signs. Valle suggests that these are writings,
and they should be read from left to right. It seemed to him that the bricks were
dried in the sun. As a result of excavations, Valle discovered that the base
the buildings were made of bricks fired in ovens, but not in size
different from sun-dried. This is what he first delivered to scientists
wedge-shaped writing, thereby marking the beginning of the two-hundred-year history of their
reading.
The second traveler who came across traces of the Sumerians was
Dane Carsten Niebuhr, who on January 7, 1761 went to the East. He
dreamed of collecting and studying as many wedge-shaped texts as possible, a riddle
which worried linguists and historians of that time. The fate of the Danish
The expedition turned out to be tragic: all its participants died. Survived
only Niebuhr. His "Description of Travels to Arabia and Neighboring Countries"
published in 1778, it became something of an encyclopedia of knowledge about Mesopotamia. By her
Not only exotic lovers, but also scientists were engrossed in it. The main thing in this work
there were carefully executed copies of the Persepolis inscriptions. Niebuhr first
determined that inscriptions consisting of three clearly demarcating
columns, represent three types of cuneiform. He named them 1, 2 and 3
classes. Although Niebuhr was unable to read the inscriptions, his reasoning
turned out to be extraordinarily valuable and mostly correct. He, for example,
argued that class 1 represents the Old Persian script,
consisting of 42 characters. Descendants should be grateful to the same Niebuhr for
the hypothesis that each of the writing classes represents a different language.

1.2. Deciphering mysterious signs.

Copies made by this traveler and discoverer, as well as his
reasoned assumptions were used by Grotenfend in
deciphering cuneiform. These materials turned out to be the key to solving the mystery
existence of Sumer. On the threshold of the 19th century, the scientific world already had
enough cuneiform texts to go from the first,
timid attempts to finally decipher the mysterious writing. So
Danish scientist Friedrich Christian Munter suggested that class 1 (according to
Niburu) represents alphabetic letters, grade 2 - syllables and grade 3 -
ideographic signs. He hypothesized that the three are multilingual,
perpetuated by three writing systems, the inscriptions from Persepolis contain
identical texts. These observations and hypotheses were correct, but for
reading and deciphering these inscriptions was not enough -
Neither Münter nor Tychsen succeeded in reading the Persepolis inscriptions. Only
Grotefend, teacher of Greek and Latin at the Lyceum in Göttingen,
achieved what his predecessors could not do. This story
has a rather spicy start. They say that Grotefend, passionate
a lover of charades and puzzles, in a tavern he bet that he would solve
“a puzzle from Persepolis,” which allegedly caused laughter and ridicule. Who could
assume that the most complex problem, over which well-known
scientists of Europe, will be decided by a humble teacher? Getting started,
Grotefend used not so much his experience as an inveterate puzzle reader, although
this experience undoubtedly helped him, as much as the achievements of his
predecessors.
Briefly, the course of his reasoning can be represented as follows: a column written
signs of the 1st class, is an alphabet of about 40
letters Three of them are repeated especially often - these are vowels, including
the letter "a" (according to the assumptions of Munter and Tychsen). From concentration
From these vowels, Grotefend concluded that the inscriptions in front of him were in the Zend language.
His attention was also drawn to a group consisting of seven cuneiform characters.
And Grotefend takes it as a starting point that they mean the word “king” and not “
king of kings,” as his predecessors thought. But in this case the group
characters preceding the word "king" must correspond to the name
lord. In the end, Grotefend drew up the following diagram of the inscription:
U, great king (?), king of kings,
X-a, king, son, Achaeminides.
Of course, before getting to this blind formula, Grotefendu
I had to analyze each sign carefully and in detail; he built
assumptions regarding the grammatical forms of an unknown language are tense
thought, analyzed, thought again and analyzed some more. And what?
Grotefend's assumptions turned out to be correct. Having carefully studied,
by analyzing historical data and substituting the symbols of your diagram
names of the rulers, he received the following translation of the inscription:
Xerxes, great king, king of kings,
Darius, king, son, Achaeminides.
It is difficult to imagine what colossal work it cost Grotefend
the correct translation of this expression, how much research it required.
After all, ancient Persian names were not always transferred from Greek authors
phonetically accurate and uniform.
Grotefend accurately deciphered eight characters of ancient Persian
alphabet, and 30 years later the Frenchman Eugene Burnouf and the Norwegian Christian Lassen
found the correct equivalents for almost all cuneiform characters, and thus
Thus, the work on deciphering the 1st class inscriptions from Persepolis was in
mostly finished.
However, scientists were haunted by the mystery of the letters of classes 2 and 3, and
ancient Persian texts were still difficult to read. At the same time, passing
Major and diplomat Henry Creswick Rawlinson also takes service in Persia
an attempt to decipher cuneiform inscriptions. His personal passion was
archeology and comparative linguistics, which achieved its first successes at that time.
In order to continue the study of ancient languages ​​immortalized in
cuneiform inscriptions, new texts were required. Rawlinson knew that
on the old road, near the city of Kermanshah, there is a high rock, on
in which colossal mysterious images and signs are visible. And Rawlinson
went to Behistun. Risking his life, he climbed a steep cliff,
which were carved out huge bas-reliefs, and began copying the inscription.
During the summer and autumn of 1835, standing above the abyss on a shaky ladder,
Rawlinson redrew much of the Old Persian text, cuneiform
inscriptions from Behistun. Soon, in 1837, Rawlinson sent to London
Asian society copied and translated text of two passages. From
London, this work is immediately sent to the Paris Asiatic Society,
so that the outstanding scientist Burnouf could get acquainted with it. Rawlinson's work was
appreciated very highly: an unknown major from Persia is awarded the rank
honorary member of the Paris Asiatic Society.
However, Rawlinson does not consider his work completed: the remaining two
the undeciphered parts of the Behistun inscription haunt him. The thing is,
that the inscription on the Behistun rock, as well as the inscription in Persepolis,
carved in three languages. In 1844 - 1847 Rawlinson hanging on a rope
over a deep abyss, copies the rest of the inscription. Now in your hands
scientists turned out to be two lengthy texts, replete with proper names,
Moreover, their content was known from the ancient Persian version. By 1855
Edwin Norris managed to decipher the second type of cuneiform, consisting
of about a hundred syllabic marks. This part of the inscription was in Elamite
language.
Difficulties in deciphering the first two types of cuneiform turned out to be
a mere trifle compared to the difficulties that arose while reading
third part of the inscriptions, filled, as it turned out, with Babylonian
ideographically - syllabic writing. One sign here denoted both a syllable and
a whole word. Moreover, the same sign could be used to convey
different syllables and even different words. An example is
the simplest case: a syllable containing the sound “r” could be expressed in six
with different signs, depending on which vowel it was adjacent to
(ra, ar, ri, ir, ru, ur). Consonants appeared only as part of a syllable, then
how vowels sometimes appeared as separate signs.
Therefore, it is not surprising that no one wanted to believe that once upon a time someone
he could have invented such an intricate way of writing. And the brave souls who allowed
the existence of such a writing system, the decoding of these signs,
conveying all the polysemy of a dead, long-forgotten language, it seemed
impossible.
Meanwhile, by the middle of the 19th century, linguistics made great strides and
linguists studying the structure of ancient languages ​​already had behind them
considerable experience. Discussions were held not only around attempts to decipher
cuneiform signs of the 3rd class, but also around their origin and character
the language in which this text was compiled. Researchers thought about
how ancient cuneiform is and what changes it has undergone over the years
centuries-old period of its existence. Through the joint efforts of a number of
Scientists overcame enormous difficulties in studying the Babylonian language.
Invaluable assistance in this work was provided by archaeologists who delivered
numerous signs with inscriptions. In the mid-19th century, human genius
won another victory: a new science was born - Assyriology, which studies
studying the whole range of problems associated with ancient Mesopotamia.
The amazing polysemy of cuneiform prompted scientists to take up the question of
its origin. It goes without saying that the letter,
which was used by the Semitic peoples (Babylonians and Assyrians), was
borrowed from some other people of non-Simitic origin.

1.3. Discovery of the Sumerian language.

And so on January 17, 1869, the prominent French linguist Jules Oppert at a meeting
The French Society of Numismatics and Archeology stated that the language,
immortalized on many tablets found in Mesopotamia is
Sumerian! This means that the Sumerian people must have existed!
Thus, it was not historians and archaeologists who were the first to clearly formulate
proof of the existence of Sumer. This was “calculated” and proven by linguists.
Oppert's words were received with restraint and distrust. At the same time
Some in scientific circles have expressed support for his hypothesis, which he himself
the scientist considered it an axiom. Oppert's hypothesis prompted archaeologists to begin searching
material evidence of the existence of Sumer in Mesopotamia. A lot in this
plan could provide a thorough analysis of the ancient inscriptions. And so in 1871
Archibald Henry Says publishes the first Sumerian text - one of the inscriptions
King Shulga. Two years later, François de Lenormand publishes the first
volume of his Akkadian Studies with the Sumerian grammar he developed
and new texts. Since 1889 the entire scientific world recognized Sumerology as a field
science and the definition "Sumerian" is universally accepted to mean
history, language and culture of this people.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that it is not the archaeologists who dig out from the sands
Mesopotamian deserts are the secrets of past centuries, and not historians are so confident
declared to the whole world: Sumer is here. The memory of Sumer and the Sumerians has died
thousands of years ago. The Greek chroniclers did not mention them. Available for
us materials from Mesopotamia that humanity had before the era
great discoveries, we will not find a word about Sumer. Even the Bible - this one
source of inspiration for the first searches for the Cradle of Abraham - speaks of
Chaldean city of Ur. Not a word about the Sumerians! What happened apparently
was inevitable: the initially emerging belief about the existence
of the Sumerian city only later received documentary confirmation.
This circumstance in no way detracts from the merits of travelers and
archaeologists. Having attacked the trail of Sumerian monuments, they did not have the slightest
concepts of what they are dealing with. After all, they were not looking for Sumer, but Babylon and
Assyria! But if it weren't for these people, linguists would never have been able to discover
Sumer.

Chapter 2. The origin of Sumerian civilization.

2.1. The population of Mesopotamia before the Sumerians.

Archaeological data indicate that in the 6th and 5th millennia BC. first in
Settled settlements existed in northern and then southern Mesopotamia,
whose inhabitants were engaged not only in hunting, fishing and gathering,
but also agriculture. Both in the northern and southern parts of Mesopotamia arose as
cultures close to each other and significantly different from each other.
Traces of these cultures have reached us: products made of stone and clay, vessels with
characteristic of each of them in the way of ornamentation, tools,
hunting weapons, jewelry, figurines and figurines reflecting the ancient
beliefs.
We should not forget: we are talking about the Stone Age, when man had not yet
knows metal, the world around is wild, incomprehensible, only a few areas of the earth
the ball is populated, and the distance of 200 km seems enormous and can be overcome
it is more difficult than after 10-20 centuries, thousands of kilometers separating
countries with a large population. And yet, people understand the world,
conquer and populate new territories, bringing with them traditions already
the culture they previously created. All this must be remembered to understand
processes and events associated with the appearance of the Sumerians on the banks of the Tigris and
Euphrates.
An example of the southern part of Mesopotamia is the settlement of Tell el-Obeid,
once located on the banks of the Euphrates. Clay stones discovered here
greenish vessels are decorated with dark brown or black geometric
ornament. Images of animals and people in the ornament are rare.
But clay figurines of people and animals were found in large quantities. El-
Obeid vessels were made by hand, sometimes on a slowly rotating
potter's wheel driven by hand. The houses were built from
reeds coated with clay, or large clay ones dried in the sun
lumps A mosaic of cones not only decorated the walls, but also protected them from
erosion by rainwater. Tell el-Obeid was a large and
populous settlement. On the outskirts of Eredu, located near
settlements, a cemetery was excavated. In the graves - and there are more than a thousand of them, next to
Obeid pottery was found with human remains.
The influence of the Obeid culture extended further beyond the southern part
valleys of Mesopotamia. Trade ties with India, Transbaikalia and
Central Asia.

2.2. The emergence of the Sumerians.

Most scientists argue that it was during this period, during the heyday
El Obeid culture, i.e. in the second half of the 4th millennium, in Mesopotamia
Sumerians appear - a people who in later written documents
calls themselves "blackheads". Where and when, in what era did the Sumerians come
- main, difficult and, as many researchers claim, insoluble
mystery. The opinions of scientists on these issues are extremely contradictory and
They now agree, perhaps, only on one thing: the Sumerians are an alien people.
One thing is indisputable: they were a people ethnically, linguistically and culturally alien
Semitic tribes who settled Northern Mesopotamia around the same time
time or a little later. Many years of searching for more or less significant
language group related to the Sumerian language did not lead to anything, although
searched everywhere - from Central Asia to the islands of Oceania. Some scientists
suggest that these are Caucasian people, although there is direct evidence of this
No.
Much suggests that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia from the south, from
sides of the Persian Gulf. It should be noted that most known
According to science, Sumerian cities have non-Sumerian names. And since these cities
arose in ancient times, the conclusion suggests itself that non-Sumerian
the names are pre-Sumerian names.
Attempts to reconstruct the ancient history of the Sumerians did not help
find their homeland. Perhaps it was the Iranian plateau or distant mountains
Central Asia, or India.
Apparently, the country from which the Sumerians came was located, rather
in total, in a mountainous area, but located in such a way that its inhabitants
could master the art of navigation. This is the majority opinion
researchers more or less coincide. Evidence that the Sumerians
came from the mountains, is their way of building temples, which were erected on
artificial embankments or on brick or clay blocks
hills-terraces. It is unlikely that such a custom could have arisen among the inhabitants
plains They had to bring it along with their beliefs from their ancestral home
mountain dwellers who paid homage to the gods on the mountain peaks. One more thing
proof: in Sumerian the words “country” and “mountain” are written
the same.
So, there is a lot to suggest that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia by sea
by. First of all, they appeared at the mouths of rivers. Secondly, in their
In ancient beliefs, the main role was played by Enki - the wise good god, whose home
- Abzu - was at the bottom of the ocean. And finally, having barely settled in Mesopotamia,
The Sumerians immediately began organizing irrigation,
navigation and navigation on rivers and canals.

2.3. Unanswered questions.

Having settled at the mouths of the rivers, the Sumerians captured the city of Eredu. This was their first
city. Later they began to consider it the cradle of their statehood. By
After a number of years, the Sumerians moved deep into the Mesopotamian plain, building
or conquering new cities. These alien people subjugated the country not
displacing - this the Sumerians simply could not - the local population. Against,
they accepted many of the achievements of local culture, and what we are today
call Sumerian culture and civilization is certainly common
the property of many peoples, enriched and developed by aliens who created in
Mesopotamia is a large and powerful state.
Currently, based on archaeological materials, it is accepted
to believe that, having arrived in Mesopotamia, the Sumerians found here a highly developed
culture. The opinions of most scientists agree on this. As for
further events, the most contradictory judgments are expressed about them.
Some researchers argue that with the arrival of the Sumerians the period began
decline due to the breakdown of customs and traditions. Other scientists have this opinion
disputed.
It should be noted that all these arguments are not based on solid
soils, as they are based on the analysis of pottery. Comparing the shape
manufacturing method, nature of finishing and ornamentation of products, etc. scientists
determine the sequence of emergence of individual cultures and their
interdependence, chronology of certain phenomena, conclude that
which of the two cultures that collided at a certain period prevailed and
subdued the other. This far from new technique cannot be considered
indisputable. And yet, since science does not have more advanced
methods of dating events and phenomena of such a distant era, we have to
be content with what you have. This is one of the reasons why
researchers change their judgment so often. The earth opens up new things for us
secrets that force us to reconsider previous views. As a result
chronology shifts, peoples appear, hitherto unknown, considered
later or more primitive
Some scientists admit that in the formation of the “Obeid-Sumerian”
culture, the leading role could have been played by tribes living among the swamps in the south
Mesopotamia. Archaeological material found during excavations in temples
Eredu and Lagash, indicates that the inhabitants of Mesopotamia brought to
sacrifice to the god Enki is not grain or meat, which would be natural for
farmers and cattle breeders, and fish. In recent years, a number of studies
the prevalence of the motif in Sumerian art is reported
"Fishman" These assumptions and reflections once again show in what
specialists - Sumerologists - are wandering in the labyrinth, eager to find the ancestral home
Sumerians. S.N. Kramer, a tireless researcher and popularizer of knowledge about
Sumerians, in one of his reports said: “As for the origin
Sumerians, then all we know is that we know nothing.”
If we take the point of view that the Sumerians really came
to Southern Mesopotamia from some other country, we will have to admit that
this people, who most likely arrived by sea, were viable and
energetic, greedily absorbed the culture of the local population, and in his
turn, generously enriching it with their own cultural
achievements; that he appeared, apparently, first in the south of Mesopotamia and,
having gained a foothold on the shores of the Persian Gulf, he set out to conquer the entire
countries; that all this happened no later than the second half of the 4th millennium, because
By the beginning of the 3rd millennium, cultures recognized in Mesopotamia had already appeared
Sumerian. These were the cultures of Uruk and Jemdet-Nasr, they end
archaic stage of cultural life of Mesopotamia and history opens
states of the Sumerians. The periods of the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr cultures, according to
Hartmut Schmöckel, cover the years 3000-2600. BC, however chronology, in
features relating to the history of the Sumerians of the ancient period are extremely inaccurate
and is another subject of controversy among scientists.
Scientists agreed to consider the end of the 4th millennium the beginning of the history of the Sumerians.
Unfortunately, written documents from this era cannot yet be fully
reading. The reconstruction of these eras is based mainly on
archaeological material.

Chapter 3. The most ancient culture of the Sumerian era.

3.1. The first cities.

After royalty descended from heaven,
Eredu became a place of royalty...

In this city, located on the shore of a freshwater lagoon near Nizhny Novgorod
sea ​​(Persian Gulf) tired travelers gathered. Having captured the city,
they didn't destroy it. It served as a transit point for them. Recorded via
For several centuries, the myth tells that here was the palace of the god Enki,
erected on the ocean floor. No god except Enki had access there. IN
in the primeval ocean, the good Enki created the city of Eredu and raised it above
the surface of the waters so that it “shine” like a high mountain. Washed
fresh waters, this city was the property of the god Enki, who
protected it and its inhabitants. It was a holy city. The pilgrims continued
visit it even after changes have occurred in the celestial hierarchy, and
the god Enki faded into the background, giving way to his brother Enlil. On
for several centuries, the inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia built here
sanctuaries And the Sumerians erected their first temple in this place, while
small and modest, not distinguished by either the perfection of architecture or
wealth of decorations.
The path of the Sumerians' advance to the north is not precisely known.
The second city that the Sumerians apparently captured was the city of Uruk,
which is 75 km north-west of Eredu. This city is very early
began to play the role of one of the main political, economic and
religious centers of Sumer. Archaeological material also shows
about the speed with which the culture and power of the state grew
Sumerians. In the vicinity of Uruk, the oldest artificial
the elevation on which temples were built in Mesopotamia. The temple of God standing on it
Ana, built from limestone blocks, was called “White” by archaeologists.
sanctuary." Impressive dimensions (80 x 30 m), architectural perfection
shapes, vaulted niches oriented to the four cardinal directions, stairs,
leading to the altar - all this made the temple a real miracle of architectural
art even in the eyes of sophisticated archaeologists.
Other Sumerian cities of the era in terms of material culture
and the architecture differed little from Uruk. In the center of each of them
a temple in honor of the patron god-ruler and
ruler of the city, everywhere the same method of decorating the walls, the same niches and
free-standing sacrificial table, etc. Identity of material culture,
religious beliefs, socio-political organization of various
Sumerian city-states is beyond doubt. However, this is by no means
proves their political community. On the contrary, it is most likely possible
suggest that from the very beginning of the expansion of the Sumerians deep into Mesopotamia
rivalry arose between individual cities - both newly founded,
and conquered. Preserving cultural and religious community, as well as
identical economic and political structure of society, the Sumerians together with
thus they created independent cities out of separate ones, often at odds with each other
themselves as states. Echoes of these wars that were fought at the dawn of history
Sumer, came to us in the lines of epic poems folded into later
century, when the events described in them turned into legends, and living people
- into god-like beings.
However, it is not the beautiful vessels and the magnificent architecture that attracts
special attention of researchers, and the writing that arose at that time.
It was in those cultural layers of Uruk that the first tablets with
pictographic writing. The Hermitage also houses one of the oldest
monuments of writing - tiles with pictographic icons,
carved, as scientists believe, around 2900. BC. Currently in
museums in Europe, Asia and Africa already have about a quarter of a million Sumerian
tablets and fragments. Only a small part of them has been studied and examined.
It is known that at least 95% of these documents are
texts of economic content: inventories of inventory, invoices, receipts, reports,
information about sacrifices and temple property. On this basis, scientists
came to the conclusion that writing in Sumer arose in connection with
economic needs and economic features. Sumerian cities-
states needed accurate accounting of all material assets, expenses
and income. Appeared thanks to prosaic, everyday needs
Sumerian writing quickly went through several phases of development and quite
soon improved. Initial drawings of objects, of little use
for complex concepts, were replaced by icons that convey sounds. So
phonetic writing arose. The oldest tablets, in large quantities
found in the so-called Uruk 4 layer, are pictograms,
depicting a person, parts of his body, tools, etc. These “words”
they talk about people, animals and plants, tools, vessels, etc. Of them
we learn that the Sumerians had plows, carts, ships, carts on runners,
various tools and utensils. Later the pictograms began to be replaced
ideograms, the meaning of which did not coincide with the meaning of the picture. foot sign,
for example, began to mean not only the leg, but also various actions associated
with a leg. Initially, such icons were not easy to decipher
prototype picture, there were about 2000. Very soon their number
decreased by two thirds; the same sign began to denote the same
sounding or cognate words, for example, words denoting a tool
plowing and plowing. After that, there was only one step left to take to
signs acquired a purely sound meaning - syllabic writing arose. However
neither the Sumerians nor the peoples who borrowed their writing system made
next step - did not create an alphabetic letter
The Sumerians created number systems - decimal and
sexagesimal. With the help of appropriate symbols they learned
denote both very large quantities and the smallest fractions. Soft,
There was plenty of plastic clay at hand. Under the rays of the sun she
quickly dried out, turning into stone. There was no shortage of reeds, either
which writing sticks were made. Maybe this explains the passion for
writing, which so possessed the Sumerians and their successors in Mesopotamia?
Sumerian scribes extruded cuneiform characters first on small (4-5 cm
in length and 2.5-3 cm in width) and “pot-bellied” clay tablets. With time
they become larger (11 x 10 cm) and flatter.
Attempts to at least approximately date the time of occurrence
Sumerian writing leads to the same complicated and bitter disputes,
as well as the question of their origin or time of appearance in Mesopotamia.
The subject of discussion is, for example, the dating of the above-mentioned
written document - stone with pictographic signs. However,
since in archaeological layers dating back to approximately 2900 BC
AD there are already many signs with ideographic signs instead
pictorial, we can conclude that since the emergence of the ancient
records are at least 200-300 years old. If we assume that
the Sumerian writing could not have developed in such a short period of time - and they
came to Mesopotamia shortly before the era of Uruk, then arose
the assumption that the Sumerians mastered the art of writing back in their ancestral home.
Archaeological material dating back to this time is unusually
rich and expressive. Thanks to him, scientists were able to reliably
restore the external appearance of the Sumerian city-states, their social
political structure, inhabitants' occupations and religious beliefs. Excavations
they talk about how the Sumerian state gained power, how it developed
their craft, trade, architecture. The pace of cultural and
economic development of Sumer. How little time it took to instead
Huge buildings appeared over the reed huts covered with clay to
lifeless, flooded during river floods or, conversely, waterless and
desert areas turned into blooming gardens, fields and meadows, cut
a network of irrigation canals that also served for navigation. Even
with the most cursory review of the achievements of the Sumerians in the field of material culture
in the era of Uruk one is amazed at the extraordinary vitality of this people and
the diversity of his talents. These were a people of builders, artists, good
organizers, etc.
The expansion of the Sumerians, the echoes of which are captured in the later epic,
led north. City-states competed with each other in every possible way
tried to strengthen their power. Trade is thriving, the network is growing
irrigation canals, the area of ​​irrigated land is expanding, developing
religious cults are one of the most important elements of the spiritual life of the Sumerians,
who believed that people were created by the gods and are their property, and therefore
must serve the gods and increase their wealth and prosperity. Sumerian
city-states jealously guard their territory, independence,
closely monitor each other's success, ready to attack at any moment,
seize, subjugate. Wars for power break out every now and then. Undertaking
even attempts to seize dominance over all of Sumer.
In a short time after the invasion of Mesopotamia in the social structure
Sumerian society underwent dramatic changes. During the Uruk era it was
already a society divided into rich and poor. This ancient
class society, apparently, was no stranger to primitive slavery.

3.2. Uruk in 2900 BC e.

Uruk at this time seized hegemony over all of Sumer and became a true
center of the country. German scientist Hartmut Schmöckel painted this picture
Uruk during this period: “Short twilight falls on the Euphrates valley. WITH
meadows covered with green, lush grass, the temple herds return. Their
driven by naked shepherds. Well-fed, heavy animals wander slowly. Only
young animals - playful kids and lambs - violate the orderly order. Until what
good herds! There will be plenty of milk, workers will take a lot of wool to
temple warehouses when it is time for haircuts. The spinners will also work hard,
working in temple workshops. Sheep, goats, cows come in wide
Gate of Uruk. They are driven to the stables and sheepfolds of the temple of Inanna. Now shepherds
they will entrust the herds to the cattlemen, and they themselves will go to the warehouse for a daily portion of bread
and beer.
On the city streets, in residential areas, there is traffic, noise, bustle. It's over
hot stuffy day. The time has come for the long-awaited evening coolness. Along
blank clay walls, the monotony of which is broken only by small openings,
leading into the houses, returning from their workshops in the temple, walk
blacksmiths and potters, gunsmiths and sculptors, masons and carvers. Women
carry water in tall jugs. They rush home to quickly cook
dinner for husbands and kids. Here and there in the crowd of passers-by you can see
warriors Slowly, as if afraid to lose their dignity, they walk down the street
priests, palace officials, scribes. Elegant fashionable skirts make them
noticeable in the crowd. They are significantly higher in the social hierarchy
artisans, workers, farmers and shepherds. Noisy naughty
boys after an endlessly long day of grueling study in the temple
the school of scribes finally threw their tablets and with a carefree laugh
escorting a caravan of donkeys carrying baskets of goods from ships, only
that unloaded at the pier.
Suddenly a scream comes from somewhere, the crowd parted: towards
ensi goes to the temple: together with his family and courtiers he worked all day
on the construction of a new irrigation canal and now after a hard day
returns to the palace, which is located next to the temple. This temple
is the pride of the people of Uruk. Down in the utility rooms, there,
where the storerooms, bars and warehouses are located, the priests put the tablets in order, with
sacrifices recorded on them, performed in the temple in the morning,
all the revenues received by the treasury from the previous day, which further increased
the wealth of the god-lord and ruler of the city. A ensi, prince, priest, ruler
Uruka, only a servant of God, in whose care are those belonging to God
land, wealth and people.
Having settled in the Mesopotamia valley, very poor in mineral resources,
The Sumerians were forced to enter into extensive commodity exchange with their neighbors.
Their contacts were not limited to neighboring regions, they extended much further
wider. Archaeologists have discovered traces of the influence of Uruk culture on the culture of countries
Mediterranean Sea - Syria, Anatolia, etc. Caravans even got there
Sumerian merchants, who brought their products and exported raw materials and minerals,
which were in short supply in Mesopotamia.
During excavations in Egypt in layers corresponding to the era of the Uruk culture
luxury items brought from Sumer, vessels with handles,
pistils. In addition, uncharacteristic for this area were found
cylinder seals. Noteworthy is the fact that on slate tiles
the most ancient ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menes, is present
a typical Sumerian motif dating back to the era of Uruk - fantastic
animals with long intertwined necks.
Based on the analysis of human figures and boat designs, some
scientists concluded that on the hilt of a dagger from Jebel al-Arak
depicts the battle that took place between the Sumerians who arrived in Egypt
the Black Sea, and the local population. Such an assumption may seem
too bold, but the fact is that in those distant times the Sumerians really
got to Egypt and had a certain impact on the formation
Egyptian culture is hardly in doubt. The hypothesis that
not only hieroglyphic writing arose thanks to the Sumerians, but also the idea itself
the creation of written signs was born in Egypt under their influence, has its own
supporters.
Construction of large cities with vibrant economic life,
magnificent architecture, rapidly developing crafts, the emergence
writing and creation of number systems, mastery of construction techniques
irrigation canals and the associated flourishing of agriculture, horticulture and
livestock farming, expansion of trade, development of navigation - here in
in a few words the achievements of this period of Sumerian history, which is called
(at the site of the most important archaeological finds) during the Uruk period.

3.3. Jemdet-Nasr period.

The next period, dated by most scientists to 2800 - 2600. BC e.,
took its name from the city of Jemdet Nasr, located about 35 km
northeast of Kish. In addition to the magnificent clay vessels with black-
with a yellow ornament on a dark red background, archaeologists discovered here a large
number of metal products, but what is especially important, the first signs
using an alloy of copper and tin. This means that during the Jemdet period
Nasra Mesopotamia entered the Bronze Age.
Among the finds of this period, noteworthy is the elegant,
a beautiful, iconic vase made of alabaster 1 m high. The artist depicted
many scenes reflecting the life, customs and rituals of the Sumerians. Embossed
the decorations on this vase are arranged in three horizontal rows, the bottom one
which, in turn, consists of two parts: above the life-giving waters
The grain is wildly eared, and herds of fat cows and calves graze above them.
The middle tier is filled with naked people walking one after another, in their hands
They contained jugs of milk and vases with grain and all kinds of fruits. This is the people.
He brings the fruits of his labor in the fields, gardens and meadows to the temple storerooms.
The upper and widest tier talks about the offering of gifts and sacrifices.
The goddess Inanna, who can be recognized by her characteristic reed symbol,
accepts gifts from his admirers. Judging by the size of the legs, directly
Ensi stands in front of her. He is the first to pay homage to the goddess. Behind the ruler
The noblest priests follow. In the depths, as if behind the back of the goddess, large
vessels filled to the brim with fruits, as well as sheep, bull, goat and small
figurines of people - maybe these are the servants of the goddess, or maybe the priests guarding her
wealth. Isn’t it about the most important thing in the life of the Sumerians, isn’t it about
determined their flourishing and power, says this piece collected from fragments
vase. Life-giving waters that flowed through canals dug by people and
accumulated in reservoirs, allowed the Sumerians to collect from fields, meadows,
gardens and vegetable gardens have rich harvests. Countless herds gave in abundance
milk and wool. And all this - they were convinced - belongs not to them, but
to the deity, whose property they themselves were. They gave everything to God
receiving his share from him through ensi, god's viceroy on earth and mediator
between him and people. The Sumerians believed: only humble service to the gods, only
following all their plans transmitted through ensi can
to secure the favor and protection of the powerful forces that have created
the universe and control it and people's lives.
On the cultural, economic and political development of Sumer
evidenced not only by those products that seem to modern man
works of art. The nature of the painting of clay vessels also indicates
in many ways. It is known that the classification of ceramics is based on the characteristics
ornamentation of clay products. In architecture, the symbol of the Sumerian era became
small elegant brick. The Sumerian temples of this period are striking
size (they are not impressive), but the perfection of architecture and splendor
finishing. An example of this is the temple of Inanna in Uruk.
The political expansion of the Sumerians continues; new cities are emerging
states: Shuruppak, Eshnunna, Kish, etc. Thanks to the improvement
economic management, the wealth of the Sumerian city-states grows, and
along with it, social stratification deepens; religious are changing
ideas of the Sumerians, the pantheon of their gods is expanding and, apparently
discord is intensifying and wars between individual cities are becoming more frequent -
states. Echoes of these wars can be found in later epics and myths,
telling about those distant times when people were like gods, and gods were like
people, times that became not only for us, but also for the most ancient Sumerians
legend, prehistory.

Chapter 4. Historical and cultural monuments of the Sumerians.

4.1. The legend of the global flood.

The question of the global flood also affected the Sumerian state. Leonardo Woolley
discovered a three-meter layer of clean sand without any traces
human activity, suddenly interrupting the cultural layers of Ur. This
is indisputable evidence that around the middle of the 4th millennium
a powerful cataclysm took place here, covering a vast territory - according to those
ideas, huge, almost the whole world. In cities located
further north, the thickness of the layer of pure river sediments is not as great as in
Ur: about one and a half meters in Uruk, about half a meter in Kish. Based
With this data, Woolley compiled a map of the area affected by the flood. More
later studies showed that many Mesopotamian cities preserved
traces of floods that occurred at different times: discovered layers of clean
lands belong to different periods. The discovery was a blow to supporters
ideas of the Mesopotamian global flood. However, the problem of the great
flood, immortalized by the Mesopotamian tragedy, continues
exist. Scientists say that during the most ambitious of these
During the disaster, settlements located on higher elevations survived. A
Since populated areas survived, so did the people who preserved and passed on
future generations will remember the disaster. If we assume that during
the flood that flooded Ur in the El-Obeid era, the Sumerians were not here yet
there were major floods of the next period (Jemdet - Nasr)
happened already under them. They heard about some, experienced others themselves.
One thing is certain, in this borrowed and spread by the Old Testament
The legend contains a grain of historical truth.

4.2. Poem "Gilgamesh and Aka"

The poem "Gilgamesh and Aka" attracted scientists primarily because, unlike
other Sumerian works of this kind, it speaks only about people and
There is a complete absence of any supernatural beings. Its content
realistic, almost without a fantastic element. The researcher finds in
this historical and heroic epic contains a lot of valuable information about the Sumerian
society; for example, already in ancient times the ruler of a city-state
discussed some issues not only with the council of elders, but also with the “council
men of the city", i.e. with the warriors. S.N. Kramer makes a huge deal out of this fact.
meaning. He believes that here we are faced with the oldest in history
humanity "parliamentary democracy". According to Kramer, advice
elders can be equated to the senate, and the “council of husbands” can be equated to the lower house
parliament. Representatives of various social groups sat on the “Council of Husbands”
layers of society capable of carrying weapons. According to Kramer, the story about
the Sumerian parliament cannot be considered an anachronism, i.e. transfer
institutions, concepts, institutions known to the author from personal experience in the era,
which is spoken of in the poem, because at the time it was written down,
there were no such institutions. This "bicameral parliament" had
a peculiar structure: a ruler dissatisfied with the decision of the council of elders,
could turn to the “council of husbands.” Apparently the council of elders
inherited from the tribal system, had fewer rights than the “council”
husbands,” on whom he relied and with whose help he created his power
ruler of the state.
Of interest in the poem is the mention of city walls. They were
as we see, these are turbulent times. Individual small Sumerian principalities
behaved extremely aggressively towards each other, and their
rulers had to think not only about attacking their neighbors, but also about
protection of their possessions. They tried to do as much as possible
difficult enemy access to the city - the heart of a small state.
That is why during excavations archaeologists discover the remains of defensive walls
in almost all Sumerian cities. During the excavation of Uruk, a double
a wall that surrounded not only the temple and residential buildings, but also gardens, fields, meadows
9.5 km long. In its northern and southern parts there were gates 3.5 m wide with
rectangular towers. 800 semicircular defensive towers defended
10 m apart from each other, making the 5 m thick wall almost impregnable.

4.3. The mystery of the "Tsar's List"

From a work on the history of Mesopotamia, written in Greek by a Babylonian scholar
and the priest of the god Marduk Beros, who lived in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e. it is known that
The Babylonians divided history into two periods - before the flood and after the flood. He
reported that 10 kings ruled the country for 43,200 years before the flood, and
the first kings after the flood also reigned for several thousand years. His
the royal list was perceived as a legend.
The efforts of scientists were crowned with success: among numerous cuneiform
Tablets were able to discover several fragments of ancient lists of kings.
The Sumerian "King List" was compiled no later than the end of 3
millennium BC e., during the reign of the so-called third dynasty
Hooray. When compiling the version of the “List” known to science, the scribes undoubtedly
used dynastic lists that had been kept for centuries
in individual city-states.
As a result of many reasons, the “Tsar's List” contains many inaccuracies
and mechanical errors. Through painstaking and complex research, scientists have found
finally, the solution to the puzzle: how to place separate ones at the same time
reigning dynasties, which are mentioned in the royal list as if they
followed one after another.
The "Royal List" reports that after the flood the kingdom was in Kish and that
23 kings ruled here for 24,510 years.
The time of the gods is obviously qualitatively different from the time of the heroes, and
the latter from the time of ordinary people, just as they themselves are different
from each other. Hungarian researchers have shown that if the terms of government
divide the first kings after the flood by 60, and the later ones by 10 or 6, then
real numbers are obtained. To this we can add that almost all
the numbers found in the first part of the “Royal List” (before the flood) are multiples
360; so to speak, a day was a year. It should be remembered that the numbers 6, 10, 60,
360, 1360 were “round” numbers for the Sumerians.
This riddle of the “Tsar’s List” can hardly be considered solved,
Apparently, the explanation must be sought here, especially in perception
Sumerians of time and in their numerical symbolism.

Chapter 5. The Fall of Sumer.

5.1. Political infighting.

In the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. The period of rapid prosperity of Lagash begins.
The city at this time is ruled by Ensi Uranshe. However, another time is coming.
There is a rival for power very close - Ummah, at any moment it could
there will be an attack by the Elamites from across the Tigris. The temples did not always agree
allocate funds necessary to implement the king's plans. Tsar
inevitably had to begin to appropriate part of the property and income, according to
traditions inseparably belonging to God, which were administered by the temples.
Urnanche laid the foundations for the political and economic power of his
dynasties. This gave the opportunity to its third representative, grandson Eanatum
(2400 BC), make an attempt to extend its power to neighboring
with Lagash state. He managed to do this, but the strife within
states and riots in the occupied territories continued.
The more active the ensi policy became, striving for
hegemony over Sumer, the more worried the priests were. Their interests and
influence was increasingly threatened by rulers
the Urnanshe dynasty, which became increasingly independent from the temples. Between
There was a constant struggle between them. As a result of this struggle, the political party
the priests placed her protege Lugalanda on the throne. But no matter how hard I tried
Lugalanda, in his policy, looks after the interests of the priests, what is already
happened, it was impossible to change: along with the temple a powerful
socio-economic power - a princely palace with a monstrously expanded
bureaucratic apparatus. Lugalanda's reign did not last long (7-
9 years). A violent coup took place. The coup that took place in Lagash
associated with the name of Uruinimgina. This man, 44 centuries later called
the first reformer in history, before he became the ruler of the country, was
an official from Lugalanda's entourage. He abolished many unfair taxes
from the poor. Uruimgina’s reforms were not to the taste of either the palace circles or
temple employees. Uruimgina significantly reduced the palace staff,
limited the power of officials and somewhat squeezed the priests. So he doesn't
pleased no one except the common people, who were then voiceless.

5.2. The death of the Sumerian civilization.

And so discontent in the state of the third dynasty of Ur grew day by day,
threatening its existence. The danger of the situation worsened
the fact that foreign peoples have long prevailed in Sumer, mainly
Semites.
The western borders of Sumer were continuously raided
warlike tribes - Amorites. These wild nomads appeared more and more often
on the western borders of Sumer, attacking poorly fortified cities.
At the same time, they infiltrated into the territory of Sumer in ever larger groups and
settled peacefully in various cities, increasing the number of non-Sumerian
population.
The tasks that faced Amar-Zuen, who ascended the throne
in 2045 BC e. were not easy. He ruled for 8 years and after him came to power
Shu-Suen came.
The history of Sumer and the fate of its last rulers now, according to
after four thousand years, they lead to sad reflections. Latest
the kings of Sumer were brave, wise, far-sighted, they won victories,
achieved great success, and yet their state quickly and
was inevitably heading towards decline. The Sumerian civilization grew old,
culture has become decrepit; turned to the past, she could not resist
difficulties associated with the new socio-political situation, nor
absorb the life-giving forces of the new. As a result, she became rigid in
its traditionalism, became impoverished and became a thing of the past.
Every state is like a beautiful fruit, which
Worms eat away with bitterness - outside and inside.
Neither military campaigns nor the policy of appeasement in relation to
an increasingly aggressive enemy can no longer save the state, which after
Shu-Suen's death was inherited by his son Ibbi - Suen. Twenty-five year old
the reign of Ibbi-Suen (2027-2003) is the last act of the Sumerian tragedy. Behind
the external façade, the ostentatious power, hides the approaching collapse of the empire.
Although the official language of Sumer - business and ritual - continues
remain Sumerian, the people speak Akkadian. Sumerian island,
an extremely small group of people holding together by sheer force
traditions, trying to defend the past and their interests, are flooded with waves
Semitic influences. Individual provinces are starting more or less decisively
to be freed from the domination of Ur, while some are forcibly suppressed
West Semitic tribes, others voluntarily submit to their authority. Beginning
from the fifth year of the reign of Ibbi-Suen, documents drawn up in the northern
provinces, are dated differently than in Ur, Uruk or Nippur: they are no longer
correlate with those events that the central government considers the most
important and significant. This means that the king has actually lost control
over these areas.
Raids of tribes hostile to Sumer, limitation of sphere of influence
capitals, constant wars - all this undermined the foundations of the country's economy.
The import and export of goods has sharply decreased. Prices have jumped in some areas
there was famine in the country. Now Ibbi-Suen is the king of a very small, torn apart
enemies of the state. Lonely, abandoned by everyone, aware of complete
hopelessness of resistance, he still continues to fight. Although according to him
belief that the tragedy of Sumer was sent down by the gods, this does not prevent him from calling
himself as a god, to protest against the verdict of the gods: he does not lay down his arms
in front of an enemy stronger than himself.
In 2003 B.C. e. The Elamites broke into the besieged capital. Ur
fell The last king of Sumer “retired to Anshan in fetters.”

Conclusion.

The death of Sumer, the collapse of the thousand-year kingdom, was
shock, both for contemporaries of these events and for posterity.
The most ancient foundations of social life, traditions, and customs collapsed. But
formed over a thousand