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SUMERIANS

Statue of a male figure, possibly a priest, from the Early Dynastic II (early 3rd millennium b.c.e.) Square Temple of Abu, Tell Asmar (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

Main stairway of the ziggurat at Ur (Jack Finegan)

The first major civilization in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians first emerge into history in southern Mesopotamia ca. 3100 b.c.e. The first explicit evidence of their presence appears in texts found at the site of Uruk and composed in what can arguably be identified as the Sumerian language. They were settled in the lower part of the alluvial plain extending northward from the Arabo/Persian Gulf at least as far as ancient Shuruppak, and at an early date their settlement extended further north to somewhere above Nippur, which became their religious capital. This plain was to be their homeland, known to them as Kiengi and to the Semitic Akkadians as Shumeru (from which comes Eng. Sumer). It is the general area identified as the setting of the Garden of Eden in Gen. 2–3. The Sumerians remembered their first city to have been just above what was then the head of the gulf, at Eridu, ever thereafter regarded as sacred to Enki, the god of wisdom and the watery deep (the Apsu).

Sumerian civilization developed its characteristic features between ca. 3400-2900. Writing emerged first in brief administrative documents and can only in the following period be employed for historical reconstruction. Nevertheless, this was likely already the creative period of Sumerian mythology, and a rich literature was to follow. Cities also emerged, as well as the accumulation of capital and a primitive form of democracy, later to give way to monarchy. The story of Ziusudra surviving a divinely ordained, catastrophic flood in a boat, located in Sumerian tradition at the end of this period, has clear connections with Gen. 6–9.

In the following period (Early Dynastic, ca. 2900-2334) city walls appeared, and the political leadership that had earlier been temporary became institutionalized in the office of the king, indicating increased warfare. The first seat of kingship following the flood was at Kish according to the Sumerian King List, reflected in the later usage of the title “King of Kish” by Mesopotamian monarchs as a claim to universal dominion. Heroic tales of legendary kings such as Etana, Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, Dumuzi (Babylonian Tammuz; Ezek. 8:14), and Gilgamesh, all but the first ruling at Uruk, have their setting in this time. Sumerian culture was disseminated across the Near East, as witnessed by the extensive use of the Sumerian language and cuneiform script at the North Syrian site of Ebla in the mid-3rd millennium.

The royal tombs excavated at Ur, deriving from the latter part of the Early Dynastic period, have yielded important examples of art and craftsmanship as well as evidence of the mass burial of an entire court with the deceased king, a practice that cannot otherwise be traced thus far. Urukagina/Uruinimgina of Lagash promulgated a reform limiting royal prerogatives and righting social grievances. Lugalzagesi of Umma conquered Lagash, Uruk, and the rest of Sumer according to his claims; but such imperial aspirations can assuredly be recognized as reality only in the following period of Semitic dominance.

A Semitic presence in Mesopotamia can be documented by the middle of the Early Dynastic period, and the symbiosis between their culture and that of the Sumerians progressed until the latter were absorbed by the early 2nd millennium, but not without leaving their pervasive and lasting imprint. From ca. 2334-2154 the Akkadians ruled from Akkad, the new capital established by the founder of the dynasty, Sargon. Akkadians were appointed to administrative posts; the Akkadian language was employed in official documents alongside Sumerian; and Sargon gained supremacy over all of lower and middle Mesopotamia. At the same time, Sargon honored his Sumerian subjects by installing his own daughter Enheduanna as high priestess of the moon-god Nanna of Ur. This gifted woman, the first identifiable author in world literature, composed Sumerian hymns honoring the goddess Inanna and the temples of Sumer and Akkad. Palace revolts recurred throughout the dynasty, and it finally collapsed under pressure from several outside peoples, conventionally understood as including, in particular, the Gutians.

During the following brief period the foreign Gutians exercised power primarily in the Diyala region, while a Sumerian dynasty at Lagash maintained considerable influence in the south. Gudea, the best known of its rulers, rebuilt the Eninnu temple of Ningirsu at Girsu. The two cylinders recounting this project preserve the most extensive Sumerian literary composition recovered to date.

Centralized Sumerian rule over southern and central Mesopotamia and beyond was restored by the 3rd dynasty of Ur (Ur III; ca. 2112-2004). The first known collection of precedent law is credited to the founder of the dynasty, Ur-nammu, or to his son, Šulgi. By the reign of Ur-nammu, if not earlier, the ziggurat, a layered tower with a shrine at its top, appeared, likely the sort of structure pictured in Gen. 11:1-9. Following Ur-nammu, Šulgi ruled over a thriving kingdom whose military operations were largely successful and whose trade was extensive. It was a period in which scribal education and Sumerian literature flourished, though our copies of Sumerian literary texts come largely from the later Old Babylonian period. More royal hymns written in Šulgi’s honor are known than for any other Mesopotamian monarch, and he claimed divinity, as had the Akkadian rulers Naram-sin and Shar-kali-šarri before him. Šulgi’s three successors unsuccessfully attempted to hold at bay the incoming Amorites from the northwest, who finally, along with forces from the east, overran the empire.

A period of shifting power ensued in which the city-states of Isin and Larsa played dominant roles in keeping Sumerian culture alive in the south. Their culture, however, with the subjugation of southern and central Mesopotamia to the Old Babylonian king Hammurabi, was finally absorbed into that of the Semites. Yet the Sumerian way of life was revered by the Babylonians and lived on in the amalgam that resulted. Enlil, the active head of the Sumerian pantheon, gave place to the gods Marduk of Babylon and, at a later time, to Assur of Assyria. Other Sumerian gods continued to be worshipped in their Semitic counterparts, e.g., Inanna in Ishtar, Enki in Ea, Utu in Šamaš, and Nanna in Sin. Scribal schools preserved the Sumerian language in written form after it disappeared from living usage and transmitted Sumerian literature until their demise following the Old Babylonian period, after which the tradition was kept alive by scribal guilds and families.

Many fundamental elements of modern civilizations appeared first among the Sumerians. Their attainments and outlook deeply influenced the entire ancient Near East in their time, in particular the Babylonians who followed them in southern Mesopotamia. Especially through the Babylonians, that influence extended to ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Through the latter medium, as well as through the underlying ancient Near Eastern impact on Greek civilization, their legacy reached the Western world. An informed approach to the history of Western civilization, as well as that of the Bible, must not stop short of the search for the ancient Sumerians.

Walter R. Bodine

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SUMERIANS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)