Sumer

Sumeria redirects here. For other uses, see Sumeria Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sume(disambiguation).
rian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian
rule re-emerged for about a century in the Third Dynasty
of
Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) aproximately 2100-2000
[note 1]
Sumer (/sumr/)
was one of the ancient
BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use.
civilizations and historical regions in southern
Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian
was the worlds rst city, where three separate culthe Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze ages. Although Gulf,
tures
fused
that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in
it was previously thought that the earliest forms of
mud-brick
huts
and practicing irrigation; that of mobile
writing in the region do not go back much further than
nomadic
Semitic
pastoralists living in black tents and folc. 3500 BC, modern historians have suggested that
lowing
herds
of
sheep
and goats; and that of sher folk,
Sumer was rst permanently settled between c. 5500
living
in
reed
huts
in
the
marshlands, who may have been
and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who spoke the
[13]
the
ancestors
of
the
Sumerians.
Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities,
rivers, basic occupations, etc. as evidence).[1][2][3][4]
These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called
proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[5] and are theorized
to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern
Mesopotamia (Assyria).[6][7][8][9] The Ubaidians were
the rst civilizing force in Sumer, draining the marshes
for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing
industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork,
masonry, and pottery.[5]

The irrigated farming together with annual replenishment

of soil fertility and the surplus of storable food in temple granaries created by this economy allowed the population of this region to rise to levels never before seen,
unlike those found in earlier cultures of shifting cultivators. This much greater population density in turn created and required an extensive labour force and division
of labour with many specialised arts and crafts. At the
same time, historic overuse of the irrigated soils led to
However, some scholars such as Piotr Michalowski and progressive salinisation, and a Malthusian crisis which led
to depopulation of the Sumerian region over time, leadGerd Steiner, contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. It has been suggested by ing to its progressive eclipse by the Akkadians of middle
Mesopotamia.
them and others, that the Sumerian language was originally that of the hunter and sher peoples, who lived in Sumer was also the site of early development of writing,
the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region, and progressing from a stage of proto-writing in the mid 4th
were part of the Arabian bifacial culture.[10] Reliable his- millennium BC to writing proper in the 3rd millennium
torical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer BC (see Jemdet Nasr period).
of any kind that have been dated before Enmebaragesi
(c. 26th century BC). Professor Juris Zarins believes the
Sumerians were settled along the coast of Eastern Arabia, todays Persian Gulf region, before it ooded at the
end of the Ice Age.[11] Sumerian literature speaks of their 1 Origin of name
homeland being Dilmun.
Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period
(4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdat Nasr
and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis developed between
the Sumerians (who spoke a language isolate) and the
Semitic Akkadian speakers, which included widespread
bilingualism.[12] The inuence of Sumerian on Akkadian
(and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological,
and phonological convergence.[12] This has prompted
scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd
millennium BC as a Sprachbund.[12] Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian

The term Sumerian is the common name given to the

ancient non-Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer,
by the Semitic Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to
themselves as sa gg-ga (cuneiform:
), phonetically u sa giga, literally meaning the black-headed
people, and to their land as ki-en-gi(-r) ('place' + 'lords
+ 'noble'), meaning place of the noble lords.[14] The
Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical
name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term umer is uncertain.[15] Hebrew
Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite anhar(a), all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants
of Shumer.[15]
1

City-states in Mesopotamia

Further information: Cities of the Ancient Near East and

Geography of Mesopotamia
By the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into

Sippar

Der

Akshak

Kish

9. Adab (Tell Bismaya)

10. Mari (Tell Hariri) 2

12. Akkad 1

(1 location uncertain)
(2 an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia)

Larak

Marad
Nippur
Pazurish-Dagan
Isin
Kissura
Adab
Shurruppak
Umma

Bilbat

8. Hamazi 1

13. Isin (Ishan al-Bahriyat)

Kutha
Kid-nun
Babylon
Barsippa

7. Umma (Tell Jokha)

11. Akshak 1

Eshnunna
Tutub

Rapiqum

HISTORY

Minor cities (from south to north):

Lagash
Girsu Urukag
Nina

Bad Tibira
Uruk

Kutallu
Larsa

1. Kuara (Tell al-Lahm)

2. Zabala (Tell Ibzeikh)
3. Kisurra (Tell Abu Hatab)

Eridu
50

100

150

50

100

Ur

4. Marad (Tell Wannat es-Sadum)

Kilometers

5. Dilbat (Tell ed-Duleim)

Miles

6. Borsippa (Birs Nimrud)

Map of Sumer

7. Kutha (Tell Ibrahim)

about a dozen independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered
on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor (ensi)
or by a king (lugal) who was intimately tied to the citys
religious rites.

8. Der (al-Badra)
9. Eshnunna (Tell Asmar)
10. Nagar (Tell Brak) 2
(2 an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia)

The ve rst cities said to have exercised pre-dynastic

Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 km (205 mi) northkingship:
west of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as
having exercised kingship in the Early Dynastic II pe1. Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrain)
riod, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the
Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what
2. Bad-tibira (probably Tell al-Madain)
are now the Bbil, Diyala, Wsit, Dhi Qar, Basra, Al3. Larsa (Tell as-Senkereh)
Muthann and Al-Qdisiyyah governorates of Iraq.
4. Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah)
5. Shuruppak (Tell Fara)
Other principal cities:
1. Uruk (Warka)
2. Kish (Tell Uheimir & Ingharra)
3. Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar)
4. Nippur (Afak)
5. Lagash (Tell al-Hiba)
6. Girsu (Tello or Telloh)

3 History
Main article: History of Sumer
The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumerian written history
reaches back to the 27th century BC and before, but the
historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. the 23rd century BC, when a now deciphered syllabary writing system was developed, which
has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records
and inscriptions. Classical Sumer ends with the rise of
the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following

3.1

Ubaid period

the Gutian period, there is a brief Sumerian Renaissance

in the 21st century BC, cut short in the 20th century BC
by Semitic Amorite invasions. The Amorite dynasty of
Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was
united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian)
population.

3.1 Ubaid period

Main article: Ubaid period

The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of

ne quality painted pottery which spread throughout
Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. During this time, the
rst settlement in southern Mesopotamia was established
Ubaid period: 5300 4100 BC (Pottery Neolithic at Eridu (Cuneiform: NUN.KI), c. 5300 BC, by farmto Chalcolithic)
ers who brought with them the Hadji Muhammed culture, which rst pioneered irrigation agriculture. It ap Uruk period: 4100 2900 BC (Late Chalcolithic to pears this culture was derived from the Samarran culture
Early Bronze Age I)
from northern Mesopotamia. It is not known whether or
not these were the actual Sumerians who are identied
Uruk XIV-V: 4100 3300 BC
with the later Uruk culture. Eridu remained an important
Uruk IV period: 3300 3100 BC
religious center when it was gradually surpassed in size
Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III): 3100 2900 by the nearby city of Uruk. The story of the passing of
the me (gifts of civilisation) to Inanna, goddess of Uruk
BC
and of love and war, by Enki, god of wisdom and chief
god
of Eridu, may reect this shift in hegemony.[17]
Early Dynastic period (Early Bronze Age II-IV)
Early Dynastic I period: 29002800 BC
Early Dynastic II period: 28002600 BC
(Gilgamesh)

3.2 Uruk period

Early Dynastic IIIa period: 26002500 BC

Main article: Uruk period

Early Dynastic IIIb period: c. 25002334 BC

The archaeological transition from the Ubaid period to

23342218 BC the Uruk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted
pottery domestically produced on a slow wheel to a great
variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists
Gutian period: c. 22182047 BC (Early Bronze on fast wheels. The Uruk period is a continuation and an
Age IV)
outgrowth of Ubaid with pottery being the main visible
change.[18][19]
Ur III period: c. 20471940 BC
By the time of the Uruk period (c. 41002900 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the
canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the
rise of many large, stratied, temple-centered cities (with
populations of over 10,000 people) where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly
certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian
cities began to make use of slave labor captured from
the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured
slaves as workers in the earliest texts. Artifacts, and even
colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a
wide areafrom the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, to the
Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as Central
Iran.[20]
Akkadian Empire period:
(Sargon)

c.

The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian

traders and colonists (like that found at Tell Brak), had an
eect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved
their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote,
long-distance colonies by military force.[20]
The Samarra bowl, at the Pergamonmuseum, Berlin.
swastika in the center of the design is a reconstruction.[16]

The

Sumerian cities during the Uruk period were probably

theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king
(ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men

HISTORY

and women.[21] It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure.
There was little evidence of institutionalized violence or
professional soldiers during the Uruk period, and towns
were generally unwalled. During this period Uruk became the most urbanised city in the world, surpassing for
the rst time 50,000 inhabitants.
The ancient Sumerian king list includes the early dynasties of several prominent cities from this period. The rst
set of names on the list is of kings said to have reigned before a major ood occurred. These early names may be
ctional, and include some legendary and mythological
gures, such as Alulim and Dumizid.[21]
The end of the Uruk period coincided with the Piora
oscillation, a dry period from c. 3200 2900 BC that
marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period
from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene Fragment of Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures
climatic optimum.[22]
history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed
practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur, and
Larsa, and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma,
Main article: Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia)
arch-rival of Lagash. In addition, his realm extended to
parts of Elam and along the Persian Gulf. He seems to
[23]
The Dynastic period begins c. 2900 BC and includes have used terror as a matter of policy his Stele of
such legendary gures as Enmerkar and Gilgameshwho the Vultures has been found, showing violent treatment
are supposed to have reigned shortly before the historic of enemies. His empire collapsed shortly after his death.
record opens c. 2700 BC, when the now deciphered syl- Later, Lugal-Zage-Si, the priest-king of Umma, overlabic writing started to develop from the early pictograms. threw the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then
The center of Sumerian culture remained in southern conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an
Mesopotamia, even though rulers soon began expanding empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterinto neighboring areas, and neighboring Semitic groups ranean. He was the last ethnically Sumerian king before
adopted much of Sumerian culture for their own.
the arrival of the Semitic king, Sargon of Akkad.[13]

3.3

Early Dynastic Period

The earliest Dynastic king on the Sumerian king list

whose name is known from any other legendary source is
Etana, 13th king of the rst Dynasty of Kish. The earliest king authenticated through archaeological evidence is
Enmebaragesi of Kish (c. 26th century BC), whose name
is also mentioned in the Gilgamesh epicleading to the
suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might have been a historical king of Uruk. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows,
this period was associated with increased violence. Cities
became walled, and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared. (Gilgamesh
is credited with having built the walls of Uruk).

3.4 Akkadian Empire

Main article: Akkadian Empire
c. 22702083 BC (short chronology)

The Semitic Akkadian language is rst attested in proper

names of the kings of Kish c. 2800 BC,[23] preserved
in later king lists. There are texts written entirely in
Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BC. Use of Old
Akkadian was at its peak during the rule of Sargon the
Great (c. 22702215 BC), but even then most adminis3.3.1 1st Dynasty of Lagash
trative tablets continued to be written in Sumerian, the
language used by the scribes. Gelb and Westenholz difMain article: Lagash
ferentiate three stages of Old Akkadian: that of the preSargonic era, that of the Akkadian empire, and that of
the "Neo-Sumerian Renaissance that followed it. Akkac. 25002270 BC
dian and Sumerian coexisted as vernacular languages for
The dynasty of Lagash, though omitted from the king list, about one thousand years, but by around 1800 BC, Sumeis well attested through several important monuments and rian was becoming more of a literary language familiar
many archaeological nds.
mainly only to scholars and scribes. Thorkild Jacobsen
Although short-lived, one of the rst empires known to has argued that there is little break in historical continu-

3.7

Decline

ity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that

too much emphasis has been placed on the perception
of a Semitic vs. Sumerian conict.[24] However, it is
certain that Akkadian was also briey imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were previously conquered by
Sargon.

3.5

Gutian period

Main article: Gutian dynasty of Sumer

c. 20832050 BC (short chronology)
3.5.1

2nd Dynasty of Lagash

Great Ziggurat of Ur, near Nasiriyah, Iraq

Mesopotamia, was the last great Sumerian renaissance,

but already the region was becoming more Semitic than
Sumerian, with the rise in power of the Akkadian speaking Semites, and the inux of waves of Semitic Martu
(Amorites) who were to found several competing local powers including Isin, Larsa, and Babylon. The
last of these eventually came to dominate the south
of Mesopotamia as the Babylonian Empire, just as
the Assyrian Empire did in the north. The Sumerian
language continued as a sacerdotal language taught in
schools in Babylonia and Assyria, much as Latin was used
in the Medieval period, for as long as cuneiform was utilized

3.7 Decline

Gudea of Lagash

Main article: Lagash

c. 20932046 BC (short chronology)
Following the downfall of the Akkadian Empire at the
hands of Gutians, another native Sumerian ruler, Gudea
of Lagash, rose to local prominence and continued the
practices of the Sargonid kings claims to divinity. Like
the previous Lagash dynasty, Gudea and his descendants
also promoted artistic development and left a large number of archaeological artifacts.

3.6

Sumerian Renaissance

This period is generally taken to coincide with a major

shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward
the north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of
the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result
of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been
long recognized as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil,
eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. During
the Akkadian and Ur III phases, there was a shift from
the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley,
but this was insucient, and during the period from 2100
BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this
area declined by nearly three fths.[25] This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening
the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively
strengthening those where Akkadian was the major language. Henceforth Sumerian would remain only a literary
and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied
by Latin in medieval Europe.

Following an Elamite invasion and sack of Ur during

the rule of Ibbi-Sin (c. 1940 BC), Sumer came under Amorites rule (taken to introduce the Middle Bronze
c. 20471940 BC (short chronology)
Age). The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th
Later, the 3rd dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu and centuries are summarized as the "Dynasty of Isin" in the
Shulgi, whose power extended as far as northern Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia unMain article: Sumerian renaissance

5 CULTURE

der Hammurabi c. 1700 BC.

Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerians, from

the indigenous hunter-sherfolk traditions, associated
with the Arabian bifacial assemblages found on the Arabian littoral. The Sumerians themselves claimed kinship
4 Population
with the people of Dilmun, associated with Bahrein in the
Persian Gulf. Professor Juris Zarins believes the SumeUruk, one of Sumers largest cities, has been estimated to
rians may have been the people living in the Persian Gulf
[26]
have had a population at its height of 50-80,000; given
region before it ooded at the end of the last Ice Age.[29]
the other cities in Sumer, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumers population might be
0.8million-1.5million. The world population at this time
5 Culture
has been estimated at about 27m.[27]

5.1 Social and family life

The rst farmers from Samarra migrated to Sumer, and built

shrines and settlements at Eridu.

The Sumerians were a non-Semitic people, and spoke

a language isolate; a number of linguists believed they
could detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian,
names of some of Sumers major cities are not Sumerian, revealing inuences of earlier inhabitants.[28] However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted
cultural continuity from the time of the Early Ubaid period (5300 4700 BC C-14) settlements in southern
Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here
farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by
silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
It is speculated by some archaeologists that Sumerian
speakers were farmers who moved down from the north,
after perfecting irrigation agriculture there [note there is
no consensus among scholars on the origins of the Sumerians]. The Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia has
been connected via Choga Mami Transitional ware to the
pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700 4900
BC C-14) in the north, who were the rst to practice a
primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle
Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most
clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa,
excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware.
According to this view, farming peoples spread down
into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed
a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to
survive and prosper in a dicult environment.

A reconstruction in the British Museum of headgear and necklaces worn by the women in some Sumerian graves

In the early Sumerian period (i.e. Uruk), the primitive

pictograms suggest[30] that
"Pottery was very plentiful, and the forms of the
vases, bowls and dishes were manifold; there were
special jars for honey, butter, oil and wine, which
was probably made from dates, and one form of
vase had a spout protruding from its side. Some of

5.2

Language and writing

the vases had pointed feet, and stood on stands with

crossed legs; others were at-bottomed, and were set
on square or rectangular frames of wood. The oiljars and probably others also were sealed with
clay, precisely as in early Egypt. Vases and dishes of
stone were made in imitation of those of clay, and
baskets were woven of reeds or formed of leather.
A feathered head-dress was worn on the head.
Beds, stools and chairs were used, with carved legs
resembling those of an ox. There were re-places
and re-altars, and apparently chimneys also.
Knives, drills, wedges and an instrument which
looks like a saw were all known, while spears, bows,
arrows and daggers (but not swords) were employed
in war.
Tablets were used for writing purposes, and copper,
gold and silver were worked by the smith. Daggers
with metal blades and wooden handles were worn,
and copper was hammered into plates, while necklaces or collars were made of gold.
Time was reckoned in lunar months.
Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer, 31003000

There is considerable evidence that the Sumerians loved BC

music, which seems to have been an important part of
religious and civic life in Sumer. Lyres were popular in
Sumer, among the best-known examples being the Lyres
of Ur.
Inscriptions describing the reforms of king Urukagina of
Lagash (c. 2300 BC) say that he abolished the former
custom of polyandry in his country, prescribing that a
woman who took multiple husbands be stoned with rocks
upon which her crime had been written.[31]
Though women were protected by late Sumerian law and
were able to achieve a higher status in Sumer than in
other contemporary civilizations, the culture was maledominated. The Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest such
codication yet discovered, dating to the Ur-III Sumerian Renaissance, reveals a glimpse at societal structure
in late Sumerian law. Beneath the lu-gal (great man or
king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The "lu" or free person, and the slave (male,
arad; female geme). The son of a lu was called a dumunita until he married. A woman (munus) went from being
a daughter (dumu-mi), to a wife (dam), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (numasu) and she could then
remarry.

5.2

Language and writing

Main articles: Sumerian language and Cuneiform

The most important archaeological discoveries in Sumer
are a large number of tablets written in cuneiform. Sumerian writing, while proven to be not the oldest example of
writing on earth, is considered to be a great milestone in

Sumer text at stone found in Ukrainian Carpathian and other

artifacts

the development of mans ability to not only create historical records but also in creating pieces of literature both in
the form of poetic epics and stories as well as prayers and
laws. Although pictures that is, hieroglyphs were
rst used, symbols were later made to represent syllables.
Triangular or wedge-shaped reeds were used to write on
moist clay. A large body of hundreds of thousands of
texts in the Sumerian language have survived, such as
personal or business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws,
hymns, prayers, stories, daily records, and even libraries
full of clay tablets. Monumental inscriptions and texts
on dierent objects like statues or bricks are also very
common. Many texts survive in multiple copies because
they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes-in-training.
Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and
law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become dominant.

5 CULTURE

The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a

language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no
known language family; Akkadian, by contrast, belongs
to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. There
have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian to
other language groups. It is an agglutinative language; in
other words, morphemes (units of meaning) are added
together to create words, unlike analytic languages where
morphemes are purely added together to create sentences.
Understanding Sumerian texts today can be problematic
even for experts. Most dicult are the earliest texts,
which in many cases do not give the full grammatical
structure of the language.
During the 3rd millennium BC a cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which
included widespread bilingualism.[12] The inuences between Sumerian on Akkadian are evident in all areas including lexical borrowing on a massive scale--and syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.[12]
This mutual inuence has prompted scholars to refer to
Sumerian and Akkadian of the 3rd millennium BC as a
Sprachbund.[12]
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd Tell Asmar votive sculpture 2750-2600 BC.
millennium BC,[32] but Sumerian continued to be used as
a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientic language in
Ki, means earth.
Babylonia and Assyria until the 1st century CE.[33]

5.3

Religion

Main article: Sumerian religion

At an early stage following the dawn of recorded history, Nippur in central Mesopotamia replaced Eridu in
the south as the primary temple city, whose priests also
conferred the status of political hegemony on the other
city-states. Nippur retained this status throughout the rst
Sumerian period, until Sargon of Akkad is said to have
transferred it to Babylon.
5.3.1

Deities

Sumerians believed in an anthropomorphic polytheism,

or the belief in many gods in human form. There was no
common set of gods; each city-state had its own patrons,
temples, and priest-kings, however they were not exclusive. The gods of one city were often acknowledged elsewhere. Sumerian speakers were among the earliest people to record their beliefs in writing, and were a major inspiration in later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and
astrology.

Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki

was the god of benecence, ruler of the freshwater
depths beneath the earth, a healer and friend to humanity who in Sumerian myth was thought to have
given humans the arts and sciences, the industries
and manners of civilization; the rst law-book was
considered his creation,
Enlil, lord of the ghost-land, in Nippur. He gave
mankind the spells and incantations that the spirits
of good or evil must obey,
Inanna, the deication of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple
(shared with An) at Uruk.
The sun-god Utu at Larsa in the south and Sippar in
the north,
The moon god Sin at Ur.

These deities formed a core pantheon; there were additionally hundreds of minor ones. Sumerian gods could
thus have associations with dierent cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with those
cities political power. The gods were said to have created
The Sumerians worshiped:
human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them.
The temples organized the mass labour projects needed
An as the full-time god equivalent to heaven; indeed, for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the
the word an in Sumerian means sky and his consort temple, though they could avoid it by a payment of silver.

5.4

Agriculture and hunting

9
5.3.4 Funerary practices
It was believed that when people died, they would be conned to a gloomy world of Ereshkigal, whose realm was
guarded by gateways with various monsters designed to
prevent people entering or leaving. The dead were buried
outside the city walls in graveyards where a small mound
covered the corpse, along with oerings to monsters and a
small amount of food. Human sacrice was found in the
death pits at the Ur royal cemetery where Queen Puabi
was accompanied in death by her servants. It is also
said that the Sumerians invented the rst oboe-like instrument, and used them at royal funerals.

Sumero-early Akkadian pantheon

5.3.2

5.4 Agriculture and hunting

Cosmology

The Sumerians adopted an agricultural lifestyle perhaps

as early as c. 5000 BC 4500 BC. The region demonSumerians believed that the universe consisted of a at strated a number of core agricultural techniques, includdisk enclosed by a dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved ing organized irrigation, large-scale intensive cultivation
a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in of land, mono-cropping involving the use of plough agria wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).[34]
culture, and the use of an agricultural specialized labour
force under bureaucratic control. The necessity to manThe universe was divided into four quarters.
age temple accounts with this organization led to the development of writing (c. 3500 BC).

To the north were the hill-dwelling Subartu

who were periodically raided for slaves, timber, and raw materials.
To the west were the tent-dwelling Martu,
Semitic people living as pastoral nomads tending herds of sheep and goats.
To the south was the land of Dilmun, a trading
state associated with the land of the dead and
the place of creation.
To the east were the Elamites, a rival people From the royal tombs of Ur, made of lapis lazuli and shell, shows
peacetime
with whom the Sumerians were frequently at
war.
In the early Sumerian Uruk period, the primitive pictograms suggest that sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs were
Their known world extended from The Upper Sea or domesticated. They used oxen as their primary beasts of
Mediterranean coastline, to The Lower Sea, the Persian burden and donkeys or equids as their primary transport
Gulf and the land of Meluhha (probably the Indus Val- animal and woollen clothing as well as rugs were made
ley) and Magan (Oman), famed for its copper ores.
from the wool or hair of the animals. ... By the side of
the house was an enclosed garden planted with trees and
other plants; wheat and probably other cereals were sown
5.3.3 Temples and temple organisation
in the elds, and the shaduf was already employed for the
Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) each had an individual purpose[30]of irrigation. Plants were also grown in pots or
name and consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond vases.
for purication.[35] The temple itself had a central nave
with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be
rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium
and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrices.
Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the
temples. After a time the Sumerians began to place the
temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built
as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the Ziggurat
style.[36]

The Sumerians were one of the rst known beer drinking

societies. Cereals were plentiful and were the key ingredient in their early brew. They brewed multiple kinds of
beer consisting of wheat, barley, and mixed grain beers.
Beer brewing was very important to the Sumerians. It
was referenced in the Epic of Gilgamesh when Enkidu
was introduced to the food and beer of Gilgameshs people: Drink the beer, as is the custom of the land... He
drank the beer-seven jugs! and became expansive and

10

5 CULTURE
Sumerians harvested during the spring in three-person
teams consisting of a reaper, a binder, and a sheaf
handler.[41] The farmers would use threshing wagons,
driven by oxen, to separate the cereal heads from the
stalks and then use threshing sleds to disengage the grain.
They then winnowed the grain/cha mixture.

5.5 Architecture
Main articles:
Mudhif

An account of barley rations issued monthly to adults and children written in cuneiform on clay tablet, written in year 4 of King
Urukagina, circa 2350 BC

sang with joy!"[37]

The Sumerians practiced similar irrigation techniques as
those used in Egypt.[38] American anthropologist Robert
McCormick Adams says that irrigation development was
associated with urbanization,[39] and that 89% of the population lived in the cities.
They grew barley, chickpeas, lentils, wheat, dates, onions,
garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. Sumerians caught
many sh and hunted fowl and gazelle.[40]
Sumerian agriculture depended heavily on irrigation. The
irrigation was accomplished by the use of shaduf, canals,
channels, dykes, weirs, and reservoirs. The frequent violent oods of the Tigris, and less so, of the Euphrates,
meant that canals required frequent repair and continual
removal of silt, and survey markers and boundary stones
needed to be continually replaced. The government required individuals to work on the canals in a corvee, although the rich were able to exempt themselves.
As is known from the "Sumerian Farmers Almanac", after the ood season and after the Spring Equinox and
the Akitu or New Year Festival, using the canals, farmers
would ood their elds and then drain the water. Next
they made oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. They
then dragged the elds with pickaxes. After drying, they
plowed, harrowed, and raked the ground three times, and
pulverized it with a mattock, before planting seed. Unfortunately the high evaporation rate resulted in a gradual
increase in the salinity of the elds. By the Ur III period,
farmers had switched from wheat to the more salt-tolerant
barley as their principal crop.

Sumerian architecture, Ziggurat and

The Tigris-Euphrates plain lacked minerals and trees.

Sumerian structures were made of plano-convex
mudbrick, not xed with mortar or cement. Mud-brick
buildings eventually deteriorate, so they were periodically destroyed, leveled, and rebuilt on the same
spot. This constant rebuilding gradually raised the level
of cities, which thus came to be elevated above the
surrounding plain. The resultant hills, known as tells, are
found throughout the ancient Near East.
According to Archibald Sayce, the primitive pictograms
of the early Sumerian (i.e. Uruk) era suggest that Stone
was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals.
Brick was the ordinary building material, and with it
cities, forts, temples and houses were constructed. The
city was provided with towers and stood on an articial
platform; the house also had a tower-like appearance. It
was provided with a door which turned on a hinge, and
could be opened with a sort of key; the city gate was
on a larger scale, and seems to have been double. The
foundation stones or rather bricks of a house were
consecrated by certain objects that were deposited under
them.[30]
The most impressive and famous of Sumerian buildings
are the ziggurats, large layered platforms which supported
temples. Sumerian cylinder seals also depict houses built
from reeds not unlike those built by the Marsh Arabs of
Southern Iraq until as recently as 400 CE. The Sumerians
also developed the arch, which enabled them to develop
a strong type of dome. They built this by constructing
and linking several arches. Sumerian temples and palaces
made use of more advanced materials and techniques,
such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and clay nails.

5.6 Mathematics
Main article: Babylonian mathematics
The Sumerians developed a complex system of metrology
c. 4000 BC. This metrology advanced resulting in the
creation of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. From c.
2600 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication
tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the

5.7

Economy and trade

11

Babylonian numerals also date back to this period.[42]

The period c. 2700 2300 BC saw the rst appearance
of the abacus, and a table of successive columns which
delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their
sexagesimal number system.[43] The Sumerians were the Early chariots on the Standard of Ur, c. 2600 BC.
rst to use a place value numeral system. There is also
anecdotal evidence the Sumerians may have used a type
of slide rule in astronomical calculations. They were the
rst to nd the area of a triangle and the volume of a
cube.[44]

5.7

Economy and trade

Battle formations on a fragment of the Stele of the Vultures

Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in Shuruppak, Sumerian tablet, circa 2600 BC

Discoveries of obsidian from far-away locations in

Anatolia and lapis lazuli from Badakhshan in northeastern
Afghanistan, beads from Dilmun (modern Bahrain), and
several seals inscribed with the Indus Valley script suggest a remarkably wide-ranging network of ancient trade
centered around the Persian Gulf.
The Epic of Gilgamesh refers to trade with far lands for
goods such as wood that were scarce in Mesopotamia. In
particular, cedar from Lebanon was prized. The nding
of resin in the tomb of Queen Puabi at Ur, indicates it
was traded from as far away as Mozambique.
The Sumerians used slaves, although they were not a
major part of the economy. Slave women worked as
weavers, pressers, millers, and porters.
Sumerian potters decorated pots with cedar oil paints.
The potters used a bow drill to produce the re needed
for baking the pottery. Sumerian masons and jewelers Sumerian Lancer
knew and made use of alabaster (calcite), ivory, iron,
gold, silver, carnelian, and lapis lazuli.[45]

12

5.8

8 NOTES

Military

The almost constant wars among the Sumerian city-states

for 2000 years helped to develop the military technology
and techniques of Sumer to a high level. The rst war
recorded in any detail was between Lagash and Umma
in c. 2525 BC on a stele called the Stele of the Vultures. It shows the king of Lagash leading a Sumerian
army consisting mostly of infantry. The infantrymen carried spears, wore copper helmets and carried leather or
wicker shields. The spearmen are shown arranged in what
resembles the phalanx formation, which requires training
and discipline; this implies that the Sumerians may have
made use of professional soldiers.
The Sumerian military used carts harnessed to onagers.
These early chariots functioned less eectively in combat than did later designs, and some have suggested that
these chariots served primarily as transports, though the
crew carried battle-axes and lances. The Sumerian chariot comprised a four or two-wheeled device manned by a
crew of two and harnessed to four onagers. The cart was
composed of a woven basket and the wheels had a solid
three-piece design.
Sumerian cities were surrounded by defensive walls. The
Sumerians engaged in siege warfare between their cities,
but the mudbrick walls were able to deter some foes.

older inscriptions such as the Jiahu symbols and Tartaria

tablets is controversial). The Sumerians were among the
rst astronomers, mapping the stars into sets of constellations, many of which survived in the zodiac and were
also recognized by the ancient Greeks.[46] They were also
aware of the ve planets that are easily visible to the naked
eye.[47]
They invented and developed arithmetic by using several
dierent number systems including a mixed radix system
with an alternating base 10 and base 6. This sexagesimal
system became the standard number system in Sumer
and Babylonia. They may have invented military formations and introduced the basic divisions between infantry,
cavalry, and archers. They developed the rst known
codied legal and administrative systems, complete with
courts, jails, and government records. The rst true citystates arose in Sumer, roughly contemporaneously with
similar entities in what are now Syria and Lebanon. Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of
writing expanded beyond debt/payment certicates and
inventory lists to be applied for the rst time, about 2600
BC, to messages and mail delivery, history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records, and other pursuits. Conjointly with the spread of writing, the rst formal schools
were established, usually under the auspices of a citystates primary temple.

Finally, the Sumerians ushered in domestication with

intensive agriculture and irrigation. Emmer wheat,
5.9 Technology
barley, sheep (starting as mouon), and cattle (starting
as aurochs) were foremost among the species cultivated
Examples of Sumerian technology include: the wheel, and raised for the rst time on a grand scale.
cuneiform, arithmetic and geometry, irrigation systems,
Sumerian boats, lunisolar calendar, bronze, leather, saws,
chisels, hammers, braces, bits, nails, pins, rings, hoes,
axes, knives, lancepoints, arrowheads, swords, glue, 7 See also
daggers, waterskins, bags, harnesses, armor, quivers, war
History of Iraq
chariots, scabbards, boots, sandals, harpoons and beer.
The Sumerians had three main types of boats:
History of writing numbers
clinker-built sailboats stitched together with hair,
featuring bitumen waterproong
skin boats constructed from animal skins and reeds
wooden-oared ships, sometimes pulled upstream by
people and animals walking along the nearby banks

Legacy

Evidence of wheeled vehicles appeared in the mid 4th

millennium BC, near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia,
the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe. The wheel initially took the form of the potters
wheel. The new concept quickly led to wheeled vehicles
and mill wheels. The Sumerians cuneiform writing system is the oldest (or second oldest after the Egyptian hieroglyphs) which has been deciphered (the status of even

Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement

Toynbees law of challenge and response

8 Notes
[1] The name is from Akkadian umeru; Sumerian
kien-ir15 , approximately land of the civilized kings or
native land. ir15 means native, local, in some contexts is noble"(ir NATIVE (7x: Old Babylonian) from
The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary). Literally, land
of the native (local, noble) lords. Stiebing (1994) has
Land of the Lords of Brightness (William Stiebing, Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture). Postgate (1994)
takes en as substituting eme language, translating land
of the Sumerian heart (John Nicholas Postgate (1994).
Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of
History. Routledge (UK).. Postgate believes it likely that

13

eme, 'tongue', became en, 'lord', through consonantal assimilation.)

[17] Wolkstein, Dianna and Kramer, Samuel Noah Innana:

Queen of Heaven and Earth.

References

[18] Elizabeth F. Henrickson, Ingolf Thuesen, I. Thuesen

(1989). Upon this Foundation: The N baid Reconsidered
: Proceedings from the U baid Symposium, Elsinore, May
30th-June 1st 1988. p. 353.

[1] Ancient Mesopotamia. Teaching materials. Oriental

Institute in collaboration with Chicago Web Docent and
eCUIP, The Digital Library. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
[2] The Ubaid Period (55004000 B.C.)" In Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History. Department of Ancient Near
Eastern Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York (October 2003)
[3] Ubaid Culture, The British Museum
[4] Beyond the Ubaid, (Carter, Rober A. and Graham,
Philip, eds.), University of Durham, April 2006
[5] Sumer (ancient region, Iraq)". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Britannica.com. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
[6] Kleniewski, Nancy; Thomas, Alexander R (2010-03-26).
Cities, Change, and Conict: A Political Economy of Urban Life. ISBN 978-0-495-81222-7.
[7] Maisels, Charles Keith (1993). The Near East: Archaeology in the Cradle of Civilization"". ISBN 978-0-41504742-5.
[8] Maisels, Charles Keith (2001). Early Civilizations of the
Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China. ISBN 978-0-41510976-5.
[9] Shaw, Ian; Jameson, Robert (2002). A dictionary of archaeology. ISBN 978-0-631-23583-5.
[10] Margarethe Uepermann (2007), Structuring the Late
Stone Age of Southeastern Arabia (Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy
Volume 3, Issue 2, pages 65109)
[11] Hamblin, Dora Jane (May 1987). Has the Garden of
Eden been located at last?" (PDF). Smithsonian Magazine
18 (2). Retrieved 8 January 2014.

[19] Jean-Jacques Glassner (2003).

The Invention of
Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer. p. 31.
[20] Algaze, Guillermo (2005) The Uruk World System: The
Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization, (Second Edition, University of Chicago Press)
[21] Jacobsen, Thorkild (Ed) (1939),"The Sumerian King
List (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; Assyriological Studies, No. 11., 1939)
[22] Lamb, Hubert H. (1995). Climate, History, and the Modern World. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-12735-1
[23] Roux, Georges (March 1, 1993). Ancient Iraq. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 978-0140125238.
[24] Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on
Mesopotamian History and Culture by T. Jacobsen
[25] Thompson, William R.; Hay, ID (2004). Complexity,
Diminishing Marginal Returns and Serial Mesopotamian
Fragmentation (PDF). Journal of World Systems Research 10 (3): 612652. doi:10.1007/s00268-004-7605z. PMID 15517490.
[26] Harmansah, mr, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia:
Ceremonial centers, urbanization and state formation in
Southern Mesopotamia, 2007, p.699
[27] Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, 1978, Atlas of World
Population History, Facts on File, New York, ISBN 07139-1031-3.
[28] Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat (30 September 1998). Daily life
in ancient Mesopotamia. Greenwood Publishing Group.
p. 13. ISBN 978-0-313-29497-6. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
[29] http://www.ldolphin.org/eden/

[12] Deutscher, Guy (2007). Syntactic Change in Akkadian:

The Evolution of Sentential Complementation. Oxford
University Press US. pp. 2021. ISBN 978-0-19953222-3.

[30] Sayce, Rev. A. H. (1908). The Archaeology of

the Cuneiform Inscriptions (2nd revised ed.). London,
Brighton, New York: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge. pp. 98100.

[13] Leick, Gwendolyn (2003), Mesopotamia, the Invention

of the City (Penguin)

[31] Gender and the Journal: Diaries and Academic Discourse

p. 62 by Cinthia Gannett, 1992

[14] W. Hallo, W. Simpson (1971). The Ancient Near East.

New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. p. 28.

[32] Woods C. 2006 Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the

Death of Sumerian. In S.L. Sanders (ed) Margins of
Writing, Origins of Culture: 91-120 Chicago

[15] K. van der Toorn, P. W. van der Horst (Jan 1990). Nimrod before and after the Bible. The Harvard Theological
Review 83 (1): 129. doi:10.1017/S0017816000005502.
[16] Stanley A. Freed, Research Pitfalls as a Result of the
Restoration of Museum Specimens, Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences, Volume 376, The Research
Potential of Anthropological Museum Collections pages
229245, December 1981.

[33] Campbell, Lyle; Mauricio J. Mixco (2007). A glossary of

historical linguistics. Edinburgh University Press. p. 196.
ISBN 978-0-7486-2379-2.
[34] Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992). Gods, Demons,
and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated
Dictionary. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292707948.

14

11

[35] Leick, Gwendolyn (2003), Mesopotamia: The Invention

of the City' (Penguin)
[36] Crawford, Harriet (1993), Sumer and the Sumerians
(Cambridge University Press, (New York 1993)), ISBN
0-521-38850-3.
[37] Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol.
Gotham Books. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-592-40303-5.
[38] Mackenzie, Donald Alexander (1927). Footprints of Early
Man. Blackie & Son Limited.
[39] Adams, R. McC. (1981). Heartland of Cities. University
of Chicago Press.
[40] Tannahill, Reay (1968). The ne art of food. Folio Society.
[41] By the sweat of thy brow: Work in the Western world,
Melvin Kranzberg, Joseph Gies, Putnam, 1975
[42] Duncan J. Melville (2003). Third Millennium Chronology, Third Millennium Mathematics. St. Lawrence University.
[43] Ifrah 2001:11
[44] Anderson, Marlow; Wilson, Robin J. (October 14, 2004).
Sherlock Holmes in Babylon: and other tales of mathematical history. Google Books. ISBN 9780883855461. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
[45] Diplomacy by design: Luxury arts and an international
style in the ancient Near East, 1400-1200 BC, Marian
H. Feldman, University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 120121
[46] Gary Thompson. History of Constellation and Star
Names. Members.optusnet.com.au. Retrieved 2012-0329.
[47] Sumerian Questions and Answers. Sumerian.org. Retrieved 2012-03-29.

10

EXTERNAL LINKS

Leick, Gwendolyn.
2002.
Mesopotamia: Invention of the
City.
London and New York:
Penguin.
Lloyd, Seton. 1978. The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old
Stone Age to the Persian Conquest.
London: Thames and Hudson.
Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea. 1998.
Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia.
London and Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press.
Kramer, Samuel Noah (1963). The
Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character. University
of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-22645238-7.
Kramer, Samuel Noah. Sumerian
Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and
Literary Achievement in the Third
Millennium BC.
Roux, Georges. 1992. Ancient
Iraq, 560 pages. London: Penguin
(earlier printings may have dierent pagination: 1966, 480 pages,
Pelican; 1964, 431 pages, London:
Allen and Urwin).
Schomp, Virginia.
Ancient
Mesopotamia:
The Sumerians,
Babylonians, And Assyrians.
Sumer: Cities of Eden (Timelife
Lost Civilizations).
Alexandria,
VA: Time-Life Books, 1993 (hardcover, ISBN 0-8094-9887-1).
Woolley, C. Leonard. 1929. The
Sumerians. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.

Further reading
Ascalone, Enrico.
2007.
Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians (Dictionaries
of Civilizations; 1).
Berkeley:
University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-25266-7 (paperback).
Bottro, Jean, Andr Finet,
Bertrand Lafont, and George
Roux. 2001. Everyday Life in
Ancient Mesopotamia. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Crawford, Harriet E. W. 2004.
Sumer and the Sumerians. Cambridge:
Cambridge University
Press.

11 External links
Ancient Sumer History --- The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium
Iraqs Ancient Past Penn Museum
The Sumerians
Geography
Map of The Fertile Crescent
The History Files: Ancient Mesopotamia
Language

15
Sumerian Language Page, perhaps the oldest Sumerian website on the web (it dates back to 1996),
features compiled lexicon, detailed FAQ, extensive
links, and so on.
ETCSL: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian
Literature has complete translations of more than
400 Sumerian literary texts.
PSD: The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, while
still in its initial stages, can be searched on-line, from
August 2004.
CDLI: Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative a large
corpus of Sumerian texts in transliteration, largely
from the Early Dynastic and Ur III periods, accessible with images.
Coordinates: 3200N 4530E / 32.0N 45.5E

16

12

12
12.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

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Bota47, Ribbentrop, Rob117, User27091, Phgao, Terry Longbaugh, Kuiper, SMcCandlish, GraemeL, Barbatus, LeonardoRob0t, Fram,
Peter, Allens, Mmcannis, Greatal386, DVD R W, Attilios, Amalthea, Tadorne, SmackBot, FocalPoint, Unschool, Enlil Ninlil, Ex0pos, R.E.
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SIDIOUS 2, Nederlandse Leeuw, Kraftwrk5, Lockstone, RjwilmsiBot, Classical Esther, TrueCommunist, Thebest210, Aircorn, Skamecrazy123, Kamran the Great, Enauspeaker, Karim awwad, DASHBot, Assyrio, EmausBot, WikitanvirBot, Look2See1, Ajraddatz, Sinharib99, RlyechDweller, Anaskhankhurai, Tommy2010, Parkskier151, Poop552, Killerplayer1495, Wikipelli,
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Anonymous: 1628

12.2

Images

File:Babylonlion.JPG Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Babylonlion.JPG License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Bill_of_sale_Louvre_AO3765.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Bill_of_sale_Louvre_AO3765.
jpg License: CC BY 2.5 Contributors: Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009) Original artist: ?
File:Cities_of_Sumer_(en).svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Cities_of_Sumer_%28en%29.svg License: CC BY 3.0 Contributors:
Ciudades_de_Sumeria.svg Original artist: Ciudades_de_Sumeria.svg: Crates
File:Commons-logo.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Original
artist: ?
File:Cylinder_seal_lions_Louvre_MNB1167_n2.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Cylinder_seal_
lions_Louvre_MNB1167_n2.jpg License: CC BY 3.0 Contributors: Marie-Lan Nguyen (2010) Original artist: ?
File:Early_writing_tablet_recording_the_allocation_of_beer.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/
Early_writing_tablet_recording_the_allocation_of_beer.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: BabelStone
File:Flag_of_Iraq.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Flag_of_Iraq.svg License: Public domain Contributors:
This image is based on the CIA Factbook, and the website of Oce of the President of Iraq, vectorized by User:Militaryace Original artist:
Unknown, published by Iraqi governemt, vectorized by User:Militaryace based on the work of User:Hoshie
File:Genealogy_of_Sumero-Akkadian_Gods.jpg Source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Genealogy_of_
Sumero-Akkadian_Gods.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Drawn using powerpoint tools and saved as a jpeg
Previously published: Not published elsewhere Original artist: John D. Croft
File:Head_Gudea_Louvre_AO13.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Head_Gudea_Louvre_AO13.jpg
License: Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Marie-Lan Nguyen
File:Issue_of_barley_rations.JPG Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Issue_of_barley_rations.JPG License:
Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Gavin.collins
File:Lancero_Sumerio.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Lancero_Sumerio.png License: CC BY-SA
4.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Poniol
File:Mesopotamia_male_worshiper_2750-2600_B.C.jpg
Source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/
Mesopotamia_male_worshiper_2750-2600_B.C.jpg License: CC BY-SA 2.0 Contributors: Flickr Original artist: Rosemaniakos
from Bejing (hometown)
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Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007
File:Reconstructed_sumerian_headgear_necklaces_british_museum.JPG
Source:
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commons/5/57/Reconstructed_sumerian_headgear_necklaces_british_museum.JPG License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: JMiall (Own
work) Original artist: ?
File:Samarra_bowl.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Samarra_bowl.jpg License: GFDL Contributors:
own photograph Original artist: Dbachmann
File:Standard_of_Ur_chariots.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Standard_of_Ur_chariots.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

18

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TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

File:Stele_of_Vultures_detail_01-transparent.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Stele_of_Vultures_

detail_01-transparent.png License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors:
Eric Gaba (User:Sting), July 2005.
Original artist: Unknown
File:Stele_of_Vultures_detail_02.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Stele_of_Vultures_detail_02.jpg
License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: Eric Gaba (User:Sting), July 2005. Original artist: Unknown
File:Sumer1.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Sumer1.jpg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: :You asked about my map of Sumer. Yes, it is one I prepared myself from multiple sources, including a base map from
Bartholemews World Atlas, and the Times ATlas of the World, supplimented from various historical atlases. John D. Croft 17:48,
18 December 2006 (UTC) Original artist: This map has been uploaded by Electionworld from en.wikipedia.org to enable the <a
href='//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-logo.svg' class='image'><img alt='Wikimedia-logo.svg' src='//upload.wikimedia.
org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Wikimedia-logo.svg/15px-Wikimedia-logo.svg.png' width='15' height='15' srcset='//upload.
wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Wikimedia-logo.svg/23px-Wikimedia-logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/
wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Wikimedia-logo.svg/30px-Wikimedia-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1024' data-le-height='1024'
/></a>Wikimedia Atlas of the World <a href='//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gnome-globe.svg' class='image'><img alt='Gnomeglobe.svg' src='//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Gnome-globe.svg/15px-Gnome-globe.svg.png' width='15'
height='15'
srcset='//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Gnome-globe.svg/23px-Gnome-globe.svg.png
1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Gnome-globe.svg/30px-Gnome-globe.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='48' data-leheight='48' /></a>. Original uploader to en.wikipedia.org was John D. Croft, known as John D. Croft at en.wikipedia.org. Electionworld
is not the creator of this map. Licensing information is below.
File:Sumer_text_at_stone_in_Ukrainian_Carpathian.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Sumer_
text_at_stone_in_Ukrainian_Carpathian.jpg License: CC BY-SA 4.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: I. Wus
File:Ur_mosaic.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Ur_mosaic.jpg License: CC0 Contributors: Alma
E.."Readers Digest: Mysteries of the Bible: The Enduring Question of the Scriptures.Pleasantville, New York/Montreal.The Readers
Digest Association, Inc.1988.ISBN: 0-89577-293-0 Original artist: Alma E. Guinness
File:Ziggurat_of_ur.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Ziggurat_of_ur.jpg License: Public domain
Contributors: Own work, based on a 1939 drawing by Leonard Woolley, Ur Excavations, Volume V. The Ziggurat and its Surroundings,
Figure 1.4 [1][2] Original artist: user:wikiwikiyarou

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