Mesopotamia – Sumer and the First City-States

The Fertile Crescent Gives Rise to City-States

Sep 21, 2009

Hunters/gatherers became farmers, and farmers became lawmakers and artisans, who transformed scattered villages into civilized cities.

The previous article discussed the birth of West Asian civilization by describing how the lush soils of the Fertile Crescent allowed nomadic hunters and gatherers to become farmers, thus allowing them to settle in one location. As the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers grew more prosperous and more populous, it would only be a matter of time before the scattered farming villages evolved into cities, with the rise of cities would come writing, law, government, and scientific innovations.

The Discovery of Sumer

Sumer, a word from the ancient Akkadian language, encompassed the southern half of Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and was relatively unknown in modern history until the mid 19th century, when a French linguist named Jules Oppert coined the phrase after reading it on a tablet as, “King of Sumer and Akkad." Prior to that, the knowledge of the region was limited to the Old Testament, which referred to Assyria and Babylon, but this information only went back to around 1,000 B.C. – Mesopotamian civilization was already ancient by at least two millennia by that time.

If not for the hard work of a British soldier named Henry Rawlinson, who was instrumental in bringing the Akkadian language to the modern world, nobody would know about Sumer. The translation was made possible with the discovery of a inscription carved on a cliff in Iran commemorating Darius I, which was written in not only Akkadian, but in Old Persian, a language that was very well-known. Rawlinson meticulously transcribed the runes from the cliff, translated them, and published his work in 1851.

Pay-dirt came a bit later, when over 24,000 tablets were discovered in Iraq, all belonging to the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal. Thanks to Rawlinson’s hard work in cracking the Akkadian language, archeologists and historians now had a plethora of information about this ancient civilization. They were able to come to the conclusion that Sumer, as Jules Oppert called it, was actually a group of the world’s oldest cities. Subsequent excavations of the surrounding areas uncovered even more information – tablets, pottery, ruins, tools, and the remains of many other items shed even more light on this time period.

Eridu and Uruk

Sumer’s earliest culture was a group of people called Ubaid, and they lived in the first civilized town in Sumer, called Eridu, which occupied a space of about 100 acres and probably had a population numbering in the few thousands, not enough to call it a city. Little is known about Eridu, but from what was excavated in the early 20th century, it was obvious that they used clay to create their shelters; they built statues to various goddesses; they built temples, at least twelve being identified; and there was no concept of rank or status in society, as evidenced by the way their dead were buried. The Ubaid period lasted from 5900 B.C. to 4000 B.C.

The first real city of Sumer was called Uruk, 50 miles north of Eridu. Uruk is mentioned in the Old Testament as “Erech,” was home to the legendary hero Gilgamesh (to be discussed later), and boasted a large population within its walls. There is even more evidence of an advanced culture at Uruk - for it attracted carpenters, sculptors, merchants, priests, and various other craftsmen from all over the world, who marveled at the multi-roomed, mud-brick structures.

The two most impressive characteristics of Uruk were its walls, and the temples dedicated to the many gods in their pantheon. The next article will discuss the daily life of an average Sumerian, as well as some of the tools that he used.

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