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History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History

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Although I've been known to grumble at Kramer's dullness, the present book, far from being dull, ought to be of real interest to many. Professor Samuel Noah Kramer was the world's leading Sumerologist, but in this book he seems to have risen above the dry academic persona we find in some of his other books and allowed his love and enthusiasm for things Sumerian to show.

Basically the book sets out to explain and describe, using extensive quotations from Sumerian Literature, what Kramer took to be thirty-nine civilizational firsts of the Sumerians. Many new archaeological discoveries have been made since the 3rd revised edition of 'History Begins at Sumer' was published in 1981, and current thinking seems to be leaning towards the view that, far from beginning in Sumer, civilization first arose further East in India.

But whether it first began in Sumer or in India, since the Indus script hasn't yet been deciphered, and the Indians didn't write on imperishable clay tablets anyway, we have as yet no thirty-nine Vedic Indian firsts, and perhaps should give Kramer the benefit of the doubt and enjoy his splendid book.

After a brief Introduction, the thirty-nine firsts follow. Mutterings have been heard about the 'pop' overtones of the term 'firsts,' but it seems to me an interesting way of treating Sumer's history, and the book, in my opinion, is far more successful at capturing and holding one's attention than Kramer's later and more conventional study, 'The Sumerians.'

Most of the chapters are centered on a Sumerian text, some quite brief and others fairly long, which Kramer envelopes with his full and interesting commentary. Often we are given a line drawing of the actual cuneiform tablet from which the text was taken, and these have a special fascination all of their own. Besides the 28 line drawings, the book is further enriched with 34 halftones - sculptures, cuneiform tablets, stelae, artefacts, archaeological sites - which greatly add to the interest of the book.

Among the firsts covered are such things as: The First Schools, The First Case of Juvenile Delinquency, The First "War of Nerves," The First Bicameral Congress, First Historian, The First Case of Tax Reduction, The First Legal Precedent, The First Pharmacopoeia, The First Moral Ideals, The First Animal Fables, The First Literary Debates, The First Love Song, The First Library Catalogue, The First "Sick" Society, The First Long-Distance Champion, The First Sex Symbolism, Labor's First Victory, and so on.

Many of these and other chapters are memorable, and once having read them you'll never forget them. You'll never forget them because, in fact, they are about yourself. What I mean is that one of the more important things we learn from Kramer's fascinating book is that, whether we realize it or not, we are all, in a sense, Sumerians.

The patterns that were perhaps first laid down in Sumer - urbanization, monumental architecture, kingship, writing system, distinct social classes, laws, lawyers, lawcourts, taxes, formal education, libraries, a regular army, organized warfare, labor disputes, etc. - are still very much with us today. We usually refer to the whole package as 'Civilization,' without realizing how indebted to the Sumerians we all are. But Sumer, sadly, after a relatively brief efflorescence, crashed in ruins. Here are a few lines from Kramer's 'Sumerian History, Culture and Literature' describing that crash:

"In the course of centuries Sumer became a "sick society" ... it yearned for peace and was constantly at war; it professed such ideals as justice, equity and compassion, but abounded in injustice, inequality and oppression; materialistic and shortsighted, it unbalanced the ecology essential to its economy.... And so Sumer came to a cruel, tragic end" (in Diane Wolkstein and S. N. Kramer, 'Inanna - Queen of Heaven and Earth,' page 126).

Why, after achieving such brilliance, did Sumer crash in ruins? And Egypt? And Athens? And Rome? And why does this pattern seem to be repeating itself today in the West? Is civilization inherently unworkable? Or is there another answer? Personally, I think there is another answer. But you won't find it in the works of Professor Samuel Noah Kramer.

When this book was first published in 1956, it undoubtedly was one of the best books on the subject. Unfortunately, even though this is called the Third Revised Edition, it is not clear in what way this book has been updated. It contains the preface to the first edition, but no new preface or introduction is added for the third edition.

It does include a "Corrigenda and Addenda to the Second Edition" after the main body of texts, but the question is: Why weren't these addenda included in the text instead of put outside of the main text, and where are the addenda for the third edition? To make matters worse, the second edition addenda information uses page numbers that do not align with the third edition publication.

There is still a lot of valuable information in this book, but it is important for the buyer to be aware of what they are actually getting when they purchase it.

This book is essentially a summary of various cultural achievements of the Sumerians, listed as "39 firsts" in human history. It is not a chronological history of Sumer, so this book is more of a supplement to one's studies in ancient near east. The book covers little known aspects of Sumerian culture, like education ("1st Apple polishing"), sex ("1st Sexual Symbolism") and possibly even pets ("1st Animal Fables", "1st Aquarium"), as well as the facets that are well known--Gilgamesh, Utnaptishtim, Sargon, ect. The key theme that arises from this book is how civilized the ancients were--these were not clueless barbarians roaming the Mesopotamian plains, they were not idiots, but thoughtful people who tried to make sense out of their (oftentimes chaotic) lot in life. A good companion to the library of any ancient-history-ophile.

This book is a collection of essays written by Samuel Noah Kramer regarding various cultural "firsts" in Western history as discovered on Sumerian cuneiform tablets. Kramer's experience and prolific career as a Sumerologist lend credence to the observations and interpretations that he puts forth here. Essay topics range from anecdotal illustrations of the first recorded lullaby and the first written description of an aquarium to more profound subjects such as the first cosmology and the first heroic age.

I particularly enjoyed Kramer's comparative discussion of the three "Heroic Age" cultures (Greek, Indian, Germanic) and the suggestions that this raises regarding the origin of the first Heroic Age in Sumer. Also interesting are his interpretations of literary imagery in Sumerian poetry, as well as his treatment of the extensive parallels that exist between the Sumerian literary tradition and the Bible.

All in all, "History Begins at Sumer" provides a well-rounded perspective of Sumerian spirituality and culture. However, since this book is really a collection of independent, stand-alone essays, the reader may find it difficult at times to extract a unified impression of what the author was trying to express.

Along with Edward Chiera, Samuel Kramer is one of the most influential of early English-language Sumerologists, in part because of his extensive fieldwork, and in part because he published several popular accounts of his findings. Looking at this book I expected something like an account of early cultural and agricultural developments (earliest plow, barn, religious altar, etc) but that's not what this book contains.

Kramer is a philologist and concentrates single-mindedly in this book on deciphering and explicating the Sumerian clay tablet literature. The book is a readable general introduction to basic genres and tropes of Sumerian literature, and is satisfying enough if one seeks nothing else.

I cannot love this book as it evidences flaws that are admittedly common in the early writings of Biblical-Archaeologists. First, his primary concern and point of reference for interpreting texts is Biblical, e.g. the most salient feature of the great myth cycle of Inanna's descent into the underworld is its early depiction of a resurrection.

Second, Kramer is extremely logocentric and displays a pronounced indifference to non-textual forms of evidence including architecture, pottery, statuary, tool artifacts, et cetera. He does not seem to regard texts as existing in any kind of historical context, or at least does not regard such information as important.

Third, Kramer regards clay tablets as purely literary artifacts and does not consider their possible use or relationship to liturgy or initiation rites. That strikes me as extraordinarily odd ... surely in 1954 when the book was published it was known that the recitation of Enuma elish on New Year's Day was the great high holiday of Babylon? I do not know if we have evidence of similar ceremonies performed Sumer but it certainly warrants consideration, and would cast most of the extant Sumerian literature in a considerably different light.

Fourth, Kramer evidences a prejudice throughout in which the Semitic Babylonians are regarded as more intelligent and more insightful than the Sumerians, and the Hebrews likewise above the Babylonians. Perhaps it doesn't even need to be said, but it seems odd to me that a man would study this literature for decades and still only be capable of regarding it as crude proto-Biblical material instead of having its own virtues and values.

Still, many of these were the faults of the time and it was an easy and stimulating read. A bit basic for anyone with more than a token familiarity with the literature.

Kramer was one of the foremost scholars of Sumerian history a generation ago, and in this work for a popular audience he lets his obvious love of his subject shine through.

The format - a brief self-contained chapter devoted to each of the 39 "firsts" he ascribes to Sumerian culture - lends itself to browsing through topics of interest without having to wade through areas of lesser appeal. It's a pleasant and easy way to learn some basic aspects of an ancient and highly influential culture.

The weaknesses of the work for the modern reader are those inherent in its format and decades-old publication date. The scholarship is a bit dated, so some of Kramer's claims of "firsts" are not as secure as in his day. (Kramer makes clear in the text that he is describing the first known or first recorded instance of a given cultural innovation, a status that obviously is affected by future finds.) Also, he strains to make certain interesting finds fit into the "first" category - such as the "first recorded instance of juvenile delinquency" to describe an interesting Sumerian text describing a father's disappointment with his son's lackadaisacal approach to school.

All said, this is an easily-digested introduction to Sumer, useful as a first book on the subject for the casual reader, or as an interesting sidelight for those with greater interest in this ancient kingdom.

I bought this book to further clarify the origin of the stories (myths) of the Bible -- Genesis creation story, Noah and the flood, Moses and the Law, resurrection stories, etc. This book enlightens one on this and much more. Easy and entertaining read (though serious). Fascinating to learn about the most ancient known civilization, and how its mythologists and poets and stories (as recorded on tablets) have shaped subsequent civilizations and gave rise to ancient pagan religions and our own modern religions.

I had fun reading Samuel Noah Kramer's book "History Begins at Sumer". This isn't a typical history book. It doesn't go into any detail at all about the different city-states of Sumer, who ruled what lands, where Sumer was, or even mention any dates or events of any widespread significance, etc.

What this most unique book is is a collection of 39 essays on daily life taken almost exclusively from information recorded on 4,00 year old cuneiform tablets. There's an essay on a tablet, Kramer describes, where a father tries to convince his son to study hard and become a scribe, how a farmer should tend to his fields, Sumerian proverbs and wisdom, and Sumerian mythology stories. There's even an essay on sexuality. If you can imagine the Sumerians were a little less inhibited than we are about these matters! There are extensive quotations from these tablets, so you surely get the full flavor of the Sumerian experience right from the source.

What most people don't realize is that there are now perhaps tens of thousands of tablets with Sumerian language essays and documentations in existence that only in the mid 1800's became translatable. This opened up a vast world of insight into a civilization that was in many ways one of the first to use written language extensively yet had vanished beneath the sands of the Mesopotamian desert in 1500 BC. It also means that unlike civilizations and cultures that came before us, the Sumerian civilization in large part failed to gets its due credit.

Surprisingly, there aren't many scholars who can read these tablets and from what I understand thousands of them still sit undeciphered in the British Museum and many more lay buried and many more were recently illegally excavated, heading for antiquities auctions during the current turmoil in Iraq.

Kramer was probably one of the worlds foremost scholars on these tablets and he writes beautifully and effortlessly, like you're reading an article in the New Yorker literary magazine.

Lastly, although Kramer doesn't come right out and say it, I believe his passion to understand and write about the Sumerian culture is that he is probably Jewish and it appears that many of the Bible stories were taken from the Sumerians, including the flood, Eden, and a "rib" story, and Abraham was born in Ur. The Old Testament was complied somewhere between 1200 BC and 200 BC. The Sumerians wrote the same stories down perhaps over a millennium before that.

The best way to get to know a culture is by it's own people. Kramer, the world's leading sumerlogist, brings to life Sumerian times by introducing us to the remnants of cuneiform tablets produced by the Sumerians. Spanning from expressions & sayings, a pupil arriving late at school, book-lists, tax-cuts to the first laws, murder-case, cosmology myths and love-poems we get a close insight into the first city-state culture that invented writing in the first place. Kramer guides us through these works with a clear love and passion for the subject. Adding commentary to help you understand and to provide context. When necessary Kramer has gone to great lengths to bring to light the ideas of the Sumerians as for example in the chapter on philosophy. The book is well written and easy to follow. Of course parallels with the bible are commented on, and the world famous gilgamesh epos is also featured. I believe this is the best way to get to know a culture, up close and personal, so I really enjoyed this book and strongly recommend it to everyone interested in this subject.

Though professional or student archeologists interested or working in the field of ancient Mesopotamian studies may find much here to be dated, this, one-time, very infuential book is still well worth the read by the academic nonspecialist or member of the educated lay public. As such, I found the book to be a very useful resource when I recently edited my own work about the history of southern Iraq: "Wetlands of Mass Destruction: Ancient Presage for Contemporary Ecocide in Southern Iraq"