_The Sumerians_ by Samuel Noah Kramer is a very readable overview of the ancient Sumerians, those ancient, non-Semitic peoples who produced the world's "first high civilization" and were the world's first urban culture. This ancient culture spanned the fifth to the second millennium BC though its scientific and literary achievements would have lasting influence throughout the ancient world and down through today.
The first chapter reviewed the history of the modern study of the Sumerians. As late as the 19th century the Sumerian culture was completely unknown. When scholars and archaeologists began excavating in Mesopotamia they were looking for Assyrians, not Sumerians. The Assyrians were discussed in Greek and Hebrew sources, but of the Sumerians, there was "no recognizable trace of the land, or its people and language, in the entire available Biblical, classical, and postclassical literature" (though some experts now think that Sumer is mentioned in the Bible with a variant name). Sumer had "been erased from the mind and memory of man for more than two thousand years."
This chapter revealed the history of the decipherment of Sumerian writing (the name cuneiform dates from 1700 when Thomas Hyde coined the word to described Old Persian writing that he believed was decoration, not actual speech) and the naming of these people (Sumerian was proposed as a term in 1869 by Jules Oppert, who used the name from the title "King of Sumer and Akkad" found in some royal inscriptions, believing that Sumer referred to the non-Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia while Akkad referred to the Semitic people of Mesopotamia).
Chapter two dealt with political history. The Sumerians didn't really produce what we would call histories; they were rather more archivist than historian, chroniclers more than interpreters of history. The first real record of Sumerian events was essentially to preserve for posterity what great building projects (particularly of temples) Sumerian rulers had accomplished. Not all historical source material is "curt and lifeless" though, as one source of information is the royal correspondence between rulers and officials, letters that can reveal motives, rivalries, and intrigue.
As far as history itself the reader learns that two of the truly ancient Sumerian rulers were deified (Dumuzi, a deity whose worship would have profound influences in Judaism and in Greek mythology, and Gilgamesh, the "supreme hero of Sumerian myth and legend," his deeds written and rewritten not only in Sumerian but also in other languages), and that Sargon the Great was the conqueror that finally brought about the end of the Sumerian people as "an identifiable political and ethnic entity" and began the "Semitization of Sumer."
Chapter three looked at life in the Sumerian city. In the third millennium B.C. Sumer consisted of a dozen or so city-states surrounded by a few villages, each city's main feature being the main temple situated on a high terrace, one that gradually evolved into a staged tower or ziggurat, "Sumer's most characteristic contribution to religious architecture." The temple was the largest and most important building in a Sumerian city, reflecting the importance of religion in Sumerian life (though scholars have debated for decades whether Sumer was a "totalitarian theocracy dominated by the temple" or whether there was some relative freedom and private property; opinion now leans towards the notion that while the temple was the major economic player, private individuals could buy and sell property and own businesses).
An important chapter, Kramer looked at such things as the average Sumerian house (a small, single story, mud-brick building with several rooms arranged around an open courtyard), the Sumerian calendar (they divided the year into two seasons, emesh, "summer", and enten, "winter," with the new year falling between April-May), even Sumerian medicine (providing translations of several ancient prescriptions).
Chapter four looked at religion and mythology. The Sumerians recognized a very large number of gods, some of which had some very specific areas of interest (such as a deity in charge of the pickax) but recognized seven gods who "decree the fates" and fifty deities known as "the great gods." Sumerian gods were entirely anthropomorphic, appearing human in form and could eat, drink, marry, raise families, and even die.
Sumerians believed that rite and ritual were more important than either personal devotion or piety, and that man was "created for no other purpose than to serve the gods." They also believed in something called me, essentially a set of rules and regulations that were meant to be followed in order to keep the universe running smoothly. These me's included both positive concepts, like "truth" and but also negative ones like "strife."
The parallels between Sumerian and Greek and Biblical stories were quite striking and Kramer discussed several examples (the Sumerian underworld looked a lot like the later Greek version, complete with a "Charon," for instance and the Sumerians had a Flood myth as well).
Chapter five examined their literature, which included religious hymns and lamentations, epics, dirges, elegies, collections of proverbs, and a favorite Sumerian form of literature, the "wisdom" compositions or disputations in which two opposing protagonists debate back and forth (even if the two protagonists might be say personified animals or tools).
Chapter six looked at the Sumerian edubba or school.
Chapter seven examined Sumerian "drives, motives, and values." The author looked at the role of hatred and aggression in the Sumerian character, their drive for prestige, preeminence, and superiority, though they also valued goodness, truth, even mercy and compassion. Kramer noted though that their ambitious drive for preeminence produced many of the advances for which the Sumerians are noted, such as the development of writing and irrigation but also carried with it the "seeds of self-destruction," which trigged bloody wars between the Sumerian city-states and impeded unification which ultimately proved the downfall of Sumer.
Chapter eight examined the legacy of Sumer, its tremendous influences on other ancient cultures and religions, its numerous technological inventions, even its political advances (they invented the city-state which was in marked contrast to the state of affairs in Ancient Egypt).
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Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2023
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