Early Sumerian Times

Early Sumerian Times

Sumer may very well be the first civilization in the world (although long term settlements at Jericho and Catal Huyuk predate Sumer and examples of writing from Egypt and the Harappa, Indus valley sites may predate those from Sumer). From its beginnings as a collection of farming villages around 5000 BC, through its conquest by Sargon of Agade around 2370 BC and its final collapse under the Amorites around 2000 BC, the Sumerians developed a religion and a society which influenced both their neighbors and their conquerers. Sumerian cuneform, the earliest written language, was borrowed by the Babylonians, who also took many of their religious beliefs. In fact, traces and parallels of Sumerian myth can be found in Genesis.

Sumer was a collection of city states around the Lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq. Each of these cities had individual rulers, although as early as the mid-fourth millenium BC the leader of the dominant city could have been considered the king of the region. The history of Sumer tends to be divided into five periods. They are the Uruk period, which saw the dominance of the city of that same name, the Jemdat Nasr period, the Early Dynastic periods, the Agade period, and the Ur III period - the entire span lasting from 3800 BC to around 2000 BC. In addition, there is evidence of the Sumerians in the area both prior to the Uruk period and after the Ur III Dynastic period, but relatively little is known about the former age and the latter time period is most heavily dominated by the Babylonians.

The Uruk period, stretched from 3800 BC to 3200 BC. It is to this era that the Sumerian King Lists ascribe the reigns of Dumuzi the shepherd, and the other ante-diluvian kings. After his reign Dumuzi was worshiped as the god of the spring grains. This time saw an enormous growth in urbanization such that Uruk probably had a population around 45,000 at the period's end. It was easily the largest city in the area, although the older cities of Eridu to the south and Kish to the north may have rivaled it. Irrigation improvements as well as a supply of raw materials for craftsmen provided an impetus for this growth. In fact, the city of An and Inanna also seems to have been at the heart of a trade network which stretched from what is now southern Turkey to what is now eastern Iran.