The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC)

about 200 years ago european archaeologists were busy digging through the sands of what's today the middle east mostly confined to egypt and the southern half of mesopotamia the land that today makes up the country we know as iraq they were searching for the remains of several places that had been featured in the bible the works of greek authors such as herodotus and strabo and the journals of medieval and renaissance travelers such as benjamin of tudela and pietro de la valle babylon nineveh ur names of places that many had heard or read about but that few if any in the west at the time knew the precise locations of by the early 1800s archaeologists had made several important discoveries that culminated with englishman claudius james rich mapping the ruins of babylon and nineveh where among other things he collected numerous bricks tablets clay cylinders and boundary stones that were inscribed with mysterious markings however they were not only present just in babylon and nineveh but were found in many other places including in iran at sites such as persepolis and bahistun at these latter two sites they were also accompanied by two other sets of similar but different markings which scholars were now convinced were not decorations but the scripts of unknown languages after the decipherment of one of the three groups which ended up being old persian it became possible to decrypt the other two the script that was also present at the sites of babylon and nineveh was revealed to be acadian though in those days archaeologists called it babylonian the third of the trilingual inscriptions ended up being elamite though no one today speaks it acadian like modern hebrew and arabic is a semitic language that is well understood by linguists and near eastern archaeologists alike however in the mid-19th century a growing number of scholars began to suspect that this written form of acadian which we call cuneiform was not developed by the semitic language speakers of babylon and assyria but by another people many of the babylonian inscriptions and texts that were starting to be translated at the time contained the phrase sumer and akkad as in land of sumarandakad or king of sumer and akkad it's obvious that sumer was a place but where was it and who were the inhabitants of sumer who they called sumerians could this unconventional script have come from these up until now completely unknown people scholars were stuck in a conundrum they didn't know it at the time but those early archaeologists had stumbled upon what some call the mother civilization of both the babylonians and the assyrians we know these people today as the sumerians by around 7000 to 6000 bc people began to move south along the tigris and euphrates rivers to what were by then the fertile floodplains of mesopotamia specifically in the land that today makes up most of iraq and parts of northern syria mesopotamia which means land between rivers is the greek name for the area and it's here that early farms began to really take root on a much larger scale [Music] the land of mesopotamia is quite flat and really consists of thousands of years of silt spread across the plain by the constant flooding of the tigris and euphrates rivers this soil was and is still today extremely rich and fertile making it ideal for growing crops such as wheat and barley small-scale farming had already been achieved several thousand years prior in parts of the near east that we call the fertile crescent which is a region of productive land that stretches north up the coast of the eastern mediterranean east through the mountains of turkey and northern iraq before venturing south along the flood plains of the tigris and euphrates rivers towards the persian gulf one of these early farming communities that was widespread in central mesopotamia was the samara culture named after the site of samara where it was first discovered estimates vary but most archaeologists date this culture to between 6 500 to 5500 bc samara and pottery has its own distinctive style that's often decorated with geometric images representing natural phenomena the early farmers of this culture seem to have dug irrigation canals to bring nearby rivers and streams under their control another culture that ended up being more widespread than the samara is known as the halaf culture it was most active between the years 6 500 to 5500 bc though some dated to the later more narrower span of time between 5700 to 5000 bc similar to the samara they also created very distinctive and beautiful ceramic objects and pottery that was widely traded throughout the fertile crescent in return the halaf people generally received goods such as obsidian bitumen and seashells they also created some of the earliest examples of stamp seals not too long after 6000 bc in southern mesopotamia changes began to take place that would ultimately set the stage for civilization as we know it it more or less started with the people who belong to what archaeologists call the ubaid culture we'll refer to the people of this culture as obedience they are of special interest to scholars because their civilization occupied the region immediately before the rise of the sumerians and the creation of their first cities the culture is named after tel-al-ubaid a site not too far from what would become the great sumerian city of ur which also began as an ubedian settlement most scholars date the ubaid culture to between 5500 to 4000 bc the exact origins of the obedience are unknown but it's believed that they were likely migrants from other parts of the fertile crescent looking for new pastures for their flocks and virgin soil that could be cultivated for their crops most tubedian sites were small villages though by the late 5th early 4th millennium bc some of these settlements are believed to have grown into towns of nearly 5 000 residents where they grew wheat barley and lentils in addition to raising livestock including cattle goats and sheep the typical ubayden village generally consisted of several one-story single-family houses with a few large structures and facilities designed as storage bins for grain and other foodstuffs most dubai sites had a central earthen mound with a small building at its summit which is believed to have been an early temple and the precursor to the ziggurat that would later on dominate the skylines of many mesopotamian cities like the halath the ubaid also traded their unique hand-painted pottery as well as other crafts such as figurines ubaid pottery is something that must have been prized all over the region because it's been found at multiple sites throughout the middle east including turkey iran syria and across the southeastern regions of the arabian peninsula much of our understanding of ubaid culture comes from the ruins of a city that later on would be famous in sumerian mythology as the home of the god enki that city was eredu even in antiquity eridu was believed to have been a very ancient almost mythical place for example in the very beginning of the text known as the sumerian king list it's written after the kingship descended from heaven the kingship was in eredo in eredu alulam became king he ruled for 28 hundred years al-algar ruled for thirty six thousand years two kings they ruled for a total of six thousand eight hundred years then eridu fell and the kingship was taken to bad tabira another later babylonian poem states a reed had not come forth a tree had not been created a house had not been made a city had not been made all the lands were sea then eredu made in spite of both of these texts being more works of mythology than history the later peoples of mesopotamia may have been on to something archaeologists have determined that the site of eredu may have been inhabited as far back as 8000 bc over 10 000 years ago [Music] during the ubaid period eridu was a good place to settle down it had plenty of land suitable for farming as well as plenty of fish that could be attained from the nearby marshes close to the gulf in those days the shores of what's today the persian gulf were much further inland than they are today such a place in those days may have seemed to have been a paradise in what was otherwise a dry inhospitable desert the local inhabitants may have even thought that it was the home of a god that god would be enki the god of fresh waters the sciences technology and the arts who was also known for his wisdom and had a soft spot for mankind he would go on to become one of the most prominent deities in the sumerian pantheon the ubaid period airedu was still just a small village community with a rather humble shrine dedicated to enki excavations at iradu show that initially enki's sanctuary was little more than a small brick room less than eight square meters with an altar at one end and a stand in the center for ritual offerings in fact ashes and fish bones have been discovered here which may have been part of some ritual offerings to the god some archaeologists believe that every so often the people of eredu would take part in communal feasts that may have involved prayers to the god along with singing and music as the town grew both the temple and the village expanded by 4 500 bc the temple stood on a platform about a meter high the expansion and height of the temple would continue to increase during the centuries until it turned into a step-like pyramid called a ziggurat as villages such as eridu grew into prosperous towns they attracted travelers and merchants some may have come to visit its temples and sanctuaries like those dedicated to enki and make their own offerings to the god many of them brought items from their own villages and towns that they donated to such temples or traded for local goods such as barley sheep or some of eredu's distinctive pottery an interesting example of international trade in eridu at the time had to do with copper copper is a very useful metal but it's not native to southern mesopotamia it had to be imported into the region from places as far away as what's today modern oman or turkey it's quite remarkable that even during the ubaid period artisans were forging basic items out of copper in irredu another item imported into the region also likely from turkey was obsidian up until now the early settlements that we've been taking a look at have all been quite small perhaps a few hundred people on average the exception being places like eridu or tel zaidan in syria both of these places during the ubaid period may have had as many as 3 000 people at any given time few would have thought though that perhaps only a millennium later there would be a city in ancient mesopotamia with a population in the tens of thousands less than 200 kilometers northwest of eridu is the site of uruk it's here that most archaeologists and historians believe that the world's first true city came into being sometime during the 4th millennium bc though it's impossible to know for sure archaeological surveys seem to indicate that by 3 500 bc may have had at least 25 000 residents this may not seem like much to us today in most places especially in the western world 25 000 residents is perhaps at best a medium-sized town however in the 4th millennium bc this would have been a mega urban center a place that those living in towns like eridu a few generations earlier would not have been able to have even comprehended historians call this rapid growth of cities in southern mesopotamia between the years 4000 to 3100 bc the uruk phenomenon or the uruk period it's also believed by many archaeologists and historians that sometime during this period a people whose real origin is unknown may have entered into the region and mixed with the local ubaid population adopting much of their culture and religion as of their own what the ubaidians called them is anyone's guess they however would call themselves sega meaning the black-headed people and their homeland kiengir [Music] in the past villages were believed to have been ruled by a small council of elders presided over by a tribal chieftain however the rise of cities divided society into multiple classes that were ruled by religious military and political elites though the specifics of early government in uruk aren't known it's believed that the person at the top was a sort of priest king who held both religious and secular authority below him on the social hierarchy were other priests followed by a few elites or what we'd classify as noble families and then specialized laborers including artisans craftsmen fishermen farmers gardeners and herdsmen just to name a few in later centuries with the advent of writing a scribo class would also develop below all of these were slaves cities were also the place where certain objects were first produced in mass quantity in the past everyday items such as pottery and textiles were produced at home and generally for private use however during the uruk period specialized artisans and weavers mostly took over this task the objects and clothing that they created may not have been decorated as ornately as in the past but that wasn't the point they simply had to be well made and useful an example of this are the beveled rimmed bowls discovered in uruk fancy they weren't but they did the job the day-to-day functioning of such an ancient urban society required some type of authority to help organize tasks and distribute resources as well as to keep order in uruk as in other urban areas during this period this was made possible by religion each city had a patron deity who technically at least when they were on earth lived in the city usually at a shrine or temple dedicated to it in eredu we saw that this deity was the god enki in uruk that honor went primarily to the goddess inanna although the god an also had a large temple there in theory the god of each city received goods from the people which were a form of taxes usually denominated in wheat barley pottery textiles or whatever useful items could be given this was then redistributed to both the religious and political establishment and then later to the general population in most cases this redistribution took place in the city's main temple complex run by specially dedicated priests and priestesses who also conducted religious rituals as cities grew larger the redistribution of goods and services became much more complicated there were just so many different types of goods as well as people with different professions that needed to be accounted for and who depended on the temple's redistribution of resources for their survival it was important for the temple bureaucrats to keep track of all of this activity and so an early system of writing was developed specifically for this purpose dating to about 3300 bc and written on small clay tablets the first forms of writing were pictographs that recorded the transfer of commodities such as grain beer and livestock we call this very early script proto-cuneiform with over 700 signs it was quite complete though it's highly likely that it was based off an earlier more primitive system that has yet to be discovered rather than developed all at once or by a single individual this very early pictographic script was made up of pictures with relatively simple meanings for instance a head of a bull was used to represent cattle while an era of barley represented you guessed it barley sometimes though the meaning was not as clear and had to be read by association with another symbol for example the sign of a bowl could mean food or bread coupled with the sign of a human head the two together meant to eat several centuries later the form of the signs was adapted so that they could be written faster and with a reed stylus by making wedged impressions into a soft tablet of clay which we today call cuneiform the clay would then be laid out in the sun where it would dry and harden making the wedged impressions permanent cuneiform was ideal for writing the sumerian language because almost all of the words in sumerian are one syllable in length this meant that it was possible to write down one symbol for nearly every spoken word it's due to the discovery and translation of such cuneiform documents that even after so many thousands of years we're still able to peer into the lives of the people of ancient mesopotamia though not a form of writing other objects that were used for communication were cylinder seals as their name implies these are cylinders usually made out of stone or clay but sometimes also from metal bone or ivory with the design carved into them so that when they're rolled across a slab of wet clay a continuous impression is created such seals were used for sealing storeroom locks goods in jars or vases boxes and even baskets the seals could also be used to confirm the identity of the sender or authorize important documents coming from someone in a position of power such as a priest or high-ranking bureaucrat the influence of the uruk phenomenon wasn't limited to southern mesopotamia but spread throughout much of the ancient near east between the 4th and 3rd centuries bc archaeologists have uncovered numerous remains of uruk-style pottery and architecture at sites in syria iran and turkey it seems that much of this was not just taken from uruk but brought to these regions by trading colonies that were set up specifically for the purpose of acquiring raw materials such as copper obsidian lead gold silver wood and stone for buildings eventually they would even import tin which was needed for making bronze it's unknown when exactly the first kings appeared in mesopotamia or how this position really functioned before this power was in the hands of high-ranking priests whose job along with religious duties included organizing the general population collecting taxes and distributing goods and services they had the authority to do such things because they were believed to have directly represented the gods or at least to have known their desires however no amount of divine intervention could provide physical security from one's foreign enemies being a pious priest or priestess didn't mean that such a person was a good warrior or military strategist as cities grew in size so too did competition for scarce resources and farmland and eventually armed conflicts between city-states occurred the need for strong charismatic individuals who could lead men into battle was of utmost importance and it's probably due to this that the first kings arose amongst the growing population of ancient mesopotamia though initially it may have been a temporary position needed only during war eventually the position of king became hereditary by 2900 bc kings were commonplace in ancient sumer and scholars have used this state for the start of what they call the early dynastic period which lasted nearly 600 years the rulers of city-states generally had one of three titles n which roughly translates to lord nc which was a governor or local king and lugal which was generally given to more powerful rulers or great kings for example if a king happened to rule over more than one city then he could be addressed as a lugal which literally means great man alugal could have several nc's ruling other cities on his behalf most cities were surrounded by high walls to protect the temples administrative buildings palaces houses and of course the people who lived and worked within them of all of these structures the large step pyramid-like temple known as the ziggurat was the most important the ziggurat was not just a place of worship but the actual terrestrial home of the city's patron god on earth run directly by the priests it was also the city's chief landowner and richest institution sumerian deities like later greek and roman ones took human form and often behaved like people they were emotional jealous at times petty and according to sumerian myths and legends often interfered in the affairs of humans there were hundreds of such deities in charge of everything from natural phenomenon to household items for example there was a god of the sky sun and moon but also a god of the plow bricks a goddess of writing and so on on was the god of the sky and the heavens whose main temple was in uruk however he wasn't its patron deity that honor went to the goddess of love and war inanna though on in earlier times may have been considered the most powerful deity of all by the early dynastic period it was clearly enlil whose name means lord wind and was the god of the air his holy sanctuary was in the city of nippur another powerful and extremely popular god was enki whose name means lord earth though he's also the god of sweet or fresh water as mentioned earlier he was the patron god of the city of eredu as well as of scientists and magicians another popular god was utu the god of the sun who was associated with justice and the patron deity of both sipar and larsa then of course there was nana the god of the moon and the patron deity of the city of ur one of the more powerful gods was ningirsu the patron deity of the city-state of lagash whose main temple was in girsu he was associated with both farming and war by 2500 bc royal inscriptions and even portraits of individual kings start to appear these have greatly helped us to piece together the political history of sumer and its various kingdoms one of these early inscriptions along with the depiction of a king is of urnanshi the ruler of the city-state of lagash who's believed to have reigned between the years 2494 to 2465 bc one of the most famous depictions of ornanchi is a limestone relief of the king with what appears to be a basket of clay bricks on his head currently in the louvre the relief depicts the king in one of his most important religious duties that of consecrating and taking care of his kingdom's many temples especially those dedicated to lagash's patron deity the god ningirsu urnanshi's other vital role was as the military leader of lagash from various texts that have been put together we know that he went to war with the neighboring city-states of ur and uma in fact it may have been during his reign that a centuries-old rivalry was started with uma which we'll get to shortly [Music] most early inscriptions though were quite simple and often just consisted of a ruler's name on a votive object for example one stone vessel dated to 2650 bc and found in the ruins of a temple merely reads mbegaresi king of kish other inscriptions though go into a bit more detail a slightly later one from kish reads misalim king of kish ningirsu's temple builder place this for ningirsu lugalsha angor is the ruler of lagash at first glance the text seems to tell us little except that mussolin the king of the city of kish built a temple for the gardening girsu and that lugal shahengur is the nc or ruler of lagash however combined with other documents that have been uncovered we learned that misalim along with being the king of kish was at least powerful enough to influence events in other city-states such as those of rivals lagash and uma he may have even ruled over both cities but this might be a stretch regardless we're told in a later text by king enmetana of lagash the following enlil king of all the lands father of all the gods by his firm command fix the border between the kingdom of lagash and the kingdom of ummah misalim king of kish at the command of the goddess ishtaran measured the field and set up a boundary stone there the actual text literally says fixed a border between ningirsu and shara were the patron gods of lagash and uma respectively thus in a wider sense this was as much a conflict between two deities as it was between two kings and the cities they presided over from the same text by enmetana we learn even more sumerian political history ush the ruler of uma acted haughtily he ripped out that boundary stone and marched towards the plain of lagash ningirsu warrior of enlil at his just command made war with uma at enlil's command he threw his great battle net over it and heaped up burial mounds for it on a plane ian atam ruler of lagash uncle of enmetana ruler of lagash fix the border with anakale ruler of uma made the boundary extend from the noon canal to the guedena at the boundary channel he inscribed new boundary stones and restored the boundary stone of he did not cross into the plane of uma some more specifics about the size of the fields are given and we're also told that uma is forced to pay reparations in the form of what seems to have been an incredibly large sum of barley along with future interest payments uma though is unable to pay and according to the text the following occurs because he could not repay the barley or luma the ruler of uma made irrigation water flow in the boundary channel of ningirsu and the boundary channel of nanji he torched and tore out the boundary stones recruited soldiers from foreign lands and crossed the boundary channel of ningirsu ananatum ruler of lagash battled with him in uga ningirsu's beloved field and methana beloved son of innanatum defeated him urluma fled but he endmatena killed him in uma the text rambles on about uma's other crimes and offenses against lagash and the gods one thing though is clear the city-states of lagash and uma had what seems to have been a long conflict over the fertile land that ran between them one very famous work of sumerian art what's known as the steely of the vultures also depicts the conflict between lagash and uma in vivid detail commissioned by king ian atom of lagash predecessor it depicts a fierce battle over the same area specifically the fertile fields of gurina where lagash is victorious over the forces of oma it's from different texts and monuments such as these that scholars have been able to slowly put together the political history of sumer and other parts of the ancient near east as you can see though it's not an easy process historians often have to play a game of connect the dots and even then many questions are left unanswered for example one major issue is that we don't know uma's side of the story of its conflict with lagash perhaps its leaders were justified in violating a treaty that may have been biased against the city state from the start according to all accounts of the conflict lagash was victorious several times against its long-term rival but as we'll soon see uma would strike back in addition to eredu uruk kish lagash and uma there were several other important cities of ancient sumer two of the most prominent were ur and nipur or though is the more well-known of the two and perhaps the most famous sumerian city of all due to two things it's mentioned in the bible as the birthplace of the prophet abraham and also as the place where a cache of marvelous objects were discovered in the 1920s by a team of archaeologists led by sir charles leonard wooley like uruk and other sumerian cities ur's founding also dates back to the ubaid period located on what was once the banks of the euphrates river war was the home of nana the god of the moon some of the most impressive finds came from several extraordinary tombs dating back to the early dynastic period there were approximately 1050 burial pits along with 17 extremely elaborate tombs filled with all types of luxury items despite the fact that they were from approximately 2600 bc the graves and tombs were relatively intact and had over the centuries avoided grave robbers many of the objects uncovered included gold armor weapons intricate jewelry chariots sculptures musical instruments board games and bowls the 17 extremely elaborate tombs are believed to have belonged to members of orr's ruling class or the royal family itself along with the king there were dozens of people whose scholars believe may have been the king's attendants and soldiers while he was alive in order to join their master in whatever afterlife they believed was awaiting them they either killed themselves or were killed and then buried along with the king in the tomb whether or not the attendants and soldiers went to their end willingly isn't known nor is why such a thing happened since to date there haven't been any other royal burials like this one found in mesopotamia [Music] when it comes to sumerian religion no other place was more important than the holy city of nippor this was the location of the e corps the temple dedicated to the supreme god of the sumerian pantheon enlil due to its status as a holy city nippur is said to never have had a king officially it was politically neutral that though didn't stop kings and empire builders of mesopotamia from making pilgrimages there and lavishing the icore with expensive gifts in an effort to receive some divine favor like in many if not most societies even those that may have started out as being rather egalitarian at one time or another the divide between rich and poor widened often leading to unrest and sometimes revolution in the 24th century bc such a series of events occurred in the city-state of lagash as we saw earlier lagash had once been a very powerful state under kings like urnanshi iyanatum and enmetana however for reasons unknown the dynasty founded by ornanshi was disbanded with the priests coming to power and eventually nominating one of their own and antaresi to become lagash's ruler such a move was unprecedented at least during the early dynastic period with an antarsi in charge lagash's priestly class not only controlled the wealthy tempo apparatus but also all of the major institutions of the government to nobody's surprise corruption ran rampant and antarzi's successor luga landa was also of the priestly class and he took corruption to a whole new level during his reign more than half of lagash's land holdings came under his direct control not to mention the temples and religious sanctuaries those who disagreed with luga landa were dismissed from their positions he also levied heavy taxes on nearly everything including special occasions such as weddings and even funerals such actions put ordinary people and their families into massive debt things got so bad that according to some documents impoverished parents had to sell their children into slavery to help pay off their debts after six years of corruption and tyranny luga lunda was overthrown by urukagina whose name is also read uru innimjina urukugina saw himself as a reformer and along with being a capable ruler is best known for coming up with possibly the first known written code of laws i say possibly because we've never actually found a copy of urukagina's law code however we know about it and what some of the laws were from other documents that reference it an excerpt from one of the texts describes in rather poetic form how urukugina prevented the seizure of assets by tax collectors and monopolists but when ningirsu the foremost warrior of enlil gave kingship of lagash to urukagina and his hand had grasped him out of the multitude then ningirsu enjoined upon him the divine decrees of former days urukagina held close to the word which is king ningirsu spoke to him he banned the man in charge of the boatmen from seizing the boats he banned the head of the shepherds from seizing the donkeys and sheep he banned the man in charge of the fisheries from seizing the fisheries by his own account it seems that urukagina was a man of the people unfortunately his reign and reforms were too little too late lagash's weakness had not gone unnoticed by its neighbors most notably by the new king of its great rival the city-state of uma in 2341 bc a man named lugal zaghezy became the new nc of uma not much is known about his life before he became king but in his second year as uma's ruler he attacked and ultimately conquered the city-state of lagash perhaps out of vengeance for so many centuries of being bullied by its once great rival ugal zaghesi's men burned plundered and destroyed lagash its capital of girsu and all of its holy places including the great temple of its patron god mean girsu [Music] in one text that was uncovered a scribe from lagash lamented the destruction of ningirsu city and cursed lugal zaghzi he lugalza ghazi has ruined the barley field of ningirsu as much as had been plowed because the man of ummah destroyed the bricks of lagash he committed a sin against ningirsu he will cut off his hands which had been lifted against him it is not the sin of urukagina the king of girsu ni daba the personal goddess of lagal zaghezi the nc of uma make him bear all his sins [Music] lugal zaghesi though did not stop with lagash and would go on to claim to control not just all of sumer but the lands from the lower sea that is the persian gulf to the upper sea meaning the mediterranean in a well-known inscription on arvaz that he himself had commissioned lugal zaghezy wants us to know the following when enlil the king of all the lands had given the kingship of the land to lugal zaghezy had directed him the eyes of all the people of the land had prostrated all the people before him then all the people from the lower sea along the tigris and euphrates to the upper sea directed their feet toward him from east to west enlil gave him no rival the people of all the lands lie peacefully in the meadow under his rule the land rejoiced under his rule all the sovereigns of sumer and the enecies of all the foreign lands bowed down before him in uruk if this were true then lugal zugazi would have created the first real empire in history unfortunately for him he's not remembered as such nor do modern scholars believe that he actually ruled over all of the lands that he claimed to [Music] lugal zegazi would be defeated by a man who would arguably become the most celebrated and influential person in all of early antiquity he was not a sumerian but an acadian whose birth name is unknown but who would call himself meaning legitimate king we know him as sargon of akkad or sargon the great the early history of sargon is obscured in myth and legend we don't even know his real name only that he later called himself sharikunu also read shahrukhin which in the akkadian language means true or legitimate king one story of his early years is that his mother who was a priestess of the goddess ishtar the akkadian name for inanna cast him away in a basket down the euphrates river where he was eventually picked up by a gardener who raised him the legend continues with sargon eventually becoming the cup-bearer of urzobaba the king of the city-state of kish it was during this time that lugal zaghesia guma was gobbling up the city-states of sumer into one great mesopotamian power with uruk as its new capital however his plans for near eastern domination came to an end when sargon and his band of followers marched south from kish to uruk and captured lugal zaghazi the document known as the sumerian king list tells us the following in uruk lugal became king and reigned for 25 years one king reigned for 25 years then uruk was defeated and the kingship taken to agade in agade sargon whose father was a gardener reigned for 56 years [Music] sargon's own words of his sumerian campaign are a bit more detailed in an old babylonian copy of a document attributed to him he speaks of himself in the following way sargon the king of akkad the bailiff of ishtar the king of the universe the anointed one of ahn the king of the land the governor of enlil he vanquished uruk in battle and smote 50 governors and the city by the mace of the god ilaba and he destroyed its fortress and captured lugal zaghezy the king of uruk in battle he led him to the gate of enlil in a neck stock sargon of akkad vanquished ur in battle and smote the city and destroyed its fortress he smote its territory and lagash as far as the sea he vanquished uma in battle and destroyed its fortress it's with sargon's conquest of southern mesopotamia around 2334 bc that the early dynastic period of sumer comes to an end sargon though didn't stop with sumer unlike lugal zaghezi who may have only boasted about conquering an empire from the persian gulf to the mediterranean sea most scholars believe that sargon actually did that and more one could go on about the conquests and exploits of sargon his two sons and his powerful grandson naram sin but these are stories for another time what's more important for our purpose here is the effects of the acadian conquest on sumer and its inhabitants the people that we know as the acadians came from the land just north of sumer known as akkad what would now make up a good part of central and northern iraq for centuries they had lived side by side with the sumerians and may have even constituted sizable populations within sumer's core cities at the time though they themselves didn't have a written language so our early knowledge of them is quite limited acadians spoke in eastern semitic language that we also call acadian unlike sumerian which is a language isolate acadian is similar to other well-understood semitic languages including canaanite aramaic and even modern hebrew and arabic when sargon conquered all of sumer he made the acadian language the official one and adopted the sumerian script for its written form this though doesn't mean that sumerian was no longer spoken or even written but that it was slowly being replaced in daily life as all official documents and proclamations were now in acadian sargon seems to have taken a great deal of pride in the fact that he was not of noble birth something that he stressed in early autobiographies of himself perhaps this made him more relatable to the average person after all how else could an acadian outsider muster enough power and influence to topple the sumerian establishment and unify them all under his banner he broke the power of the priesthood the local ncs and the sumerian nobility and replaced them with acadian governors who were loyal to him sargon and his successors also reorganized and redistributed temple lands and mostly gave them to their hardcore supporters and loyalists this really crushed the power of the priesthood because up until then such property had been their main source of revenue he also put his daughter and haduana in charge of the wealthy temple complex in the city of ur with its millennia old cities temple establishments and other institutions sumer had been the center of civilization in mesopotamia the near eastern region and possibly even the world up until that time although the civilizations of china egypt and the indus valley were also on the rise sargon though shifted this center when he established his new capital of akkad on the euphrates river better known as agade it was here that he builds palaces and temples dedicated to his patron deities specifically the goddess ishtar and the warrior god of kish zababa not only did agade become the political center of the akkadian empire but its main economic hub as well boats carrying goods from dilmun and magan today modern bahrain and oman respectively docked at agades ports and caravans from anatolia elam arabia and the levant all came to agade sargon and his successors also reformed the tax system with most of the revenue coming directly to agade before being distributed to other parts of the empire such actions were all at the expense of sumerian cities such as uruk lagash and ur which before sargon's conquest of sumer had been amongst the most prosperous cities of ancient mesopotamia as far as we know sargon kept a pretty tight grip on power during his reign between 2334 to 2279 bc when he died several rebellions broke out and his sons who succeeded him first remoush and then manish tushu had a difficult time keeping the empire together the cities of sumer were in constant rebellion and only subdued after much violence and brutality though sargon's grandson naram sin was able to stabilize and then expand the acadian empire into new territories by the end of the reign of his successor shah khali shari in 2193 bc the acadian state may have held little territory outside of agade the sumerian king list seems to describe a chaotic time during which there were several kings with short reigns whose true lineages were unknown shaar khali shahri son of naram sin ruled for 25 years then who was king who was not king yirgigi was king nanum was king imi was king ilulu was king those four kings ruled three years dudu reigned 21 years shudural the son of dudu reigned for 15 years though the acadian empire was no more the final nail in the coffin came several years later when the people from the zagros mountains known as the gutians swept in overthrough shudural and destroyed agade most scholars believe that it was a bit more complicated than that recent findings seem to indicate that severe famine and drought may have been the real culprit causing instability in both sumer and akkad as well as the collapse of the regional economy this would have no doubt triggered massive unrest amongst the general population and ultimately brought the acadian state to a point where it could no longer hold on to its many territories the central authority in agade broke down and one by one like dominoes provinces of the akkadian empire seceded in such circumstances people like the gutians probably saw an opportunity to raid plunder and perhaps seize some territory for themselves what was going on in this new post-acadian world is not very clear but the sumerian king list seems to indicate that the most stable area in mesopotamia may have been uruk then agade was defeated and the kingship was taken to uruk in uruk ur nagin became king he ruled for seven years urjijir son of ornigen ruled for six years kuda ruled for six years puzzur ili ruled for five years or utu ruled for six years five kings ruled for thirty years after this we have the dynasty of guptium and gutien rule of the region uruk was defeated and the kingship was taken to the army of gutiem the army of gutiem a king whose name is unknown nibiya became king he ruled for three years then ingishu ruled for six years ikukum lakaba ruled for six years shulmai ruled for six years silulumesh ruled for six years and the list goes on until it tells us 21 kings who ruled for 91 years and 40 days goutian kings are unknown to us from any other evidence or documents with the exception of one who doesn't actually appear on the sumerian king list his name was aridu wizir and the few statues found in nipur indicate that he was king of gutiem and of the four quarters other than this little material evidence of a gutian presence in sumer has been discovered it's quite possible that they had little real control over sumer and perhaps only sent troops or kept a garrison in some cities in order to ensure the collection of tribute in some places the gutens may have even appointed the nc from amongst the locals to collect tribute and govern on their behalf some areas actually seem to have flourished during the time when the sumerian kinglist claims that the gutians ruled one of them was lagash under its king gudiya believed to have ruled between the years 2141 to 2122 bc gudia was a very pious ruler who claims to have built hundreds of temples for the gods especially for lagash's patron deity ningirsu a humble man who only took the title of nc despite the fact that he probably ruled over several cities gudia presented himself not as a powerful conqueror to be feared but more like a shepherd protecting his flock which in this case were the people that he ruled over in nearly all of his major inscriptions he simply praises the god ningirsu and dedicates his life to the deity this was a big change from the boasting of cities conquered and enemies slain that was often the hallmark of the royal inscriptions of the kings who had preceded him [Music] at the end of the day the gutians were outsiders and most sumerians if later texts are to be believed considered themselves to be superior to them it was only a matter of time before a local nc from uruk named utto hegal finally organized a force to end the gutian presence in sumer excerpts from an inscription attributed to utuhagal state the following enlil the king of all the lands commissioned uttuhegal the mighty man the king of uruk the king of the four quarters to destroy the name of gutiem the snake and the scorpion of the mountain who carried off the kingship of sumer to the foreign land we're then told that utuhegal made preparations to attack the gutians and prayed to the gods for their support and blessings the text continues in that very night he went to utu and made supplication to him utu enlil has given me gutiem be you my ally in this at that place gutiem gathered its forces and sent forth the troops against him uttuhegal the mighty man conquered them then tirigan the king of ghoutiam fled all by himself back toward gutiem in dubrom where he had taken refuge he was treated kindly but since the men of dubrovn knew that utu hagal was the king to whom enlil had granted might they did not set tirigon free the envoy of uttuhegal took tirigan and his family prisoner in dubrom placed stalks of wood upon his hands and blindfolded him he was then brought before utu hagal threw himself at his feet and he uttuhegal set his foot upon his neck he returned the kingship to sumer and so utuhegal defeated the gutiens and came back to uruk to found its fifth known dynasty he's the only ruler of that dynasty because unfortunately he died shortly after becoming king supposedly while inspecting one of uruk's canals he was succeeded by his son-in-law the former governor of ur a man who went by the name urnamu who himself founded his own dynasty in 2112 bc historians call it the third dynasty of or also known as ur 3 for short the start of urnamu's reign also ushers in what we refer to as the neo-sumerian period not much is known about urnamu's early years though it's believed that he may have supported hagal in his short war against the gutians he was also married to uttuhegal's daughter after securing his position as king urnamu annexed the cities of lagash and eredu like gudia a few decades prior he seems to have wanted his subjects to view him more as a shepherd or father figure rather than as a conqueror and like another past king of the gosh urukagina or namu also had a code of laws some believe that this may have actually been the first written code of laws in history and not that of urukagina whose actual code has not yet been discovered but only referenced to in other documents though the copy that we have is badly damaged the original code is believed to have been made up of 40 paragraphs and contained both civil and criminal offences along with their punishments here's a sample if a man committed a kidnapping he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver if a man proceeded by force and deflowered the virgin slave woman of another man that man must pay five shekels of silver if a man appeared as a witness and was shown to be a perjurer he must pay 15 shekels of silver if a man knocked out the eye of another man he shall weigh out half a mina of silver if a man knocked out the tooth of another man he shall pay two shekels of silver if a man in the course of a scuffle smash the limb of another man with a club he shall pay one mina of silver capital punishment was reserved for more serious crimes such as murder or adultery many of the punishments seem rather lenient even by our standards today as it appears that in most cases those convicted of crimes merely had to pay a fine as punishment urnamu is also credited by many historians for starting what's known as the sumerian renaissance reversing the past policies of sargon and his successors all of whom actively promoted the akkadian language ur namu and his descendants instituted policies and programs where sumerian language and culture would reign supreme sumerian was made the official language of the government and heavily promoted in the creation of new art and literature the heroic epics and hymns of old such as the epic of gilgamesh were circulated and recited in public and new ones were composed the goal was to bring back sumer's identity as a sumerian nation after nearly two centuries of acadian rule and the instability that followed there were also many new construction projects as well as restorations of iconic old buildings for example it was during urnamu's reign that the great ziggurat of or was expanded to the towering height that can still be seen today though ur nam who set the neo-sumerian era in motion it was during the 47-year reign of his son and successor shulgi that the uber iii empire reached the height of its prosperity size and artistic achievements shulgi was quite a character and by his own accounts larger than life if the many hymns dedicated to him are true then during his reign between 2094 to 2047 bc many including shulgi himself considered him to be a god the words of one hymn dedicated to shulgi describe him as a prodigy written in the first person it goes like this i am the king from the womb i have been a hero i am shulgi from the time i was born i have been a mighty man i am the lion with a ferocious look born by the dragon i am king of the four corners i am the keeper the shepherd of the black-headed ones i am the noble one the god of all the lands such hymns were sung both in temples and in public and were meant to inspire shulgi's flock as he'd call them to have faith in him as their protector much like sheep are watched over and protected from wolves by a good shepherd while such hymns may have praised shulgi's wisdom and prowess in battle the reality was that the or three states prosperity was due not to its god-king's divine intervention or powers but rather the highly efficient centralized government that ran the empire one thing that the kings of the third dynasty of ur did adopt from the akkadian regime was their model of a centralized highly bureaucratic system of government this became extremely important as the ur-3 state expanded from a moderately sized kingdom into a full-fledged empire with a vast network of territories and tributary states we know a tremendous amount with regard to the inner workings of how the state functioned during shulgi's reign because there's virtually no other period in ancient near eastern history where such a large quantity and variety of documentation has been discovered approximately one hundred thousand that's right i said one hundred thousand of these texts have already been translated with thousands more in museum storerooms waiting to be examined it's impossible to go over every subject covered in these documents but the most common topics and themes revolve around economic activity agriculture manufacturing construction domestic and foreign trade distribution of resources food rations military supplies troop deployments taxation and other sources of revenue the application of various laws and the like though the vast majority of these are government documents meaning that they give us little information with regard to private citizens and businesses we still get a window into how the state dealt with the many civil servants farmers herdsmen builders priests soldiers and scribes that it worked with taxes were not paid in silver or gold but in goods such as grain livestock textiles or even pottery basically each province paid taxes to the central government in ur but these were not paid throughout the empire on the same day or even in the same month that would have been too difficult for even the large bureaucracy of the earth state to manage instead each province of which there were at least 20 of them paid their share of taxes during a particular month the next month another province or provinces would pay their yearly tax this system was called bala which means exchange along with being easier to manage the bala system helped to ensure that the government would receive at least some income every month though things during ornamu and shulgi's reigns seemed to have been peaceful at home war and conquest were still very much a part of the ur-3 empire urnamu is said to have been killed in battle against resurgent groups of gutians while shulgi after claiming to have avenged him led campaigns into ilam and brought the cities of susa anshan and even the distant kingdom of marhashi into his orbit for the most part shulgi's reign of 47 years was one of great stability progress and prosperity for both sumer and mesopotamia in general however upon his death in 2047 bc the empire that he in large part helped to build began to unravel and neither of his three successors seemed to have had his charisma and expertise to stop it from falling apart in the beginning the decline was rather gradual during the reign of shoghi's son and successor amarsin but by the reign of the next king shusin rebellions in the provinces were becoming much more common with several of them breaking away from the empire completely a lot of the empire's problems seem to have been exacerbated by the consistent migration into both sumer and decade of a people known as the amorites in sumerian they're called the martu and their presence in mesopotamia was not a welcome one the mostly settled and urban sumerians who at the time believed that they had reached the pinnacle of civilization viewed the nomadic amorites as savages one neo-sumerian text disparagingly describes them in the following way the amorites who know no grain the amorites who know no house nor town the bores of the mountains the amorite who digs up truffles who does not bend his knees to cultivate the land who eats raw meat who has no house during his lifetime who is not buried after his death like the acadians the amorites were also a semitic-speaking people but from further west specifically the levant they had been migrating into central and southern mesopotamia since at least the reign of shulgi who ordered what's believed to have been history's first real border wall to be constructed as a means of keeping them out of sumerian territory it didn't work and by the reign of the third dynasty of oars last king ibisin the amorites had not only entered parts of sumer and akkad in droves but some amorite tribes had even managed to take over several towns and cities creating their own little fiefdoms in the process as things went from bad to worse in the sumerian heartland the areas on the periphery of the empire all broke away in elam ibarat one of the kings that shulgi had originally appointed to rule anshan on his behalf declared his independence and then marched westward with an army to take the city of zusa by 2004 bc ib sin ruled an empire in name only in reality his authority was limited to ur and perhaps a few of its surrounding cities virtually every other place had either succumbed to the will of amorite chieftains or their ensis had declared independence from ur to form their own little states this was when yibarat's son kindatu made his move leading an army from susa he advanced on or sacked the city and took ibisin back to ilam as a prisoner in the end we don't know what happened to ib sin but it's likely that he was executed with his capture in 2004 bc the once glorious neo-sumerian empire ruled by the third dynasty of war officially came to an end [Music] the end of the last true sumerian state also resulted in the phasing out of many though not all aspects of sumerian culture and identity in mesopotamia without state support the use of sumerian as both the official and common language began to decline rapidly this was in great part due to the influx of new non-sumerian peoples into mesopotamia which altered the ethnic and linguistic makeup of sumer a new civilization which we call babylonian was developing that essentially combined the sumerian and acadian worlds with those of the newcomers to the region such as the amorites [Music] in the first two centuries after the fall of the third dynasty of war mesopotamia was divided up into smaller kingdoms and penny states many of which were ruled by various amorite clans since their language was a close cousin of acadian the latter became even more widespread throughout mesopotamia and by 1800 bc sumerian ceased to exist as a spoken language though it was still used by scribes as a scholarly and religious one for this reason it was taught in scribal schools perhaps up until the second or first century bc and of course the sumerian influence on later babylonian and ancient assyrian religion and culture pervaded both societies throughout their existence and not just these two civilizations we ourselves are indebted to the sumerians who are the first to develop more sophisticated farming techniques tools like the plow large-scale urban planning the mass production of everyday items such as pottery and textiles mathematics and accounting and of course probably their most famous contribution the art of writing so i hope that this program has given you a broad knowledge of sumerian history culture religion as well as highlighted some of their achievements as always thanks so much for stopping by i really appreciate it i'd also really like to thank grand keck 69 yap de graf pastafrola michael lewis tobias winder share cam farhad kama and all of the channel's patrons on patreon for helping to support this and all future content check out the benefits to being a patreon member and if you'd like to join feel free to click the link in the video description you can also follow history with psy on instagram facebook and twitter as well as listen to special audio programs on the history with psy podcast thanks again and stay safe

Channel: History with Cy

Views: 2,908,341

Keywords: Sumer, Sumerians, ancient Sumer, ancient Mesopotamia, Bronze Age, Bronze Age empires, Sargon the Great, Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Ubaid, Halaf, Samarra, Lagash, Urukagina, Lugalzagesi, Neo-Sumerian Empire, Shulgi, Ur-Nammu, Ur-Namma, ziggurat, Sumerian religion, Sumerian King List, ancient history, Bronze Age Mesopotamia, first farms, first cities

Id: szFjxmY7jQA

Length: 72min 28sec (4348 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021