Sumer

The term "Sumer" (Akkadian: 𒋗𒈨𒊒, romanized: šumeru) comes from the Akkadian name for the "Sumerians", the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia. In their inscriptions, the Sumerians called their land "Kengir", the "Country of the noble lords" (Sumerian: 𒆠𒂗𒄀, romanized: ki-en-gi(-r), lit. ''country" + "lords" + "noble''), and their language "Emegir" (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠, romanized: eme-g̃ir or 𒅴𒄀 eme-gi15).

The Akkadians, the East Semitic-speaking people who later conquered the Sumerian city-states, gave Sumer its main historical name, but the phonological development of the term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Šinʿar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar(a), all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could potentially be western variants of Sumer.

Most historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and c. 3300 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a non-Semitic and non-Indo-European agglutinative language isolate.

Others have suggested that the Sumerians were a North African people who migrated from the Green Sahara into the Middle East and were responsible for the spread of farming in the Middle East. However, contrary evidence strongly suggests that the first farming originated in the Fertile Crescent. Although not specifically discussing Sumerians, Lazaridis et al. 2016 have suggested a mix of basal Eurasian and western Eurasian hunter-gatherer ancestry for the pre-Semitic peoples of the fertile crescent, particularly the Natufians, after testing the genomes of Natufian and other Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture-bearers.

Some scholars associate the Sumerians with the Hurrians and Urartians, and suggest the Caucasus as their homeland. This is not generally accepted.

The Russian-American scientist Anatole Klyosov suggested in one of his publications that the Sumerians or their ancestors were likely bearers of the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b, particularly the subclades R1b1a2 and R-L23 of R-M269. According to his origin hypothesis, R1b-bearing populations, which he referred to as "Arbins", originated in Central Asia and migrated westward through the Eurasian steppe, Caucasus and Anatolia toward Lower Mesopotamia, where they formed the Sumerian culture and civilization. Klyosov claims that these populations settled in Sumer around 6,000–5,000 years ago, with modern Assyrians being their likely descendants. His hypothesis however, is largely based on the assumed ethno-genetic relation between the Sumerians and Basques, who according to him, are largely R1b1b2, and that both unclassified languages are placed by some linguists in the Sino-Caucasian language family. Klyosov would also concede to the fact that there is no existing data on Sumerian haplotypes.

Based on mentions of Dilmun as the "home city of the land of Sumer" in Sumerian legends and literature, other scholars have suggested the possibility that the Sumerians originated from Dilmun, which was theorized to be the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. In Sumerian mythology, Dilmun was also mentioned as the home of deities such as Enki. The status of Dilmun as the Sumerians' ancestral homeland has not been established, but archaeologists have found evidence of civilization in Bahrain, namely the existence of Mesopotamian-style round disks.

A prehistoric people who lived in the region before the Sumerians have been termed the "Proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians", and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. The Ubaidians, though never mentioned by the Sumerians themselves, are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumer. They drained the marshes for agriculture, developed trade, and established industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery.

Some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language; they think the Sumerian language may originally have been that of the hunting and fishing peoples who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region and were part of the Arabian bifacial culture. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it was flooded at the end of the Ice Age.

Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is considered to have been one of the oldest cities, where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.

Reliable historical records begin with Enmebaragesi (Early Dynastic I). The Sumerians progressively lost control to Semitic states from the northwest. Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Third Dynasty of Ur at approximately 2100–2000 BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use for some time.

The Sumerians were entirely unknown during the early period of modern archeology. Jules Oppert was the first scholar to publish the word Sumer in a lecture on 17 January 1869. The first major excavations of Sumerian cities were in 1877 at Girsu by the French archeologist Ernest de Sarzec, in 1889 at Nippur by John Punnett Peters from the University of Pennsylvania between 1889 and 1900, and in Shuruppak by German archeologist Robert Koldewey in 1902–1903. Major publications of these finds were "Decouvertes en Chaldée par Ernest de Sarzec" by Léon Heuzey in 1884, "Les Inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad" by François Thureau-Dangin in 1905, and "Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik" on Sumerian grammar by Arno Poebel in 1923.

In the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor (ensi) or by a king (lugal) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites.

An incomplete list of cities that may have been visited, interacted and traded with, invaded, conquered, destroyed, occupied, colonized by and/or otherwise within the Sumerians' sphere of influence (ordered from south to north):

Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrain)SC

Kuara (probably Tell al-Lahm)SU

Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar)SC

Kesh (probably Tell Jidr)SU

Larsa (Tell as-Senkereh)S

Uruk (Warka)SC

Bad-tibira (probably Tell al-Madain)SC

Lagash (Tell al-Hiba)S

Girsu (Tello or Telloh)S

Umma (Tell Jokha)S

Zabala (Tell Ibzeikh)S

Shuruppak (Tell Fara)SC

Kisurra (Tell Abu Hatab)S

Mashkan-shapir (Tell Abu Duwari)S

Eresh (probably Abu Salabikh) SU

Isin (Ishan al-Bahriyat)SC

Adab (Tell Bismaya)SC

Nippur (Afak)SH

Marad (Tell Wannat es-Sadum)S

Dilbat (Tell ed-Duleim)S

Borsippa (Birs Nimrud)M

Larak (probably Tell al-Wilayah)SCU

Kish (Tell Uheimir and Ingharra)MC

Kutha (Tell Ibrahim)M

Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah)MC

Der (al-Badra)M

Akshak (probably Tell Rishad)MCU

Akkad (probably Tell Mizyad)MCU

Eshnunna (Tell Asmar)M

Awan (probably Godin Tepe)ICU

Mari (Tell Hariri)WC

Hamazi (probably Kani Jowez)NCU

Nagar (Tell Brak)W

Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometres (205 miles) north-west of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having exercised kingship in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bābil, Diyala, Wāsit, Dhi Qar, Basra, Al-Muthannā and Al-Qādisiyyah governorates of Iraq.

The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century BC and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. 23rd century BC, when the language of the written records becomes easier to decipher, which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions.

The Akkadian Empire was the first state that successfully united larger parts of Mesopotamia in the 23rd century BC. After the Gutian period, the Ur III kingdom similarly united parts of northern and southern Mesopotamia. It ended in the face of Amorite incursions at the beginning of the second millennium BC. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule.

New Stone Age: c. 10000 – c. 5000 BC

Ubaid period: c. 6500 – c. 4100 BC

Copper Age: c. 5000 – c. 3300 BC

Uruk period: c. 4100 – c. 3100 BC

Uruk XIV–V phases: c. 4100 – c. 3300 BC

Uruk IV phase: c. 3300 – c. 3100 BC

Early Bronze Age I: c. 3300 – c. 3000 BC

Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III phase): c. 3100 – c. 2900 BC

Uruk III phase: c. 3100 – c. 2900 BC

Early Bronze Age II: c. 3000 – c. 2700 BC

Early Dynastic period c. 2900 – c. 2334 BC

Early Dynastic I period: c. 2900 – c. 2800 BC

Early Dynastic II period: c. 2800 – c. 2600 BC

Early Dynastic IIIa period: c. 2600 – c. 2500 BC

Early Dynastic IIIb period: c. 2500 – c. 2334 BC

Early Bronze Age III: c. 2700 – c. 2200 BC

Akkadian period: c. 2334 – c. 2154 BC

Akkad dynasty (Sargon)

Early Bronze Age IV: c. 2200 – c. 2100 BC

Gutian period: c. 2154 – c. 2119 BC

Uruk IV dynasty

Gutian dynasty

Middle Bronze Age I: c. 2100 – c. 2000 BC

Ur III period: c. 2119 – c. 2004 BC

Uruk V dynasty

Ur III dynasty

Middle Bronze Age II A: c. 2000 – c. 1750 BC

Isin-Larsa period: c. 2004 – c. 1736 BC

Isin I dynasty

Larsa dynasty

Middle Bronze Age II B: c. 1750 – c. 1650 BC

Old Babylonian period: c. 1736 – c. 1595 BC

Sealand dynasty

The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. The oldest evidence for occupation comes from Tell el-'Oueili, but, given that environmental conditions in southern Mesopotamia were favourable to human occupation well before the Ubaid period, it is likely that older sites exist but have not yet been found. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia. It is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture. The story of the passing of the gifts of civilization (me) to Inanna, goddess of Uruk and of love and war, by Enki, god of wisdom and chief god of Eridu, may reflect the transition from Eridu to Uruk.

The archaeological transition from the Ubaid period to the Uruk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically produced on a slow wheel to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on fast wheels. The Uruk period is a continuation and an outgrowth of Ubaid with pottery being the main visible change.

By the time of the Uruk period, c. 4100 – c. 2900 BC calibrated, the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified, temple-centered cities, with populations of over 10,000 people, where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian cities began to make use of slave labour captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in the earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as western Iran.

The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists, like that found at Tell Brak, had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force.

Sumerian cities during the Uruk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king (ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. There was little evidence of organized warfare or professional soldiers during the Uruk period, and towns were generally unwalled. During this period Uruk became the most urbanized city in the world, surpassing for the first time 50,000 inhabitants.

The ancient Sumerian king list includes the early dynasties of several prominent cities from this period. The first set of names on the list is of kings said to have reigned before a major flood occurred. These early names may be fictional, and include some legendary and mythological figures, such as Alulim and Dumuzid.

The end of the Uruk period coincided with the Piora oscillation, a dry period from c. 3200 – c. 2900 BC that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum.

The dynastic period begins c. 2900 BC and was associated with a shift from the temple establishment headed by council of elders led by a priestly "En" (a male figure when it was a temple for a goddess, or a female figure when headed by a male god) towards a more secular Lugal (Lu = man, Gal = great) and includes such legendary patriarchal figures as Dumuzid, Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh—who reigned shortly before the historic record opens c. 2900 BC, when the now deciphered syllabic writing started to develop from the early pictograms. The center of Sumerian culture remained in southern Mesopotamia, even though rulers soon began expanding into neighboring areas, and neighboring Semitic groups adopted much of Sumerian culture for their own.

The earliest dynastic king on the Sumerian king list whose name is known from any other legendary source is Etana, 13th king of the first dynasty of Kish. The earliest king authenticated through archaeological evidence is Enmebaragesi of Kish (Early Dynastic I), whose name is mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh—leading to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might have been a historical king of Uruk. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, this period was associated with increased war. Cities became walled, and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared. Both Gilgamesh and one of his predecessors Enmerkar are credited with having built the walls of Uruk.

The dynasty of Lagash (c. 2500–2270 BC), though omitted from the king list, is well attested through several important monuments and many archaeological finds.

Although short-lived, one of the first empires known to history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur, and Larsa, and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma, arch-rival of Lagash. In addition, his realm extended to parts of Elam and along the Persian Gulf. He seems to have used terror as a matter of policy. Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures depicts vultures pecking at the severed heads and other body parts of his enemies. His empire collapsed shortly after his death.

Later, Lugal-zage-si, the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He was the last ethnically Sumerian king before Sargon of Akkad.

The Akkadian Empire dates to c. 2334–2154 BC (middle chronology), founded by Sargon of Akkad. The Eastern Semitic Akkadian language is first attested in proper names of the kings of Kish c. 2800 BC, preserved in later king lists. There are texts written entirely in Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BC. Use of Old Akkadian was at its peak during the rule of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334–2279 BC), but even then most administrative tablets continued to be written in Sumerian, the language used by the scribes. Gelb and Westenholz differentiate three stages of Old Akkadian: that of the pre-Sargonic era, that of the Akkadian empire, and that of the Ur III period that followed it.

Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted as vernacular languages for about one thousand years, but by around 1800 BC, Sumerian was becoming more of a literary language familiar mainly only to scholars and scribes. Thorkild Jacobsen has argued that there is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semitic vs. Sumerian" conflict. It is certain that Akkadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were previously conquered, by Sargon.

c. 2193 – c. 2119 BC (middle chronology)

The Gutian people were a group of semi nomadic peoples who originated from the Zagros Mountains of northeastern Mesopotamia. The Gutian Dynasty rose to prominence during the decline and fall of Akkadian Empire under poorly understood circumstances. Following the death of Akkad's last powerful ruler, Shar-Kali-Sharri (c. 2218 – c. 2193 BC), the Gutians gradually took control of Akkadian centers, including the capital Akkad in 2193 BC. The eventual fall of the Akkadian Empire in 2154 BC marked the peak of Gutian strength. There is very little information on the Gutian rulers and people, it is often considered to be a dark age of the Sumerians, an intermediary between the Akkadian Empire and the Third Dynasty of Ur. The Gutian period came to an end with the rise of Utu-hengal of Uruk (c. 2119 – c. 2112 BC), who defeated the last Gutian king, Tirigan, briefly establishing the short lived 5th dynasty of Uruk. Shortly after, Ur-Nammu of Ur (c. 2112 - 2094 BC) would overthrow Utu-hengal's kingdom and establish the Third Dynasty of Ur in 2112 BC.

c. 2200–2110 BC (middle chronology)

Following the downfall of the Akkadian Empire at the hands of Gutians, another native Sumerian ruler, Gudea of Lagash, rose to local prominence and continued the practices of the Sargonic kings' claims to divinity.

The previous Lagash dynasty, Gudea and his descendants also promoted artistic development and left a large number of archaeological artifacts.

Later, the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu and Shulgi (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC, middle chronology), whose power extended as far as southern Assyria, has been erroneously called a "Sumerian renaissance" in the past. Already, the region was becoming more Semitic than Sumerian, with the resurgence of the Akkadian-speaking Semites in Assyria and elsewhere, and the influx of waves of Semitic Martu (Amorites), who founded several competing local powers in the south, including Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna and later, Babylonia.

The last of these eventually came to briefly dominate the south of Mesopotamia as the Babylonian Empire, just as the Old Assyrian Empire had already done in the north from the late 21st century BC. The Sumerian language continued as a sacerdotal language taught in schools in Babylonia and Assyria, much as Latin was used in the Medieval period, for as long as cuneiform was used.

This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward the north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem.

Uruk, one of Sumer's largest cities, has been estimated to have had a population of 50,000–80,000 at its height. Given the other cities in Sumer, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumer's population might be 0.8 million to 1.5 million. The world population at this time has been estimated at 27 million.

The Sumerians spoke a language isolate. A number of linguists have claimed to be able to detect a substrate language of unknown classification beneath Sumerian, because names of some of Sumer's major cities are not Sumerian, revealing influences of earlier inhabitants. However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early Ubaid period (5300–4700 BC, C-14) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here, farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Some archaeologists have speculated that the original speakers of ancient Sumerian may have been farmers, who moved down from the north of Mesopotamia after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid period pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami transitional ware, to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700 – c. 4900 BC, C-14) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell el-'Oueili near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.

Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerians, from the indigenous hunter-fisherfolk traditions, associated with the bifacial assemblages found on the Arabian littoral. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians may have been the people living in the Persian Gulf region before it flooded at the end of the last Ice Age.

The closest modern-day people to the Sumerians genetically are considered to be the Marsh Arabs, who shared haplotypes with Iraqi and Assyrian samples, supporting a common local background.