What is the name of the Sumerian writing system? Sumerian writing

Sumerian cuneiform is part of the small heritage that remains after this. Unfortunately, most of the architectural monuments were lost. All that remained were clay tablets with unique writings on which the Sumerians wrote - cuneiform. For a long time it remained an unsolved mystery, but thanks to the efforts of scientists, humanity now has data about what the civilization of Mesopotamia was like.

Sumerians: who are they?

The Sumerian civilization (literal translation “black-headed”) is one of the very first to emerge on our planet. The very origin of a people in history is one of the most pressing issues: disputes among scientists are still ongoing. This phenomenon is even given the name “Sumerian question.” The search for archaeological data led to little, so the main source of study became the field of linguistics. The Sumerians, whose cuneiform script is best preserved, began to be studied from the point of view of linguistic kinship.

Around 5 thousand years BC, settlements appeared in the valley and Euphrates in the southern part of Mesopotamia, which later grew into a powerful civilization. Archaeological finds indicate how economically developed the Sumerians were. Cuneiform writing on numerous clay tablets tells about this.

Excavations in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk allow us to make an unambiguous conclusion that the Sumerian cities were quite urbanized: there were classes of artisans, traders, and managers. Outside the cities lived shepherds and peasants.

Sumerian language

The Sumerian language is a very interesting linguistic phenomenon. Most likely, he came to southern Mesopotamia from India. For 1-2 millennia, the population spoke it, but it was soon replaced by Akkadian.

The Sumerians still continued to use their native language in religious events, administrative work was carried out in it, and they studied in schools. This continued until the beginning of our era. How did the Sumerians write their language? Cuneiform was used precisely for this purpose.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to restore the phonetic structure of the Sumerian language, because it belongs to the type where the lexical and grammatical meaning of a word lies in numerous affixes attached to the root.

Evolution of cuneiform

The emergence of Sumerian cuneiform coincides with the beginning of economic activity. It is due to the fact that it was necessary to record elements of administrative activity or trade. It should be said that Sumerian cuneiform is considered the first writing to appear, which provided the basis for other writing systems in Mesopotamia.

Initially, digital values ​​were recorded while they were far from written language. A certain amount was indicated by special clay figurines - tokens. One token - one item.

With the development of economics, this became inconvenient, so they began to make special markings on each figure. Tokens were stored in a special container on which the owner’s seal was depicted. Unfortunately, in order to count the items, the storage had to be broken down and then sealed again. For convenience, information about the contents began to be depicted next to the seal, and after that the physical figures disappeared completely - only the prints remained. This is how the first clay tablets appeared. What was depicted on them was nothing more than pictograms: specific designations of specific numbers and objects.

Later, pictograms began to reflect abstract symbols. For example, a bird and an egg depicted next to it already indicated fertility. Such writing was already ideographic (signs-symbols).

The next stage is the phonetic design of pictograms and ideograms. It should be said that each sign began to correspond to a certain sound design that has nothing to do with the depicted object. The style is also changing, it is being simplified (we’ll tell you how later). In addition, for convenience, the symbols unfold and become horizontally oriented.

The emergence of cuneiform gave impetus to the replenishment of the dictionary of styles, which is happening very actively.

Cuneiform: Basic Principles

What was cuneiform writing? Paradoxically, the Sumerians could not read: the principle of writing was not the same. They saw the written text, because the basis was

The style was largely influenced by the material on which they wrote - clay. Why she? Let's not forget that Mesopotamia is an area where there are practically no trees suitable for processing (remember the Slavic ones or the Egyptian papyrus, made from a bamboo stem), and there was no stone there. But there was plenty of clay in the river floods, so it was widely used by the Sumerians.

The writing blank was a clay cake, it had the shape of a circle or a rectangle. The marks were made with a special stick called a kapama. It was made of hard material, such as bone. The tip of the kapama was triangular. The writing process involved dipping a stick into soft clay and leaving a specific design. When the kapama was pulled out of the clay, the elongated part of the triangle left a wedge-like mark, hence the name “cuneiform”. To preserve what was written, the tablet was fired in a kiln.

The origins of syllabics

As stated above, before cuneiform appeared, the Sumerians had another type of writing - pictography, then ideography. Later, the signs became simplified, for example, instead of a whole bird, only a paw was depicted. And the number of signs used is gradually decreasing - they become more universal, they begin to mean not only direct concepts, but also abstract ones - for this it is enough to depict another ideogram next to it. Thus, “another country” and “woman” standing next to each other meant the concept of “slave”. Thus, the meaning of specific signs became clear from the general context. This way of expression is called logography.

Still, it was difficult to depict ideograms on clay, so over time, each of them was replaced by a certain combination of dashes-wedges. This pushed the writing process forward by allowing syllables to match specific sounds. Thus, syllabic writing began to develop, which lasted for quite a long time.

Decoding and meaning for other languages

The mid-19th century was marked by attempts to understand the essence of the Sumerian cuneiform writing. Grotefend made great strides in this. However, what was found made it possible to finally decipher many texts. The rock-cut texts contained examples of ancient Persian, Elamite and Akkadian script. Rawlins was able to decipher the texts.

The emergence of Sumerian cuneiform influenced the writing of other countries of Mesopotamia. As civilization spread, it brought with it the verbal-syllabic type of writing, which was adopted by other peoples. The entry of Sumerian cuneiform into Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite and Urartian writing is especially clear.

The invention of writing by the Sumerians was of world-historical significance. The Sumerians began writing at the end of 4 thousand BC, that is, much earlier than the Egyptians. In the Red Temple of Uruk, dated to around 3300 BC, a tablet was discovered with text using about 700 characters. This tablet is, apparently, the world's first monument of written culture.

Before the advent of writing, there were cylinder seals on which miniature images were carved, and then the seal was rolled over clay. These round seals represented one of the greatest achievements of Mesopotamian art.

Writing arose as a practical necessity for trading activities, business records and calculations. The earliest writings were made in the form of pictograms, or primitive drawings made with a reed stick on tablets of wet clay. Then the clay “tablets” were dried in the sun or fired in a kiln (if the designations were especially important and intended for long-term storage). The first such tablets are memorial notes, lists of goods, recipes (notes of an economic nature). Guess the meaning of most of the pictograms used around 3300 BC. e., not difficult. The radiant star denoted the sky or, in the future, a deity. The cup undoubtedly conveyed the word “food.” In some cases, combinations of symbols can be easily deciphered: the pictograms “big” and “man” standing together mean “king”.

The first step towards abstract symbols was made at the beginning of 2 thousand BC. BC, when the pictographs began to “lie on their edges,” which could be due to the fact that Sumerian scribes began to turn the tablets over in order to be able to write from left to right, and not from top to bottom, as before. But whatever the real reasons for this “revolution,” the fact itself suggests that the symbols gradually began to lose their connection with the specific object depicted.

Written characters underwent even more dramatic changes when scribes changed from a sharpened reed stick for drawing on soft clay to a wedge-shaped style, leading to a change in writing that was called "cuneiform" from the Latin. “cuneus”, which means “wedge”. Ancient scribes made every effort to ensure that their drawings resembled the depicted object as closely as possible, and for this purpose they used all kinds of wedge-shaped impressions. Then all the wedges used to represent the sign were divided into several classes: vertical, horizontal and oblique.

This is how it arose cuneiform writing on clay tablets. It spread throughout Western Asia, and for more than two thousand years it was used by peoples who spoke various languages. Cuneiform was used especially productively in Babylonian and early Persian writing.

Around 1800 BC scribes simplified the writing of many cuneiform symbols, replacing them with even more conventional signs that bore only a vague resemblance to the previous pictograms.

*Slides: Using the example of selected Sumerian signs on the table on the right, you can trace the evolution of Sumerian writing over 1500 years - the transformation of early pictograms into a system of abstract symbols.

The instructions in the lower right corner read: “Pass through a sieve and then stir in the crushed tortoiseshells, naga-shi sprouts, salt and mustard. Then wash the damaged areas with good quality beer and hot water and rub the mixture in. Wait a little and rub with oil again, then apply a poultice of crushed pine bark.”

Epic of Gilgamesh

Thanks to the invention of writing, many aspects of the past were revealed to historians. Because samples of literature are preserved in written sources; a historian can judge the mentality of people of that time.

The greatest monument of ancient Sumerian literature is the Tale of Gilgamesh. It is preserved on cuneiform tablets, one of which comes from Nippur. Gilgamesh is said to have been a king and successful general from Uruk around 2700 BC.

The cycle of epic songs about Gilgamesh is associated mainly with the idea of ​​​​human immortality, and throughout the poem Gilgamesh desperately tries to defeat death. Gilgamesh is endowed with strength and courage, which ensured his victory in the fight with the lion. Together with your companion Enkidu Gilgamesh travels to the cedar forest to fight the forest ruler Humbaba. But his main goal is the search for wisdom, happiness, immortality. The Akkadian epic also contains a description of Gilgamesh's journey beyond life to achieve immortality. He was looking for Utnapishtim, who survived the flood. Floods often occurred in Sumer, when both rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates - overflowed widely. Perhaps a catastrophic flood, when both rivers closed with each other, is called a flood in popular memory. In Dilmun, the Sumerian paradise, Utnapishtim helped Gilgamesh find the “plant (pearl?) of eternal youth” that gives immortality, but on his way back home he lost this precious root and accepts the inevitability of his fate.

Sumerian religion

By about 2250 B.C. in Sumer a whole pantheon of gods had already developed, personifying various elements and elemental forces. This pantheon was the basis of the Sumerian religion. This is how theology was born.

According to Sumerian beliefs, the earth was ruled by gods, and people were created to serve them. This motif of the Sumerian epic was reflected much later in the Bible, in the Old Testament. Initially, each city had its own god. This was probably due to political changes in relations between cities, but in the end the gods organized themselves into a kind of hierarchy.

Each of the gods was assigned its own role and its own area of ​​activity: there was the god of air, the god of water, and the god of agriculture. The goddess Inanna (among the Akkadians Ishtar) was the goddess of carnal love and fertility, but at the same time the goddess of war, the personification of the planet Venus. At the head of the hierarchy were 3 highest male gods:

· Anu – father of the gods, god of the sky;

· Enlil (among the Akkadians Ellil, White) – the god of air;

· Enki (among the Akkadians Eil, Ea) – the god of wisdom and fresh water, he was the teacher who gives life (water = life), and maintained the order created by Enlil.

Since the harvest, especially grain, was constantly threatened by drought, flood, or locust, and these troubles occurred, according to beliefs, by the will of the gods, the Sumerians sought to appease them. This purpose was served by the most complex ritual of worship in their temples - the earthly dwellings of the gods. Done ritual worship of the king and the main gods of the Sumerian pantheon. Each of the deities had its own temple, which became the center of the city-state. They were founded and established in Sumer main features of the temple architecture of Mesopotamia.

Fall of Sumer

Amorite invasion. Marie. After 2000 BC e. in the battle with the Elamites who came from Persia, the powerful state of the Sumerians fell. This was followed by an invasion of Semitic tribes - the Amorites - from northern Syria. The Amorites settled in Mesopotamia and built rich, thriving city-states.

Of all the cities, the large Amorite city especially stood out. city ​​of Mari, built in the middle reaches of the Euphrates. As a result of excavations, a city with a strict, close to modern layout- long avenues, palaces in squares, perpendicularly intersecting streets, beautiful sculptures, rich cemeteries, walls decorated with frescoes.

Grand Palace of Marie

The Great Palace of Zimri-Lima, who ruled Mari from 1780 to 1760. BC, was built before 2100 BC. and after several centuries it was reconstructed. It consisted of more than 260 rooms and courtyards on the ground floor, the rest were above.

The centerpiece of the palace was a double throne room, dating back to the time of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad, who died in 1780 BC, however, the main components of the palace were laid out under Zimri-Lim.

Along with public spaces and private living rooms, the palace contained numerous craft workshops, where linen, woolen clothing, blankets and draperies were spun and made, things were made from leather, cabinetmakers inlaid wood with alabaster and mother-of-pearl. A significant number of workers in these workshops were slaves.

In addition, the palace had a royal treasury and other storage facilities.

The most important discovery at Marie was the archive, which contained more than 20,000 tablets. The texts written on them are related to various aspects of city life. Among them are numerous documents on official business, diplomatic and private correspondence, for example, about the health of members of the royal family.

Hammurabi

At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. a new unification of Mesopotamia emerged with its center in the city Babylon. Babylon is located on the banks of the Euphrates, 90 km south of modern Baghdad. The name of the city translates as “gate of the gods.”

After the fall of the state of Ur in 2000. BC. Babylon is ruled by the Amorite (Western Semites) dynasty. Under Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), Babylon became the political and religious capital of southern Mesopotamia.

Originally a vassal of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I, through superior diplomatic maneuvers and successful military campaigns with rival city-states (Uruk, Issin, Larsa, Eshnuna and Mari), Hammurabi established Babylon as the dominant power of the Mesopotamian plain and the regions further north (Mari and Ashur). Due to the fact that during the era of Hammurabi the characteristic features of Babylonian culture took shape, in the history of Babylon it was called classical. In addition, many temples and canals were built under Hammurabi. His influence towards the end of his life (he died in 1750 BC) increases so much that Babylon receives the status of the natural capital of southern Mesopotamia.

Laws of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was the greatest lawgiver in human history. Like the prophet Moses, he gave his people and at the same time humanity a code of laws. It was carved on a stone stele that was found in Susa (now kept in the Louvre).

*Slide: On top of the monolith, where the laws of Hammurabi are engraved, there is an image of the king himself. The king stands in a respectful pose, listening to what the god of justice, Shamash, tells him. Shamash sits on his throne and holds the attributes of power in his right hand, and flames shine around his shoulders. Shamash commands Hammurabi to do his will in exactly the same way as Yahweh commands Moses in the Bible.

The Code of Hammurabi amazes with the level of legal thought that existed 15 centuries before the advent of Roman law. The 282 sections of Hammurabi's famous code of laws contain laws on various topics: slavery, property, trade, family, wages, divorce, medical care and much more.

Many laws were borrowed from the Sumerians, but the application and interpretation of legal rules were more detailed and more legally developed.

Even such special cases were stipulated: “If a man, during an attack or invasion, was captured or taken to distant countries and stayed there for a long time, and in the meantime another man took his wife and she bore him a son, then if the husband returns, he gets his wife back.” Or the law on providing for wives:

“If a husband turns his face away from his first wife... and she does not leave the house, then the woman he took as his mistress will be his second wife. He must continue to support his first wife as well.”

According to the Code of Hammurabi, many crimes - theft, adultery, false accusation, perjury - were punishable by death. Strict punishments were provided, for example, in the following cases: if a patient lost one eye due to the carelessness or inability of the doctor, the doctor’s hand was cut off; if the house collapsed; then its builder was sentenced to death or a large fine.

Hammurabi carried out religious reform. The Sumerian gods continued to be revered, but by order of the king he became the main Babylonian god Marduk.( Marduk, in Sumerian-Akkadian mythology, the central deity of the Babylonian pantheon, the main god of the city of Babylon, the son of Ey (Enki) and Domkina (Damgalnun). Written sources report on the wisdom of Marduk, his healing arts and spell power; God is called "judge of the gods", "lord of the gods" and even "father of the gods"). He was the god of the entire empire of Hammurabi.

Rise of Assyria.

After Hammurabi's death, his empire fell apart. Babylon itself became a victim of a predatory raid by the Hittites, then by the Kassites who came from Persia. They ruled over Babylon until its conquest by the Assyrians, a Semitic people who lived from ancient times in the upper reaches of the Tigris.

The rise of Assyria began, whose trade in the north of the country had been restrained and controlled by the Hittites for a long time. But in 1200 BC. e. The Hittite kingdom collapsed. Assyria entered the Mediterranean and captured lands right up to the territory of modern Turkey. The success of Assyria's conquests was facilitated by use of iron weapons, in which the Assyrians were far superior to all neighboring peoples, and high level of military art, ensured by the special maneuverability of troops. The Assyrian invasions were cruel and bloody. The Old Testament says that they used special machines for the siege of fortress walls and “assault goats”.

The Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705 BC) built a new majestic capital - Dur-Sharrukin (now Khorsabad), which means Sargon's Fortress. The palace stood on a high artificially raised hill. In 713 BC. e. Sargon II, during the construction of his capital, Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad, Iraq), surrounded the city with a solid brick wall, leaving seven passages (gates) in it. On the sides at the entrance to the palace there were huge statues of winged bulls with human heads. These are the shedu - the guards guarding the palace gates; they seem to be keeping a watchful eye on those passing by. Everyone who approached the palace could already see the shed from afar - its head, chest and two legs. As soon as you walked further and looked at the shad from the side, it began to seem that the bull had stepped forward, moving its front leg. The Assyrian sculptor achieved this by making the bull... five legs! Therefore, two legs are visible from the front, and four from the side. And if it weren’t for the fifth leg, then in profile the bull would appear to be a tripod.

But perhaps the most interesting and truly artistic works of art were the Assyrian reliefs that adorned the walls of the palaces. Assyria was a powerful military power; there was no end to campaigns and conquests, which is why the palace reliefs depict mainly military scenes glorifying the king-commander. All scenes are conveyed so vividly, with such skill that one does not immediately notice either the conventional image of the human figure (always in profile), or the identical facial features of almost all people, or the overly emphasized muscles of the arms and legs (by this the artist wanted to show the power Assyrian army). Many reliefs depict royal hunts, mainly lions. Animals are depicted amazingly accurately and truthfully.

Sargon's son Sennacherib (705-680 BC) moved the capital of the state to Nineveh. Here archaeologists discovered numerous sculptures, including winged bulls, and found frescoes and stone reliefs depicting the battles of Sennacherib with his enemies. Sennacherib sacked, burned and destroyed Babylon in 689 BC. This event is reported on a stele covered in cuneiform writing.

Son of Sennacherib - Esarhaddon(680-669 BC) - in 671 he captured Egypt and restored Babylon to its former greatness. Numerous new monuments of Assyrian culture appeared, but the previous ones, Sumerian and Babylonian, were irretrievably lost.

In 701 BC. Assyrian troops besieged Jerusalem, and the Jewish king Hiskiel was forced to pay tribute. This is reported in the Old Testament. Inscriptions on the palace of Sennacherib glorify the Assyrian king as a victor who supposedly locked the king of the Jews “like a bird in a cage.” However, in reality, Sennacherib failed to conquer and plunder rich Jerusalem: the plague epidemic that broke out there prevented him from doing so.

Simultaneously with their campaigns of conquest, the Assyrians paid a lot of attention construction and art. The reliefs in the palaces depicting hunting and battle scenes are extremely expressive. The Assyrians were also excellent civil engineers. Built by them plumbing, palaces, equipment for besieging cities, interior decoration of palaces, many sculptures- all this amazed the imagination.

To decorate the interiors of the palace of Ashurbanippal in Nineveh (7th century BC), gold and ivory from Egypt, silver from Syria, azure and semi-precious stones from Persia, and cedar wood from Lebanon were specially delivered.

*Slide: At the bottom of the fragment, on a triumphal chariot under an umbrella, stands the powerful king Ashurbanipal (reigned 669-631 BC). Traditionally, the figure of the king is larger than all other characters. The king holds an unopened bud in his hand as part of an Assyrian court ceremony.

After the death of Ashurbanipal, his great empire lasted only fifteen years. The reasons for her crash was

The inability to protect the vast borders of the state,

Uprisings of enslaved peoples, as well as

The moral decay of a huge army engaged in robbery. In the Old Testament, the prophet Nahum foreshadows the destruction of Nineveh: “Woe to the city of blood! It is all full of deception and murder; robbery does not cease in him” (Old Testament. Book of the Prophet Nahum, 8:1.). The prophecy came true. IN 612 BC e. the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, fell under the onslaught of the Babylonians and Indians. The Assyrian Empire was divided between the two victors. A new era of the rise of Babylon and the spread of its culture began.

Neo-Babylonian kingdom .

A new flowering of Babylon has occurred during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II(605-562 BC). A thousand years after Hammurabi, he made an attempt to equal him in greatness. And he partially succeeded. The ruins of Babylon still amaze with their grandiose size.

The Greek historian Herodotus described Babylon in his “History” as a city that surpassed all cities in the world in wealth and luxury. What struck his imagination the most was city ​​wall of Babylon. According to Herodotus, its width was such that two chariots drawn by four horses could easily pass each other! For more than two thousand years, these words of Herodotus were considered an exaggeration and were confirmed only in 1899 during the excavations of Babylon undertaken by the German archaeologist R. Koldewey. He dug up double fortress walls 7 m wide and 18 km long, surrounding the city center. The space between the walls was filled with earth. Four horses could ride here! Watchtowers were attached to the walls every 50 m.

Ishtar Gate

Of the eight gates dedicated to the main gods revered in Babylon, the most magnificent were double gates of the goddess of love Ishtar. The "processional road" passed through them - an important highway that connects the temple of Marduk and the temple of the New Year's festival in the outer part of the city.

*Slide: At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. German archaeologists dug up a large number of fragments of the city wall, using which they were able to completely restore the historical appearance of the Ishtar Gate, which was reconstructed (in full size) and is now exhibited in the State Museums of Berlin. The gate was double, connecting both defensive walls of the inner city and reaching a height of 23 m. The entire structure is covered with glazed bricks with relief images of the sacred animals of the god Marduk - the bull and the fantastic creature sirrush (Babylonian dragon). This last character (also called the Babylonian dragon) combines the characteristics of four representatives of the fauna: an eagle, a snake, an unidentified quadruped and a scorpion. Thanks to the delicate and sophisticated color scheme (yellow figures on a blue background), the monument looked light and festive. Strictly maintained intervals between animals tuned the viewer to the rhythm of the solemn procession.

They were rebuilt three times under Nebuchadnezzar II, and only during the last rebuilding were they decorated with images of these animals. During this period, the bricks were covered with glaze. The animals were colored yellow and white, while the background was bright blue. In addition, the gates were guarded by powerful colossi in the form of bulls and dragons.

From the gates of Ishtar began Sacred road reserved for festive processions. It was believed that the god Marduk himself walked along this path. The procession road was paved with large slabs. Reaching a width of 16 m, the Processional Road for 200 meters was surrounded by walls of glazed brick, from which 120 lions depicted on a blue background looked down at the procession participants.

The road led to the sanctuary of Marduk - Esagile, majestic temple complex, in the center of which rose a colossal 90-meter ziggurat of Etemenanki(the cornerstone of earth and heaven), famous Tower of Babel, consisting of seven terraces painted in different colors. At the top stood the temple of Marduk, lined with blue bricks.

Etemenanki was shrine and pride of the state And embodied the daring thoughts of people striving to get closer to heaven. It is with him that the biblical legend of the Babylonian pandemonium. It tells how God, having seen the city and the tower that the sons of men were building, realized that people speaking the same language and doing something together would not have any obstacles. Angry, he descended to earth and confused languages, so that people ceased to understand each other and were scattered throughout the entire earth. Even the ruins of Etemenanka, destroyed in the 4th century. BC e. troops of the Persian king Xerxes, shocked Alexander the Great with their greatness.

The glory of Babylon was composed and colorful palace of Nebuchadnezzar II with the famous "Hanging Gardens". Even in ancient times, the gardens were called the miracle of the world. They were artificial terraces made of mud bricks of various sizes and resting on stone ledges. They contained land with various exotic trees. The Hanging Gardens were a feature of the palace of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC). It is a pity that they have not survived to this day. spread out on vaulted terraces connected to a system of wells and drains.

The Babylonians were a trading people: they sailed not only along their rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates - but also crossed the Persian Gulf, delivered lapis lazuli, fabrics, food from India, and traded with Asia Minor, Persia, and Syria. Thousands of tablets with promissory notes and various invoices and contractual documents (for example, for the charter of ships) have been preserved.

One of the greatest achievements of Babylonian and Assyrian culture was creation of libraries and archives.

Even in the ancient cities of Sumer - Ur and Nippur, for many centuries, scribes (the first educated people and the first officials) collected literary, religious, scientific texts and created repositories, private libraries. One of the largest libraries of that period - library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal(669 - ca. 633 BC), containing about 25 thousand clay tablets recording the most important historical events, laws, literary and scientific texts. It was really a library: the books were placed in a certain order, the pages were numbered. There were even unique index cards that outlined the contents of the book, indicating the series and number of tablets of each series of texts.

Babylonian scientists and priests knew astronomy, made maps of the starry sky, observed the movement of the planets, and were able to predict solar and lunar eclipses.

In 539 BC. e. Babylon fell under the onslaught of the Persians. The biblical prophet Daniel talks about how King Belshazzar (son of Nebuchadnezzar II) feasted in a palace drowning in wealth and luxury, and at that time the archers of King Cyrus managed to divert the waters of the Euphrates, walk along the shallow bed into the city and break into the palace. As the prophet narrates, in the large royal palace, the words inscribed by a mysterious hand suddenly appeared on the inner wall: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uparsin.” Soon it was all over. The palace was captured by Cyrus's troops. His governors were appointed to govern Mesopotamia. Although the Persians did not destroy Babylon, but turned it into their capital, part of the city's population was killed and the rest were dispersed. Persian rule lasted almost 200 years.

In 321 BC. e. Alexander the Great defeated the Persian troops. He set a goal to give Babylon a new brilliant life, but due to his sudden death, this plan remained unfulfilled. The city fell into decay and the inhabitants left it.

The surviving ruins of the majestic Babylon still remind us of that civilization in the center of Mesopotamia, which over the course of three millennia created cultural values ​​that formed the basis of many subsequent civilizations. It was there that a school appeared for the first time in history, the first calendar in human history was compiled, and the first written language was created. Many sciences arose - astronomy, algebra, medicine. A majestic epic appeared. The first legend of the resurrection from the dead was born. The first love song was composed, the first fables were written. The first system of legality was developed in Mesopotamia. In a word, the spiritual life of humanity began here.

Stone Age, fourth millennium BC, people use stone tools, have the most primitive skills, almost zero skills and the most barbaric knowledge about the world around them. They live either directly in the open air or in dwellings like dugouts. No bows, no swords, no ships, no jewelry, no pyramids, no kings, no furniture - none of this chaotic set existed at that time, and could not have arisen, given the stage of human evolution.

So it seemed to scientists for a long time, until the Sumerian civilization was discovered, which with its existence created a real sensation among scientific minds. The scale of the shock was so great that few people wanted to believe in the reality of the Sumerians until the facts became too many. What so amazed and continues to amaze the most enlightened minds of humanity?

Judging by the finds discovered in the cities of the Sumerians, they were the inventors of almost everything that we use to this day. In principle, it is high time for historians and literary publishing houses to rewrite history, because much that was attributed to other peoples was invented by the mysterious Sumerians. The Sumerians came, and out of nowhere entire cities appeared with huge pyramids, ziggurats, real smooth roads covered with a substance similar in composition to modern asphalt.

So, six thousand years ago, an incomprehensible civilization either itself invented something that could not yet exist at that time, or used more ancient inventions, which means that all our ideas about this stage of the development of our planet are fundamentally incorrect. Here is the little that the Sumerians knew and used:

In those days, one could already find markets on the streets, people opened something like culinary shops where they could have a snack on the way. Sumerians walked through the streets in beautiful outfits, decorated with various jewelry. And this is not the only thing that shocks researchers. Most of all, no one understands why a nation that was supposed to develop, having achieved everything in the first centuries of its existence, then suddenly began to degrade! Assumptions have been and are being made. And the worst thing is that it is the scientists and romantic writers of recent generations who can become those thanks to whom the Sumerian civilization will acquire absurd legends, which will subsequently prevent our descendants from continuing the study of this most interesting mysterious people.

The Sumerian tribes of Mesopotamia in various places of the valley were engaged in draining the swampy soil and using the waters of the Euphrates and then the Tigris to create irrigation agriculture. The creation of an entire system of main canals, on which regular irrigation of fields was based, in combination with well-thought-out agricultural technology, was the most important achievement of the Uruk period.

The main occupation of the Sumerians was agriculture, based on a developed irrigation system. In urban centers, crafts were gaining strength, the specialization of which was rapidly developing. Builders, metallurgists, engravers, and blacksmiths appeared. Jewelry making became a special specialized production. In addition to various decorations, they made cult figurines and amulets in the form of various animals: bulls, sheep, lions, birds. Having crossed the threshold of the Bronze Age, the Sumerians revived the production of stone vessels, which in the hands of talented anonymous craftsmen became genuine works of art. This is the cult alabaster vessel from Uruk, about 1 m high. It is decorated with an image of a procession with gifts going to the temple. Mesopotamia did not have its own deposits of metal ores. Already in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians began to bring gold, silver, copper, and lead from other regions. There was brisk international trade in the form of barter or gift exchanges. In exchange for wool, cloth, grain, dates and fish, they also received wood and stone. There may have been real trade carried on by sales agents.

The life of Sumerian society developed around the temple. The temple is the center of the area. The creation of cities was preceded by the creation of temples, followed by the resettlement of residents of small tribal settlements under its walls. In all the cities of Sumer there were monumental temple complexes as a kind of symbol of Sumerian civilization. Temples had important social and economic significance. At first, the high priest led the entire life of the city-state. The temples had rich granaries and workshops. They were centers for collecting reserve funds, and trade expeditions were equipped from here. Significant material assets were concentrated in the temples: metal vessels, works of art, and various types of jewelry. Here the cultural and intellectual potential of Sumer was collected, agronomic and calendar-astronomical observations were carried out. Around 3000 BC Temple households became so complex that they needed to be accounted for. They needed writing, and writing was invented at the turn of the 4th-3rd millennium BC.

The appearance of writing is the most important stage in the development of any civilization, in this case Sumerian. If previously people stored and transmitted information in oral and artistic form, now they could write it down in order to store it indefinitely.

Writing in Sumer first appeared as a system of drawings, as a pictogram. They drew on damp clay tablets with the corner of a sharpened reed stick. The tablet was then hardened by drying or firing. Each sign-drawing designated either the depicted object itself, or any concept associated with this object. For example, the sign of the foot meant walking, standing, fetching. This ancient form of writing was invented by the Sumerians. Around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. they handed it over to the Akkadians. By this time, the letter had already largely acquired a wedge-shaped appearance. So, it took at least four centuries for writing to transform from purely reminder signs into an orderly system for transmitting information. The signs turned into a combination of straight lines. Moreover, each line, due to the pressure on the clay with the corner of a rectangular stick, acquired a wedge-shaped character. This type of writing is called cuneiform.

The first Sumerian records did not record historical events or milestones in the biographies of rulers, but simply economic reporting data. Perhaps that is why the oldest tablets were not large and poor in content. A few written characters of the text were scattered across the surface of the tablet. However, they soon began to write from top to bottom, in columns, in the form of vertical columns, then in horizontal lines, which significantly speeded up the writing process.

The cuneiform script used by the Sumerians contained about 800 characters, each of which represented a word or syllable. It was difficult to remember them, but cuneiform was adopted by many neighbors of the Sumerians to write in their completely different languages. The cuneiform script created by the ancient Sumerians is called the Latin alphabet of the Ancient East.

http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/68407

The civilization of ancient Sumer, its sudden appearance, produced an effect on humanity comparable to a nuclear explosion: a block of historical knowledge shattered into hundreds of small fragments, and years passed before this monolith could be put together in a new way.

The Sumerians, who practically did not “exist” at all one hundred and fifty years before the heyday of their civilization, gave so much to humanity that many still wonder: did they really exist? And if they were, why did they disappear into the darkness of centuries with resigned muteness?

An uplifting deception?

After the phenomenon of Sumerian civilization became a generally accepted fact, many researchers recognized their right to “cultural birthright.” The greatest expert on Sumer, Professor Samuel Noah Kramer, summed up this phenomenon in one of his books, declaring that “history begins in Sumer.” The professor did not sin against the truth - he counted the number of objects the right of discovery of which belonged to the Sumerians, and found that there were at least thirty-nine of them. And most importantly, what kind of items! If one of the ancient civilizations had invented one thing, they would have gone down in history forever! And here there are as many as 39 (!), and one is more significant than the other!

The Sumerians invented the wheel, parliament, medicine and many other things we still use today.

Some Sumerian designs are still used and admired by people today. For example, medicine had a very high level. In Nineveh (one of the Sumerian cities) they discovered a library that had an entire medical department: about a thousand clay tablets! Can you imagine - the most complex medical procedures were described in special reference books, which talked about hygiene rules, operations, even the removal of cataracts and the use of alcohol for disinfection during surgical operations! And all this happened around 3500 BC - that is, more than fifty centuries ago!

Considering the antiquity when all this happened, it is very difficult to comprehend other achievements of the civilization hidden between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The Sumerians were fearless travelers and outstanding sailors who built the world's first ships. One of the inscriptions excavated in the city of Lagash talks about how to repair ships and lists the materials that the local ruler supplied for the construction of the temple. There was everything from gold, silver, copper to diorite, carnelian and cedar.

And in general, the Sumerians made all their discoveries and inventions in a very short time - one hundred and fifty years! During this period of time, other civilizations were just getting on their feet, taking their first steps, but the Sumerians, like a non-stop conveyor belt, supplied the world with examples of inventive thought and brilliant discoveries. Looking at all this, many questions involuntarily arise, the first of which is: what kind of wonderful, mythical people are they, who came from nowhere, gave a lot of useful things - from a wheel to a bicameral parliament - and went into the unknown, leaving behind practically nothing traces?

A unique writing system, cuneiform, is also an invention of the Sumerians. The Sumerian cuneiform script could not be solved for a long time, until English diplomats, and at the same time intelligence officers, took up it.

Low truths

There are many versions about where the Sumerians came from and where their homeland is located, but this mystery has not been completely resolved. Let's start with the fact that even the name “Sumerians” appeared recently - they themselves called themselves black-headed (why is also unclear). However, the fact that their homeland is not Mesopotamia is quite obvious: their appearance, language, culture were completely alien to the tribes living in Mesopotamia at that time! Moreover, the Sumerian language is not related to any of the languages ​​that have survived to this day!

Most historians are inclined to believe that the original habitat of the Sumerians was a certain mountainous area in Asia - it is not for nothing that the words “country” and “mountain” are written the same in the Sumerian language. And taking into account their ability to build ships and be at ease with water, they lived either on the seashore or next to it. The Sumerians also came to Mesopotamia by water: first they appeared in the Tigris delta, and only then began to develop the swampy, unsuitable shores for life.

Having drained them, the Sumerians erected various buildings, both on artificial embankments or on terraces made of mud brick. This method of construction is most likely not typical of lowland inhabitants. Based on this, scientists have suggested that their homeland is the island of Dilmun (the current name is Bahrain). This island, located in the Persian Gulf, is mentioned in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerians called Dilmun their homeland, their ships visited the island, but modern researchers believe that there is no serious evidence that Dilmun was the cradle of ancient Sumer.

Gilgamesh, surrounded by bull-like people, supports a winged disk - a symbol of the Assyrian god Ashur

There is also a version that the Sumerians are the descendants of the indigenous population of the sunken Atlantis, the Atlanteans. Supporters of this version claim that this island-state died as a result of a volcanic eruption and a giant tsunami that even covered the continent. Despite the controversy of this version, it at least explains the mystery of the origin of the Sumerians.

If we assume that a volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, located in the Mediterranean Sea, destroyed the Atlantean civilization in its very heyday, why not assume that part of the population escaped and subsequently settled in Mesopotamia? But the Atlanteans (if we assume that it was they who inhabited Santorini) had a highly developed civilization, which was famous for its excellent sailors, architects, doctors, who knew how to build a state and manage it.

The most reliable way to establish a family connection between certain peoples is to compare their languages. The connection can be close - then the languages ​​are considered to belong to the same language group. In this sense, all peoples, including those that disappeared long ago, have linguistic relatives among the peoples living to this day.

But the Sumerians are the only people who have no linguistic relatives! They are unique and inimitable in this too! And the deciphering of their language and writing was accompanied by a number of circumstances that cannot be called anything other than suspicious.

British trace

The most important point in the long chain of circumstances that led to the discovery of ancient Sumer was that it was found not thanks to the curiosity of archaeologists, but in... the offices of scientists. Alas, the right to discover the most ancient civilization belongs to linguists. Trying to understand the secrets of the wedge-shaped letter, they, like detectives in a detective novel, followed the trail of a hitherto unknown people.

But at first this was nothing more than a guess, until in the middle of the 19th century, employees of the British and French consulates began the search (as you know, most consular employees are professional intelligence officers).

Behistun inscription

Even then, some scholars began to suspect that the translation from the ancient Persian language was suspicious and similar to the language of the embassy code talkers. But Rawlinson immediately introduced scientists to clay dictionaries made by the ancient Persians. It was they who pushed scientists to search for the ancient civilization that existed in these places.

Ernest de Sarzhak, another diplomat, this time French, also joined this search. In 1877 he found a figurine made in an unknown style. Sarzhak organized excavations in that area and - what do you think? - pulled out from under the ground a whole pile of unprecedentedly beautiful artifacts. So one fine day, traces were found of the people who gave the world the first writing in history - the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the later large city-states of Asia Minor and the Middle East.

Amazing luck also accompanied the former London engraver George Smith, who deciphered the outstanding Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. In 1872 he worked as an assistant in the Egyptian-Assyrian department of the British Museum. While deciphering part of the text written on clay tablets (they were sent to London by Hormuz Rasam, Rawlinson's friend and also an intelligence officer), Smith discovered that a number of the tablets described the exploits of a hero named Gilgamesh.

He realized that part of the story was missing because several tablets were missing. Smith's discovery caused a sensation. The Daily Telegraph even promised £1,000 to anyone who could find the missing pieces of the tale. George took advantage of this and went to Mesopotamia. And what do you think? His expedition managed to find 384 tablets, among which was the missing part of the epic that changed our understanding of the Ancient World.

All these “oddities” and “accidents” accompanying the big discovery have led to the emergence of many supporters of the conspiracy theory in the world, which says: ancient Sumer never existed, it was all the work of a brigade of swindlers!

But why did they need this? The answer is simple: in the middle of the 19th century, Europeans decided to firmly establish themselves in the Middle East and Asia Minor, where there was a clear smell of great profit. But for their presence to appear legitimate, a theory was required to justify their appearance. And then a myth appeared about the Indo-Aryans - the white-skinned ancestors of Europeans who lived here from time immemorial, before the arrival of the Semites, Arabs and other “unclean” ones. This is how the idea of ​​ancient Sumer arose - a great civilization that existed in Mesopotamia and gave humanity the greatest discoveries.

But what then to do with clay tablets, cuneiform writing, gold jewelry and other material evidence of the reality of the Sumerians? “All this was collected from a variety of sources,” conspiracy theorists say. “It is not without reason that the heterogeneity of the cultural heritage of the Sumerians is explained by the fact that each of their cities was a separate state - Ur, Lagash, Nineveh.”

However, serious scientists do not pay attention to these objections. Moreover, this, may ancient Sumer forgive us, is nothing more than a version that can simply be ignored.

Igor RODIONOV