Sumer

The origin sumérienne of our civilization

Civilization sumérienne appeared according to Jean Margueron owing to the fact that the German wheat, cereal pushing naturally since millenia near the banks of the Tiger and Euphrate, allowed 9000 years ago with the man of then of sédentariser by replacing the need to feed from day to day by the possibility of storing cereals, therefore food, over one year, thus inducing an urban organization and a phenomenal irrigation on thousands of hectares. Its development is characterized by the invention of the writing and the architecture from which result the majority from the Islamic myths Judeo-Christians then: the Flood, the Gods, the Tower of Babel, the trilogy, the Hell, etc The appearance of this urban civilization is attractive by its suddenness: a kind of creation ab nihilo.

Certain authors, as Jean Louis Huot (see Bibliography - external bonds) think that this civilization is the result of the slow evolution by sedentarisation of the human communities which occupied this " paradise perdu" since ten millenia. At a certain time, they obtained the tool which enabled them to note the language that they for a long time spoke without the écrire".

This civilization was destroyed by sterilization saltworks of the arable lands and the geographical shift of the beds of the rivers.

Political structure

The use of the writing is concomitant with a complex organization of the company. It is managed, in way meticulous person and meddles, by a monarchical and sacerdotal State directed by a king ( lugal , “large man”) or a prince ( ensi , formerly read patesi ).

The sumerologist Th. Jacobsen proposes the idea of a primitive democracy at the origins of Sumer. While being based mainly on the myths which put in scene assemblies where intervene of the heroes, of the men or of the divinities (epopee of Gilgamesh), he thinks that the oldest political institution would have been an assembly of free men where the Old ones would have managed go concern and when the need was felt some, would have delegated powers to a “ in ” for important work or to a “ lugal ” in the event of war. In this system, the religious authorities and royal could have developed with the detriment of free men.

Karl August Wittvogel defends the thesis of a hydraulic State. Civilization sumérienne offers an example, among others, existence of a despotic capacity required by the need for organizing and for managing a distribution network of water: it was necessary to distribute this one equitably, but also to obtain by the drudgery necessary work with creation, then with the maintenance of this network. This theory could be easily melted with that of a primitive democracy and the despotism of the royal capacity. It was fought, in particular after the searchs for R. McAdams, which show that the networks of irrigation of Sumer at the beginning of thousand-year-old IIIe did not require a coercive capacity, each agglomeration needing only one territory reduced to provide for its needs. Moreover, the historians did not find in the texts the proof that the Eastern despotism is resulting from the problems involved in the management of water, even if one of the royal tasks were to ensure the construction and the management of the channels. Research in this field is not finished and one can wonder whether the regional development of Mari, whose realization required certainly very large means as men and time, could be done without a coercive capacity, being based on the idea of the State and his needs.

Civilization and art

One must in particular in Sumériens (and with their successors Akkadien S):

the foundation of the first city-States (Ur, Lagash, Uruk, Umma, etc);
the work of the Copper;
the use of the brick in the construction of dwellings;
first known religious architecture (Temple S then Ziggourat S);
the development of the statuary;
the Glyptique (art to engrave on fine stones);
the writing, initially pictographic, then Wedge-shaped;
mathematics and the writing of the numbers in sexagesimal System: Numeration sumérienne.
first forms of Slavery.
the Trade and concept of money.

Religion

The religion sumérienne influenced the whole of Mésopotamie during nearly 3000 years. It is a very important of life, private component like public, of Sumériens and gives rise to artistic representations as with literary works. In the design sumérienne, the sovereign is only the agent of the divinity: its function is sacerdotal as well as political.

The religion sumérienne is characterized by its Polythéisme and its Syncrétisme. Its Pantheon counts a large variety of gods, structured in a strict hierarchy, copied on the human society. At the top the cosmic triad made up is of:

Year (“god-sky”), Master of the sky, king of the gods, and his Parèdre Antum;
Enlil (“lord-air”), Master of the ground, demiurge, protective god of Nippur, and its parèdre Ninlil;
Enki (“lord-ground”?), Ea for the Semitic , Master of the fresh water, whose Holy City is Eridu.

Under this triad are the astral divinities like the god-moon Nanna (Sîn in Akkadien) and the god-sun Utu (Shamash in akkadien); then infernal gods and warlike gods; then gods of nature and the gods healers; then gods of instruments (pickaxe, brick mould, etc) and finally spirits and other demons.

See too

Random links:

Phil Seymour | Eating inventory, of Stunkard and Messick | Sociable plover | Frank Busemann