Streets of Sumer

On the agenda today is the infrastructure and culture of

ancient Sumer. This vastly colorful civilization was

extremely colourful and efficient when it comes to

everyday life. They also had a lot of firsts for the ancient

world, especially at their time in history. I'll start with a

basic rundown of the cities within, and how the people

lived. I will also go into their communication methods, and

some of the incredible infrastructure they employed in their

cities. I will even talk a little about each city to the best of

my ability, and as always, if i leave anything out or if

something is incorrect, please leave it in the comments

below.

So, obviously, I’m not going to talk about every sumerian

city, but what I will talk about is the most Important ones,

or rather the central cities of Kingship. Those cities would

be Eridu, Uruk, Ur, Larsa, Isin, Adab, Kullah, Lagash,

Nippur, and Kish. The most well known being Eridu,

Uruk, Ur, Lagash and Nippur. They were mostly

nestled between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers

in what is now known as Iraq.

I wasn't originally going to give a rundown of each

city, and as there is a few things to talk about the

known culture of Sumer, I think it's fitting to talk

about a few, as it all ties into it.

Ur is the fabled home of Abraham, and was a center

of worship for the fertility goddess Inanna. My

understanding from research is that the city itself

was destroyed and rebuilt many times, and housed

a ziggurat dedicated to Inanna that rose 70ft over the

desert. There were other dynasties of rulers who later

excavated, rebuilt and built on to the city, eventually

making it one of the most prosperous cities of

mesopotamia. Ur sat on the northern tip of the persian

gulf, next to the Euphrates river.

Uruk was a very important city in history, as writing

was considered to be birthed here with the creation

of the well known Sumerian cylinder seal. This was

also home of the historical king Gilgamesh, whose

epic outlined his search for immortality and his

meeting of the gods. In some of the research I have

found, the city was dedicated to two prime deities,

one being Inanna, and her grandfather, Anu. It was

believed that Anu presided over the city originally,

and later he handed it down to Inanna. It is popular

belief the city was founded in about 4500 bc, but

many researchers believe that date contradicts what

the sumerians themselves wrote, and it could be

much much older.

Eridu was considered the first city of Sumer according

to the Sumerian Kings List, and the first home of the

gods. There is also a debate from mainstream

scholars of this being the home of the famed ‘Garden

of Eden’, but many believe it had another location. It

is also believed by mainstream scholars that this later

became a center for Inanna, but i find it hard to believe

that she would control all the cities of the area,

including the first. Eridu was the home of the Abzu,

temple to the god Enki. In some research, it's

suggested that this was a main landing place of the

gods, and much of the mined gold was moved through

here.

These cities were built with different styles of

architecture for their dwellings and temples.

Dwellings often consisted of a mud brick style

construction, while temples were built on a

megalithic scale using multi-ton blocks that survived

the ages. Most dwellings were equipped with basic

plumbing, so to speak, or basic toilets that led way to

a complex sewer system to bring waste out of the

cities. They had a booming social system and many

of the same amenities that we have today. From

doctors to printing presses. Though doctors weren’t

actually doctors at the time, they were known as

chemists, or alchemists, and there are places in the

world today that pharmacies are still known as

chemists, such as Great Britain. The Sumerian

chemists would often prescribed their patients things

for their ailments written on clay tablets. Which brings

me to what we could call their newspaper. The

Sumerians essentially made the first printing press

using the cylinder seal. Whatever message, picture,

or news they wanted written was carved in reverse

on the cylinder seal and rolled out into clay tablets

and baked for a few hours. My guess is that like

modern newspapers of our time, people worked into

the night to have the tablets ready for people to read

by morning. While the news wasn't as complex as

ours is today, they would outline upcoming events

and things the gods expected of them.

What marvels me the most about this culture is the

temples they built. Most we still don't know today

how they were built. As mentioned earlier about the

ziggurat of Ur that was dedicated to Inanna, they

were many more. One of the most complex was

Baalbek in Lebanon, which used in some places up

to 1300 ton stones. Stones which we cannot be

moved today. It's clear they had a method of

construction that makes ours today obsolete as

these stones were carved and placed in a manner

that wouldn't even allow a piece of paper to fit

between.

While the Sumerians had many firsts, they people

eventually abandoned these cities. But the amount

of technology used here is vast and still

unexplainable to this day. Their social life revolved

around the gods, and times of the year are very

important, such as harvest celebrations and so on.

So this obviously isn't everything there is about

Sumer. But I realize at the end of this that I will

have more to post on this topic at a later date.

There are many more cities, and important centres

of culture to go through. And the information is vast.

So stay tuned for a second part to this post.

So as always, thanks for supporting my blog. Like,

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new I release.

Warm regards,

Spencer