Sumer — the First Recorded Human Civilization — that We Know Of
Mainstream historians and archaeologists commonly regard the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as the “cradle of civilization.” Between 3500 and 1900 BC, this area was the home of the Sumerian people of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia means “between rivers” in Greek, referring to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is today known as Iraq. Virtually nothing was known about the Sumerians until 180 years ago.
There were four main kingdoms in Mesopotamia. Sumer was the oldest, followed by the Kingdom of Akkad (begun by Sargon I), then Assyria and Babylonia. Mainstream historians now say that Sumer was the first recorded civilization predating Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
The Sumerians were extraordinary people. They seemed to come from out of nowhere. And they supposedly single-handedly created a civilization when most of the rest of the world was still living in the Stone Age. The Sumerian civilization was already ancient when it ended in 2000 BC. That is twenty centuries before Julius Caesar, sixteen centuries before Socrates, and seven centuries before Tutankhamen.
The discovery of Sumer
In 1843, a French scientist named Paul-Emile Botta discovered Sargon II’s Assyrian palace near modern-day Khor Sabad in northern Iraq. Inside he found a great room filled with statues of ‘gods’ and kings, all kinds of beautiful treasures, and many inscriptions all over the walls written in ancient Sumerian cuneiform.
In 1849, Austen Henry Layard discovered the ancient Sumerian city of Nineveh — a city located along the east bank of the Tigris River, opposite the city of Mosul and mentioned in the Bible. Within his excavations, Layard discovered the palace of Sennacherib which is also well-known in the Bible.
And within the palace, Layard unearthed a treasure trove of ancient cuneiform texts detailing accounts of the creation of Earth, man, and the lives of the gods.
Then, three years later, Layard’s assistant discovered the palace and great library of Assurbanipal (Sennacherib’s grandson) on the opposite side of the mount. In both discoveries, they found archives. And together, the archives contained about 20,000 to 30,000 clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions.
Within ten years, archaeologists had also discovered the ruins of the legendary Sumerian capital city of Ur — home of the biblical figure Abraham. At the site, scientists unearthed the great Ziggurat of Ur, a stepped pyramid structure that was the city’s administrative center. Scientists also discovered tombs adorned in gold and more cuneiform tablets.
What we now attribute to Sumer
A great and fully evolved civilization came from Sumer that handed down the basics for all ensuing Western cultures — from written language and law to mathematics, agriculture, and astronomy. The Sumerians were the first culture in modern history that built actual cities with streets and a street grid. They even invented cobblestones.
The Sumerians developed the wheel, schools, medical science, the first written proverbs, history, the first bipartite congress, taxation, laws, social reforms, the first cosmology, and the first money (a weighed silver shekel). They even had a sewage system. And it is interesting to note that Iraq derived its name from the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk.
Sumerian knowledge of the stars was both amazing and puzzling. Sumerian understanding of the movements of the sun and moon resulted in the world’s first calendar — which was used for centuries afterward by the Semites, Egyptians, and Greeks. And few people realize that we also owe our geometry and modern timekeeping systems to the Sumerians.
From hunter-gatherers to city builders
All these advanced concepts of society showed up in Sumer 6,000 years ago. Yet, despite all these accomplishments, and according to conventional history, Sumer grew out of a collection of hunter-gatherer clans who banded together to form the first human civilization within the Tigris-Euphrates Valley around 4000 BC.
And by 3300 BC (just 700 years later), the Sumerians had drained marshes, dug canals, constructed dams and dikes, and built a large-scale irrigation system next to gleaming cities containing massive pyramidal structures called ziggurats.
The downfall of Sumer
As the Sumerian civilization thrived for more than a millennium in Mesopotamia, the Akkadians in Akkad to the south were their understudies. The Akkadians learned much from the Sumerians before emerging first as their rivals and ultimately as their rulers.
By 2350 BC, Sumer became captive to the warrior king Sargon the Great, who founded the Semite Akkadian Dynasty. Through his victories, King Sargon of Akkad established the world’s first empire more than 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. An empire that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.
King Sargon ruled for more than 50 years and founded a dynasty that held firm through the reign of his grandson, Naram-Sin. Then, after years of wars and population displacements, the lands of Sumer were eventually united under Hammurabi, the ruler of Babylon, who is best known for developing a code of laws known as the Code of Hammurabi, which was used to regulate Mesopotamian society.
Clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions
So, what and who enabled the sudden initial spurt of civilization in Sumer thousands of years ago? The Sumerians invented the first known writing system using a cuneiform script on clay tablets. The word cuneiform means “wedge-shaped.” Cuneiform was etched onto wet clay tablets with a wedge-shaped stylus.
These tablets were then dried, baked, and kept in large libraries. About 500,000 of these clay tablets have now been found. The messages carved into stone are considered the world’s first written accounts. And they provide invaluable knowledge of ancient Sumer.
Through these clay tablets, as well as cylinder seals, and stele, the Sumerians provided a richly detailed version of man’s early history, including the creation story of both Earth and man. There are startling and numerous similarities between the Sumerian creation stories, later Babylonian myths, and the later Judeo-Christian Bible stories. Virtually every story in Genesis — the flood story, the Adam and Eve story — take precedence in ancient Sumer.
Sumerian King List
One particularly interesting Sumerian cuneiform tablet is known as the Sumerian King List. It was found in ancient Mesopotamia and dates to around 2100 BC. The list contains names not of gods but 140 Sumerian rulers and the length of their reigns.
What’s most interesting about this list is that the rulers had enormously long lives. At first glance, the list seems unbelievable, as it states, “After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu. In Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28,800 years.”
Other kings served even longer, according to the list. For example, Alalngar reigned for 36,000 years, while En-men-lu-ana ruled for an astonishing 43,200 years. Such longevity is also recorded in the Bible, wherein Methuselah, Noah, Seth, Enos, and others are reported to have lived more than nine hundred years.
After the Great Flood, these numbers decreased until Gilgamesh ruled for a mere 126 years, followed by others whose reigns were in only the double-digit range. Either there was something very wrong with the ancient counting systems, or something very unearthly was occurring with the rulers.
The first immortals in Mesopotamia
According to the Sumerian cuneiform texts, the ‘Anunnaki’ were the first supreme immortals. The Anunnaki were described in detail, including how they lived for thousands of years. The Sumerians described them as nonphysical spirit beings who could morph or phase into human form. They came from the heavens to Earth on a special mission — to bring wisdom and to mine certain minerals. They had tremendous knowledge and power over the entire world.
Stories from Sumer — Myth, Religion, or History?
Mainstream scholars take the position that the ancient Sumerians were talking about ethereal and imaginary beings in the sky in their reference to the Anunnaki. But we should question why ancient scribes would have taken the time and energy to painstakingly write down fables of dreamlike fantasy. Would it not be more reasonable to assume that they wrote tales to recount dimly remembered history instead of fanciful myths?
It is important to understand that early on, the Sumerians never considered nor referred to the Anunnaki — the beings who brought them knowledge — as “gods.” The reference to sky beings as “gods” was fashioned by western and near eastern civilizations and religions that followed Sumer, including the Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Judaism, and Christianity.
A better explanation of what transpired is that the original Mesopotamian writings of Sumer were recorded as history. This history was later rewritten to form a base for new religious cults, including Judaism and then Christianity. The corrupted dogma — in the form of new approved history — was so different from the original writings that the early first-hand reports in Sumer were labeled “mythology.”
Interestingly, before the 19th century, the Bible was considered the oldest book globally, and its narratives were thought to be completely original. But once the Sumerian cuneiform was translated, it was understood that many biblical narratives were Mesopotamian in origin. Famous stories such as the Fall of Man and the Great Flood were originally conceived and written down in Sumer, translated and modified later in Babylon before the Hebrew scribes plagiarized them for the versions which appear in the Bible.
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