Wednesday, July 2, 2014

The Sumerians





The Samarra bowl, at thePergamonmuseum, Berlin. Theswastika in the center of the design is a reconstruction.[17]





The Sumerians lived in ancient Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which is now modern day Iraq.  Their civilization existed about 6000 years ago (4000 BC).  Their cities included Ur, Eridu, Larsa, Isisn, Adab, Nippur, and Kish.

Each city-sate was independent and ruled by a king called a lugal, or en.  The main temple of each city was a ziggurat.  Most people were farmers in ancient Sumer.  There were scholars, fishermen, craftspeople, merchants, and other professions.  Slavery existed and disobedient children could be sold into slavery.

The Sumerians had many gods and goddesses that they worshipped.

The Sumerian civilization gave way to the Akkadians which then gave way to the Assyrians.  The Assyrians gave way to the Babylonians and finally into the modern country of Iraq.

The four most important gods/goddesses of ancient Sumer were:

An - The heaven god of the calendars and seasons.

Enlil - The storm god known as the father of the gods and king of heaven and earth.  He created agricultural tools.

Enki - The water god and god of wisdom who organized the earth per Enlil's instructions.

Ninhursag - The earth goddess and great mother -goddess.


I will show through the ancient myths that these gods/goddesses correspond to the Greek gods as follows:


An is the equivalent of Uranus.

Enlil is the equivalent of Cronus.

Enki  is the equivalent of Zeus.

Ninhursag is the equivalent of Demeter.


Some of their other gods/goddesses included:


Nanna (probably another name for Zeus)

Utu (Apollo)

Ishtar (Aphrodite)

Ereshkigal (Persephone)

Tiamat ( a great grandmother of Anu-Uranus)

Abzu ( a great grandfather of Anu-Uranus)

Dumuzi (Dionysus)

Gilgamesh (Heracles)



The Sumerians worshipped their gods/goddesses and also believed in a life after death.  They used a writing form known as Cuneiform to record their stories, records, and contracts.  The Sumerians were not a Semitic people.  The Sumerian culture and subsequent cultures declined because of the invasions by Akkadian Semites who finally took over with King Hammurabi in Babylon and the establishment of the Babylonian Empire as their last great empire (Akkadian kings took over about 4200 years ago).



Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in Shuruppak, Sumerian tablet, circa 2600 BC


Because Sumer was a collection of city-states, there was no strong national defense and this is one reason they were taken over.  The ancient gods/goddesses of the Sumerians were the Cronides who traveled the world.  I will be showing this through the ancient myths and the application of the Mythological Unification Theory.


Early chariots on the Standard of Ur, c. 2600 BC.



Just like the Egyptian Empire, the Sumerian Empire was taken over by Semites and run into the ground.  Like most empires, the disgusting usage of slaves (captured people) was present since the people were either too lazy or not self-reliant enough to do their menial labor.  It appears it only took a couple of hundred years to destroy ancient Sumer just as the Hyksos did in ancient Egypt.  From Wikipedia:


The Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC). Under Sargon and his successors, Akkadian language was briefly imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history,[7] though there are earlier Sumerian claimants.[8]
After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, the Akkadian people of Mesopotamia eventually coalesced into two major Akkadian speaking nations: Assyria in the north, and, a few centuries later, Babylonia in the south. 


Important Canaanite populations first appeared in Egypt towards the end of the 12th Dynasty c. 1800 BC, and either around that time or c. 1720 BC, formed an independent realm in the eastern Nile Delta.[5] The Canaanite rulers of the Delta, regrouped in the14th Dynasty, coexisted with the Egyptian 13th Dynasty, based in Itjtawy. The power of the 13th and 14th dynasties progressively waned, perhaps due to famine and plague,[5][6] and c. 1650 BC both were invaded by the Hyksos, who formed their own dynasty, the 15th Dynasty. The collapse of the 13th Dynasty created a power vacuum in the south, which may have led to the rise of the 16th Dynasty, based in Thebes, and possibly of a local dynasty in Abydos.[5] Both were eventually conquered by the Hyksos, albeit for a short time in the case of Thebes. From then on, the 17th Dynasty took control of the Thebes and reigned for some time in peaceful coexistence with the Hyksos kings, perhaps as their vassals. Eventually, Seqenenre TaoKamose and Ahmose waged war against the Hyksos and expelled Khamudi, their last king, from Egypt c. 1550 BC.[5]



Overview map of the Ancient Near East in the 15th century BC (Middle Assyrian period), showing the core territory of Assyria with its two major cities Assur and Nineveh wedged between Babylonia downstream (to the south-east) and the states of Mitanniand Hatti upstream (to the north-west)



Assyrian, 1400 BC




Sumero-early Akkadian pantheon


by Rita Jean Moran (www.thelibrarykids.com and www.hiddenhumanstory.com)


Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos


1 comment:

  1. Have you read the book "The 12th planet" by Zecharia Sitchen, first published 1976?

    I think you will find all this book includes a much more concise, accurate and elaborate source on Ancient Sumeria and earth both pre-Adamic and the post-Adamic (after the deluge).

    This is one of the few times where I think Wikipedia will fail if you want actual facts (the opposite of facts is peer reviewed papers by professionals speculating on possible findings).

    I'm not suggested the conclusion of the book is definitely true, only that the research compiled and evidence provided kind of makes it seem like what you have stated above dimishes the true importance of our human history.

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