Sumerians: A History From Beginning to End

by Henry Freeman

As a result, they developed the lunar calendar. With surplus agricultural products, this led to job specialization and the development of trade.

Although some people think that pesticides are a modern invention, Sumerians used elemental sulfur to protect their crops from insects.

With regard to urban planning, Sumer is the site of the first city-states (Eridu and Uruk).

However, Stephen Bertman revealed that after the Sumerians named all the constellations (the names we still call them by today), in the fifth century BCE, astrology took a personal turn.

Finally, the Sumerian version and Biblical versions of the Flood story show numerous parallels.

“The Literature of Ancient Sumer,” a 400-page anthology from the Oxford University Press, and presents the most comprehensive collection ever published covering the literary heritage of the world’s oldest literature.

system which could be counted physically using the twelve knuckles on one hand and the five fingers on the other hand, which creates 60 when multiplied together. Slanted markings represented numbers up to 10. Vertical markings represented tens and multiples of ten. The number 60 was represented alongside these markings. They used different size reeds to record numbers in the tens versus numbers in units of 60 and 600. We continue to use the sexagesimal system since we continue to use 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, as well as 360 degrees in a circle.

In terms of advancements in astronomy, the Sumerians made star catalogues and used a 12-month solar calendar along with a 354-day lunar calendar. By the 3 rd millennium BCE, they regularly used a 360-day calendar. Evidence found in the underground library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh has puzzled experts, since it may indicate that the Sumerians observed the impact of an asteroid over 5,000 years ago.

They developed astronomical mythology and provided us with Constellation names like Leo, Sagittarius and Capricorn. They mapped the movement of the sky, sun, stars, planets, and moon.

There is some evidence that Sumerian doctors used distillation pots to make chemical compounds, and if that is the case, then they were the first medical practitioners to make distilled compounds for treating wounds or ailments. As early as 3000-4000 BCE, the Sumerians seem to have cultivated opium poppy and applied it for general anesthesia for painless surgery.

according to Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer. When heaven and earth were separated by the atmosphere, astral bodies, animals, plants and human life were created.

Innana was the goddess of love and fertility.

Even as the world’s media focuses on Syrians fleeing violence and terror in the region, many of us have turned our attention to Mesopotamiato better understand the nature of conflicts now.

For one thing, scientists determined in 2001 that the rich Fertile Crescent was almost gone, based on satellite imagery; only 10% of the important ecosystem still remained.

The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard operated by the Norwegian government, also known as the Doomsday Vault, has preserved seeds that have been grown by humanity for years. They include the important storehouse gene bank in Aleppo, Syria that includes over 100,000 varieties of crops inherited by previous generation, both extinct and existing. The Aleppo center has sent a good portion of the seeds and samples to the Doomsday Vault as backup.

They’ve also found evidence of Sumerian long-distance commerce: dark tropic wood and a sliver of ebony from India 4,000 years ago.

As the inventors of writing, Sumerians started to represent the world around them - and that’s something our human ancestors would appreciate that we still do today. Despite the language barriers and thousands of years, humans still rely on each other.

The Akkadians are a Semitic group while the Sumerians were a non-Semitic group.

Semitic languages have striking differences when compared to Aryan languages.

Today, the three main Semitic religions are considered to be Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Non-Semitic languages are often divided into Aryan or Hamitic religions.