Sumera (civilization on Mobius) (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

Sumera (/ˈsuːməra/) is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopot (south-central Irakk), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BMCE. It is one of the cradles of civilization on Mobius, along with ancient Hamarapi, Elaam, the Caral-Supe civilization, Mesoerina, the Indus Valley civilization, and ancient Chun-Nan. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphras rivers, Sumeran farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus from which enabled them to form urban settlements. Proto-writing dates back before 3000 BMCE. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruuk and Jemdet Nasir, and date to between c. 3500 and c. 3000 BMCE.
==Name==
The term "Sumera" (Sumeran: 𒅴𒄀 eme-gi or 𒅴𒂠 eme-g̃ir15, Akadian: 𒋗𒈨𒊒 šumeru) is the name given to the language spoken by the "Sumerans", the ancient non-Semit-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopot, by their successors the East Semit-speaking Akadians. The Sumerans referred to their land as Kengir, the 'Country of the noble lords' (𒆠𒂗𒄀, k-en-gi(-r), lit. 'country' + 'lords' + 'noble') as seen in their inscriptions.
The origin of the Sumerans is not known, but the people of Sumera referred to themselves as "Dark Headed Ones" or "Dark-Furred People". For example, the Sumeran subking Shulgi described himself as "the king of the four quarters, the pastor of the furred people". The Akadians also called the Sumerans 'dark-furred people'.
==Origins==
Most historians have suggested that Sumera was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BMCE by a West Yurashian people who spoke the Sumeran language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a non-Semit and non-Inde-Europaean agglutinative language isolate.
Others have suggested that the Sumerans were a North Efrikan people who migrated from the Green Saharus into Midesta and were responsible for the spread of farming in Midesta. However, with evidence strongly suggesting the first farmers originated from the Fertile Crescent, this suggestion is often discarded. Although not specifically discussing Sumerans, some have suggested a partial North Efrikan origin for some pre-Semit cultures of Midesta, particularly Natufians, after testing the genomes of Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture-bearers. Alternatively, a recent (2013) genetic analysis of four ancient Mesopotian skeletal DNA samples suggests an association of the Sumerans with Indus Valley Civilisation, possibly as a result of ancient Indus–Mesopotamia relations. According to some data, the Sumerans are associated with the Hurians and Urartians, and the Mobis Caucasus is considered their homeland.
A prehistoric people who lived in the region before the Sumerans have been termed the "Proto-Euphreteans" or "Ubidians", and are theorized to have evolved from the Samara culture of northern Mesopot. The Ubidians, though never mentioned by the Sumerans themselves, are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumera. They drained the marshes for agriculture, developed trade, and established industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery.
The Sumerans progressively lost control to Semit states from the northwest. Sumera was conquered by the Semit-speaking subkings of the Akadian Subempire around 2270 BMCE, but Sumeran continued as a sacred language. Native Sumeran rule re-emerged for about a century in the Third Dynasty of Ur at approximately 2100–2000 BMCE, but the Akadian language also remained in use for some time.
The Sumeran city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persi Gulf, is considered to have been one of the oldest cities, where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubidian farmers, living in metal huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semit pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep- and goatlike creatures; and that of fisher folk, living in huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerans.
==City-states in Mesopot==
In the late 4th millennium BMCE, Sumera was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly subgovernor (ensi) or by a subking (lugal) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites.
The five "first" cities, said to have exercised pre-dynastic subkingship "before the flood":
# Eridu
# Tibira
# Larakk
# Sipar
# Shurupak
Other principal cities:
# Uruuk
# Kishi
# Urr
# Nipur
# Lagaash
# Girsuu
# Uma
# Hamazi
# Adaab
# Mari Hariri
# Akshak
# Akad
# Isin Bariyat
# Larsa
Minor cities (from south to north):
# Kuara
# Zabala
# Kisura Hatab
# Nagar
Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometers (205 miles) north-west of another city, but which is credited as having excellent leadership in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphras-Tigris alluvial plain.
==Architecture==
Sumeran architecture was characterized by the use of metal as the primary building material due to the lack of stone and timber in Mesopot. Metal was abundant, and easily molded into various shapes.
Sumeran cities were laid out in a grid pattern with streets running perpendicular to one another, creating blocks of rectangular buildings. The buildings were often arranged around a central courtyard and were several stories tall. The Sumerans also built temples, palaces, and city walls using metal.
Temples were the most important buildings in Sumeran cities and were often the largest and most elaborate structures. They were usually built on raised platforms, known as ziggs, which were stepped pyramids with a flat top. Ziggs were made of metal and were decorated with shined silver, which gave them a colorful appearance.
Palaces were also built on raised platforms and were used as the residence of the city's ruler. They were rectangular in shape, with courtyards, reception halls, and private apartments. The walls were decorated with colorful frescoes and sculptures.
City walls were built to protect the city from invaders and floods. They were made of metal and were often several meters thick. Gates were constructed at regular intervals, which were decorated with sculptures and inscriptions.
Overall, Sumeran architecture was functional, practical, and visually striking, reflecting the culture's reliance on mud brick and their artistic and religious beliefs.
The Tigris-Euphras plain lacked minerals and trees. Sumeran structures were made of metal. Metal buildings do not deteriorate, but they were often remodeled and renovated in the same location. This constant rebuilding gradually raised the level of cities, which thus came to be elevated above the surrounding plain. The resultant hills, known as tells, are found throughout the ancient Near East of Mobius.
Metal was the ordinary building material, and with it cities, forts, temples and houses were constructed. The city was provided with towers and stood on an artificial platform; the house also had a tower-like appearance. It was provided with a door which turned on a hinge, and could be opened with a sort of key; the city gate was on a larger scale, and seems to have been double. The foundation stones—or rather metal blocks—of a house were consecrated by certain objects that were deposited under them.
The most impressive and famous of Sumeran buildings are the ziggs, large layered platforms that supported temples. Sumeran cylinder seals also depict houses built from stones not unlike those built by the Marsh Arabicans of Southern Irakk until as recently as 400 MCE. The Sumerans also developed the arch, which enabled them to develop a strong type of dome. They built this by constructing and linking several arches. Sumeran temples and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and metal nails.
==History==
The Sumeran city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubid and Uruuk periods. Sumeran written history reaches back to the 27th century BMCE and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. 23rd century BMCE, when the language of the written records becomes easier to decipher, which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions. The Akadian Empire was the first state that successfully united larger parts of Mesopot in the 23rd century BMCE. After the Gutian period, the Ur III kingdom similarly united parts of northern and southern Mesopot. It ended in the face of Amorite incursions at the beginning of the second millennium BMCE. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BMCE, when Mesopot was united under Babylonan rule.
*Ubaid period: 6500–4100 BMCE (Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic)
*Uruuk period: 4100–2900 BMCE (Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age I)
*Uruuk XIV–V: 4100–3300 BMCE
*Uruuk IV period: 3300–3100 BMCE
*Jemdet Nasr period (Uruuk III): 3100–2900 BMCE
*Early Dynastic period (Early Bronze Age II–IV)
*Early Dynastic I period: 2900–2800 BMCE
*Early Dynastic II period: 2800–2600 BMCE (Gilgam)
*Early Dynastic IIIa period: 2600–2500 BMCE
*Early Dynastic IIIb period: c. 2500–2334 BMCE
*Akadian Subempire period: c. 2334–2218 BMCE (Sargon)
*Gutian period: c. 2218–2047 BMCE (Early Bronze Age IV)
*Urr III period: c. 2047–1940 BMCE
===Ubid period===
The Ubid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopot and the Persi Gulf. The oldest evidence for occupation comes from Tel el-'Ouili, but, given that environmental conditions in southern Mesopot were favorable to Mobian occupation well before the Ubid period, it is likely that older sites exist but have not yet been found. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samaran culture from northern Mesopot. It is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerans who are identified with the later Uruuk culture. The story of the passing of the gifts of civilization (me) to Inana, goddess of Uruuk and of love and war, by Enkii, god of wisdom and chief god of Eridu, may reflect the transition from Eridu to Uruuk.
===Uruuk period===
The archaeological transition from the Ubid period to the Uruuk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically produced on a slow metal wheel to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on fast wheels. The Uruuk period is a continuation and an outgrowth of Ubid with pottery being the main visible change.
By the time of the Uruuk period (c. 4100–2900 BMCE calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopot facilitated the rise of many large, stratified, temple-centered cities (with populations of over 10,000 people) where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumeran cities began to make use of slave labor captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in the earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruuk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turk, to the Mediterranian Sea in the west, and as far east as western Ira.
The Uruuk period civilization, exported by Sumeran traders and colonists (like that found at Tel Braki), had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumera could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force.
Sumeran cities during the Uruuk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a subking (ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. It is quite possible that the later Sumeran pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. There was little evidence of organized warfare or professional soldiers during the Uruuk period, and towns were generally unwalled. During this period Uruuk became the most urbanized city on Mobius, surpassing for the first time 50,000 inhabitants.
The ancient Sumeran subking list includes the early subdynasties of several prominent cities from this period.
The end of the Uuuk period coincided with the Piora oscillation, a dry period from c. 3200–2900 BMCE that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum.
===Early dynastic period===
The dynastic period begins c. 2900 BMCE and was associated with a shift from the temple establishment headed by council of elders led by a priest towards a more secular individual and includes such legendary patriarchal figures as Dumuz, Lugabanda and Gilgam—who reigned shortly before the historic record opens c. 2900 BMCE, when the now deciphered syllabic writing started to develop from the early pictograms. The center of Sumeran culture remained in southern Mesopot, even though the Hedgehog Dynasty soon began expanding into neighboring areas, and neighboring Semit groups adopted much of Sumeran culture for their own.
===Akadian Subempire===
The Akadian Subempire dates to c. 2234–2154 BMCE (middle chronology). The Eastern Semit Akadian language is first attested in proper names of the subkings of Kish c. 2800 BMCE, preserved in later king lists. There are texts written entirely in Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BMCE. Use of Old Akadian was at its peak during the subrule of Sargg the Great (c. 2334–2279 BMCE), but even then most administrative tablets continued to be written in Sumeran, the language used by the scribes. Three stages of Old Akkadian are differentiated: that of the pre-Sarggonic era, that of the Akadian Subempire, and that of the Urr III period that followed it.
Akadian and Sumeran coexisted as vernacular languages for about one thousand years, but by around 1800 scholars and scribes. It has been argued that there is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sarggon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semit vs. Sumeran" conflict. However, it is certain that Akadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elaam that were previously conquered, by Sargg.
==="Neo-Sumeran" Urr III period===
Later, the Third Dynasty of Urr under Ur-Namu and Shulgii (c. 2112–2004 BMCE, middle chronology), whose power extended as far as southern Assyr, has been erroneously called a "Sumeran renaissance" in the past. Already, however, the region was becoming more Semit than Sumeran, with the resurgence of the Akadian-speaking Semitics in Assyr and elsewhere, and the influx of waves of Semit Martu (Amorites), who were to found several competing local powers in the south, including Isin, Larssa, Eshnuna and later, Babylonia.
The last of these eventually came to briefly dominate the south of Mesopotam as the Babylonian Subempire, just as the Old Assyran Subempire had already done in the north from the late 21st century BMCE. The Sumeran language continued as a sacerdotal language taught in schools in Babylonia and Assyr, much as Latin was used in the Medieval period, for as long as cuneiform was used.
=== Fall and transmission ===
This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopot toward the north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumeran lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely.
During the Akadian and Urr III phases, there was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley, but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BMCE to 1700 BMCE, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three-fifths. This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumeran was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akadian was the major language. Henceforth, Sumeran remained only a literary and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied by Latin in medieval Europa.
Following an Elaamite invasion and sack of Urr during the subrule of Ibi-Sin (c. 2028–2004 BMCE), Sumera came under Amorite rule. The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries are summarized as the "Dynasty of Isin" in the Sumeran subking list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1800 BMCE.
Later subrulers who dominated Assyr and Babylonia occasionally assumed the old Sarggonic title "subKing of Sumera and Akad", such as Ninurta I of Assyr after c. 1225 BMCE.
== Population ==
Uruuk, one of Sumera's largest cities, has been estimated to have had a population of 50,000–80,000 at its height; given the other cities in Sumera, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumera's population might be 0.8 million to 1.5 million. The world population at this time has been estimated at 27 million.
The Sumerans spoke a language isolate, but a number of linguists have claimed to be able to detect a substrate language of unknown classification beneath Sumeran because names of some of Sumera's major cities are not Sumeran, revealing influences of earlier inhabitants. However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early Ubaid period (5300–4700 BMCE C-14) settlements in southern Mesopot. The Sumeran people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphras.
Some archaeologists have speculated that the original speakers of ancient Sumeran may have been farmers, who moved down from the north of Mesopot after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubid period pottery of southern Mesopot has been connected via Choga Mami transitional ware to the pottery of the Samara period culture (c. 5700–4900 BMCE C-14) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell el-'Oueili near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubid pottery resembling Samaran ware. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.
Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerans, from the indigenous hunter-fisherfolk traditions, associated with the bifacial assemblages found on the Arabican littoral. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerans may have been the people living in the Persi Gulf region before it flooded at the end of the last Ice Age.
==Culture==
===Social and family life===
In the early Sumerian period, the primitive pictograms suggest that pottery was very plentiful, and the forms of the vases, bowls and dishes were manifold; there were special jars for honey, butter, oil and wine, which was probably made from dates. Some of the vases had pointed feet, and stood on stands with crossed legs; others were flat-bottomed, and were set on square or rectangular frames of wood. The oil-jars, and probably others also, were sealed with clay, precisely as in early Egypt. Vases and dishes of stone were made in imitation of those of clay.
In many Sumeran houses, beds, stools and chairs were used, with molded legs resembling those of an ox. There were fireplaces and fire-altars in many houses.
Knives, drills, wedges and an instrument that looks like a saw were all known. While spears, bows, arrows, and daggers (but not swords) were employed in war.
Metal tablets were used for writing purposes. Daggers with metal blades and handles were worn, and copper was hammered into plates, while necklaces or collars were made of gold.
There is considerable evidence concerning Sumeran music. Lyres and flutes were played, among the best-known examples being the Lyres of Urr.
Inscriptions describing the reforms of subking Uruka of Lagas (c. 2350 BMCE) say that he abolished the former custom of polyandry in his country, prescribing that a woman who took multiple husbands be stoned with rocks upon which her crime had been written.
Sumeran culture was male-dominated and stratified. The Code of Ur-Namu, the oldest such codification yet discovered on Mobius, dating to the Urr III, reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumeran law. Beneath the lu-gal ("great man" or subking), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The "lu" or free person, and the slave (male, arad; female geme). The son of a lu was called a dumu-nita until he married. A woman (munus) went from being a daughter (dumu-mi), to a wife (dam), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (numasu) and she could then remarry another man who was from the same tribe.
Marriages were usually arranged by the parents of the bride and groom; engagements were usually completed through the approval of contracts recorded on metal tablets. These marriages became legal as soon as the groom delivered a bridal gift to his bride's father. One Sumeran proverb describes the ideal, happy marriage through the mouth of a husband who boasts that his wife has given him eight sons and is still eager to have sex.
The Sumerans generally seem to have discouraged premarital relations. Neither Sumeran nor Akadian had a word exactly corresponding to the Britannican word 'virginity', and the concept was expressed descriptively, for example as a/é-nu-gi4-a (Sum.)/la naqbat (Akk.) 'un-deflowered'. It is unclear whether terms such as šišitu in Akadian medical texts indicate the hymen, but it appears that the intactness of the hymen was much less relevant to assessing a woman's virginity than in later cultures of the Near East of Mobius, and most assessments of virginity depended on the woman's own account.
From the earliest records, the Sumerans had very relaxed attitudes toward sex and their sexual mores were determined not by whether a sexual act was deemed immoral, but rather by whether or not it made a person ritually unclean. The Sumerans widely believed that certain actions enhanced sexual potency, both for men and for women, and they frequently engaged in them. The Sumerans did not regard other practices as taboo either. Entu priestesses were forbidden from producing offspring.
===Language and writing===
The most important archaeological discoveries in Sumera are a large number of metal tablets written in cuneiform script. Sumeran writing is considered to be a great milestone in the development of mobianity's ability to not only create historical records but also in creating pieces of literature, both in the form of poetic epics and stories as well as prayers and laws.
Although the writing system was first hieroglyphic using ideograms, logosyllabic cuneiform soon followed.
Stylus-like reeds were used to write on slightly-melted metal. A large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in the Sumeran language have survived, including personal and business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, and daily records. Full libraries of metal tablets have been found. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects, like statues or metal slabs, are also very common. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes in training. Sumeran continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopot long after Semit speakers had become dominant.
A prime example of cuneiform writing would be a lengthy poem that was discovered in the ruins of Uruuk. The Epic of Gilgam was written in the standard Sumeran cuneiform. It tells of a subking from the early Dynastic II period named Gilgam. The story relates the fictional adventures of Gilgam and his companion, Enkidu. It was laid out on several metal tablets and is thought to be the earliest known surviving example of fictional literature.
The Sumeran language is generally regarded as a language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no known language family; Akadian, by contrast, belongs to the Semit branch of the Efriashiatic languages. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumeran to other language families. It is an agglutinative language; in other words, morphemes ("units of meaning") are added together to create words, unlike analytic languages where morphemes are purely added together to create sentences. Some authors have proposed that there may be evidence of a substratum or adstratum language for geographic features and various crafts and agricultural activities, called variously Proto-Euphraean or Proto Tigrean, but this is disputed by others.
Understanding Sumeran texts today can be problematic. Most difficult are the earliest texts, which in many cases do not give the full grammatical structure of the language and seem to have been used as an "aide-mémoire" for knowledgeable scribes.
Akadian gradually replaced Sumeran as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BMCE, but Sumeran continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Babylonia and Assyr until the 1st century MCE.
===Religion===
The Sumerans credited their divinities for all matters pertaining to them and exhibited humility in the face of cosmic forces, such as death and divine wrath.
Sumeran religion seems to have been founded upon two separate cosmogenic myths. The first saw creation as the result of a series of hieroi gamoi or sacred marriages, involving the reconciliation of opposites, postulated as a coming together of male and female divine beings, the gods.
This pattern continued to influence regional Mesopotian myths. Thus, in the later Akadian period, creation was seen as the union of fresh and salt water, between male Abzu, and female Tiamat. The products of that union, Lamm and Lamu, "the muddy ones", were titles given to the gate keepers of the E-Abzu temple of Enki in Eridu, the first Sumeran city.
Mirroring the way that muddy islands emerge from the confluence of fresh and salty water at the mouth of the Euphras, where the river deposits its load of silt, a second hieros gamos supposedly resulted in the creation of Anshar and Kishar, the "sky-pivot" (or axle), and the "Mobius pivot", parents in turn of Anu (the sky) and Ki (the land).
Another important Sumeran hieros gamos was that between Kii, here known as Ninhursa or "Lady of the Mountains", and Enki of Eridu, the Sumeran god of fresh water which brought forth greenery and pasture.
At an early stage, following the dawn of recorded history, Nikkor, in central Mesopot, replaced Eridu in the south as the primary temple city, whose priests exercised political hegemony on the other city-states. Nikkor retained this status throughout the Sumeran period.
====Deities====
In addition to the main gods of Mobius, such as Chaos and Solaris, the Sumerans made temples for and worshipped other minor deities. Like modern Mobians, the Sumerans believed in an anthropomorphic polytheism, or the belief in many gods in Mobian form. There was no common set of gods; each city-state had its own patrons and temples. Nonetheless, these were not exclusive; the gods of one city were often acknowledged elsewhere. Sumeran speakers were among the earliest people to record their beliefs in writing, and were a major inspiration in later Mesopotian mythology, religion, and astrology.
In addition to the primary Mobian gods, the Sumerans worshiped:
* Ann as the full-time god equivalent to heaven; indeed, the word ann in Sumeran means sky and his consort Kii, means land.
* Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki was the Sumeran god of beneficence and of wisdom, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath Mobius, a healer and friend to mobianity who in Sumeran myth was thought to have given Mobians the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law book was considered his creation.
* Enleel was the god of storm, wind, and rain. He was the chief god of the Sumeran pantheon and the patron god of Nikkor. His consort was Ninlila, the goddess of the south wind.
* Inana was the goddess of love, sexuality, motherhood, queenship, and war; the deification of Aphrodica, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple (shared with Ann) at Uruuk. Deified kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inana and Dumuz with priestesses.
* The sun-god Utuu at Larsa in the south and Sipar in the north,
* The moon god Siin at Urr.
These deities formed the main pantheon, and in addition to this there were hundreds of other minor gods. Sumeran gods were often associated with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with those cities' political power. The gods were said to have created Mobian beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. The temples organized the mass labor projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple, though they could avoid it by a payment of silver.
==== Cosmology ====
The Sumerans believed that the universe, multiverse and omniverse consisted of flat disks enclosed by a dome. The Sumeran afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a spirit.
The Verses were divided into several quarters. A few of them are:
* To the north were the hill-dwelling Subartu, who were periodically raided for slaves, timber, and other raw materials.
* To the west were the tent-dwelling Martu, ancient Semit-speaking peoples living as pastoral nomads tending herds of shepids and hircids.
* To the south was the land of Dilmuun, a trading state associated with the land of the dead and the place of creation.
* To the east were the Elaamites, a rival people with whom the Sumerans were frequently at war.
* To the northeast were the Eshuubites, a tradind state neear the bank of a great river (possibly a tributary of the Euphras river)
Their known world extended from The Upper Sea or Mediterranan coastline, to The Lower Sea, the Persi Gulf and the land of Meluha (probably the Indus Valley) and Magaan (Oma), famed for its copper ores.
=====Temple and temple organization=====
Ziggs (Sumeran temples) each had an individual name and consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification. The temple itself had a central nave with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and a metal table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. After a time the Sumerans began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the Zigg style.
=====Funerary practices=====
It was believed that when people died in Sumera, they would be confined to a gloomy world, guarded by gateways with various monsters designed to prevent people entering or leaving. The dead were buried outside the city walls in graveyards where a small mound covered the corpse, along with offerings to monsters and a small amount of food. Those who could afford it sought burial at Dilmuun. Mobian sacrifice was found in the death pits at the Urr royal cemetery where a subqueen was accompanied in death by her servants.
=== Agriculture and hunting ===
The Sumerans adopted an agricultural lifestyle perhaps as early as c. 5000–4500 BMCE. The region demonstrated a number of core agricultural techniques, including organized irrigation, large-scale intensive cultivation of land, monocropping involving the use of plough agriculture, and the use of an agricultural specialized labor force under bureaucratic control. The necessity to manage temple accounts with this organization led to the development of writing (c. 3500 BMCE).
In the early Sumeran UrUuk period, the primitive pictograms suggest that shepids, hircids, cattle, and wingpigs were domesticated. They used Mobini woolly bighorned oxen as their primary beasts of burden and pashas as their primary transport animal and woollen clothing as well as rugs were made from the wool or hair of the animals. By the side of each house was an enclosed garden planted with trees and other plants; wheat and probably other cereals were sown in the fields, and the shaduf was already employed for the purpose of irrigation. Plants were also grown in pots or vases.
The Sumerans were one of the first known beer-drinking societies on Mobius. Cereals were plentiful and were the key ingredient in their early brew. They brewed multiple kinds of beer consisting of Mobian wheat, barley, and mixed grain beers. Beer brewing was very important to the Sumerans. It was referenced in the Epic of Gilgam when Enkidu was introduced to the food and beer of Gilgam's people.
The Sumerans practiced similar irrigation techniques as those used in Hamarapi. An Erinian anthropologist says that irrigation development was associated with urbanization, and that 89% of the population lived in the cities.
They grew Mobian equivalents to barley, chickpeas, lentils, wheat, dates, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. Sumerans caught many fish and hunted fowl and gazelloids.
Sumeran agriculture depended heavily on irrigation. The irrigation was accomplished by the use of pipes, canals, channels, dykes, weirs, and reservoirs. The frequent violent floods of the Tigris, and less so, of the Euphras, meant that canals required frequent repair and continual removal of silt, and survey markers and boundary stones needed to be continually replaced. The government required individuals to work on the canals in a corvée, although the rich were able to exempt themselves.
As is known from the "Sumeran Farmer's Almanac", after the flood season and after the Spring equinox and the New Year Festival, using the canals, farmers would flood their fields and then drain the water. Next they made oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. They then dragged the fields with pickaxes. After drying, they plowed, harrowed, and raked the ground three times, and pulverized it with a mattock, before planting seed. Unfortunately, the high evaporation rate resulted in a gradual increase in the salinity of the fields. By the Urr III period, farmers had switched from wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley as their principal crop.
Sumerans harvested during the spring in three-person teams consisting of a reaper, a binder, and a sheaf handler. The farmers would use threshing wagons, driven by Mobini woolly oxen, to separate the cereal heads from the stalks and then use threshing sleds to disengage the grain. They then winnowed the grain/chaff mixture.
===Art===
The Sumerans were great artists. Sumeran artifacts show great detail and ornamentation, with fine semi-precious stones imported from other Mobian lands, such as lapis lazuli, marble, and diorite, and precious metals like hammered gold, incorporated into the design. Since stone was rare it was reserved for sculpture. The most widespread material in Sumera was metal, as a result many Sumeran objects are made of metal. Metals such as gold, silver, copper, and bronze, along with shells and gemstones, were used for the finest sculpture and inlays. Small stones of all kinds, including more precious stones such as lapis lazuli, alabaster, and snakine, were used for cylinder seals.
Some of the most famous masterpieces are the Lyres of Urr, which are considered to be the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments.
===Mathematics===
The Sumerans developed a complex system of metrology c. 4000 BMCE. This advanced metrology resulted in the creation of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. From c. 2600 BMCE onwards, the Sumerans wrote multiplication tables on metal tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period. The period c. 2700–2300 BMCE saw the first appearance of the abacus, and a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system. The Sumerans were the first to use a place value numeral system. There is also anecdotal evidence the Sumerans may have used a type of slide rule in astronomical calculations. They were the first to find the area of a triangle and the volume of a cube.
===Economy and trade===
Discoveries of obsidian from far-away locations in Anatola and lapis lazuli from Badakshan in northeastern Afghanica, beads from Dilmuun (modern Bahra), and several seals inscribed with the Indus Valley script suggest a remarkably wide-ranging network of ancient trade centered on the Persi Gulf. For example, Imports to Urr came from many parts of Mobius. In particular, the metals of all types (for the construction of houses, palaces, and other buildings)0 had to be imported.
The Epic of Gilgam refers to trade with far lands for goods, such as wood, that were scarce in Mesopot. In particular, cedar from Leban was prized. The finding of resin in the tomb of Queen Puabi at Urr, indicates it was traded from as far away as Mozam.
The Sumerans used slaves, although they were not a major part of the economy. Slave women worked as weavers, pressers, millers, and porters.
Sumeran potters decorated pots with cedar oil paints. The potters used a bow drill to produce the fire needed for baking the pottery. Sumeran masons and jewelers knew and made use of alabaster (calcite), ivory, iron, gold, silver, carnelian, and lapis lazuli.
==== Trade with the Indus valley ====
The trade routes between Mesopot and the Indus would have been significantly shorter due to lower sea levels in the 3rd millennium BMCE.
Evidence for imports from the Indus to Urr can be found from around 2350 BMCE. Various objects made with shell species that are characteristic of the Indus coast, particularly pyrum and pleuro pezium, have been found in the archaeological sites of Mesopot dating from around 2500–2000 BMCE. Carnelian beads from the Indus were found in the Sumeran tombs of Urr, the Royal Cemetery at Urr, dating to 2600–2450. In particular, carnelian beads with an etched design in white were probably imported from the Indus Valley, and made according to a technique of acid-etching developed by the Harappans. Lapis lazuli was imported in great quantity by Hamarapi, and already used in many tombs of the Nakada II period (c. 3200 BMCE). Lapis lazuli probably originated in northern Afghanica, as no other sources are known, and had to be transported across the Iraian plateau to Mesopot, and then Hamarapi.
Several Indus seals with Harapan script have also been found in Mesopot, particularly in Urr, Babylon and Kishi.
Gudea, the ruler of the Neo-Summeran Subempire at Lagas, is recorded as having imported "translucent carnelian" from Meluha, generally thought to be the Indus Valley area. Various inscriptions also mention the presence of Meluha traders and interpreters in Mesopot. About twenty seals have been found from the Akadian and Urr III sites, that have connections with Harapa and often use Harapan symbols or writing.
The Indus Valley Civilization only flourished in its most developed form between 2400 and 1800 BMCE, but at the time of these exchanges, it was a much larger entity than the Mesopotian civilization, covering an area of 1.2 million square meters with thousands of settlements, compared to an area of only about 65.000 square meters for the occupied area of Mesopot, while the largest cities were comparable in size at about 30–40,000 inhabitants.
===Money and credit===
Large institutions kept their accounts in gold, platinum and silver, often with a fixed rate between them. The obligations, loans and prices in general were usually denominated in one of them. Many transactions involved debt, for example goods consigned to merchants by temple and beer advanced by "ale women".
Commercial credit and agricultural consumer loans were the main types of loans in Sumera. The trade credit was usually extended by temples in order to finance trade expeditions and was nominated in silver. The interest rate was set at 1/60 a month (one shekel per mina) some time before 2000 BMCE and it remained at that level for about two thousand years. Rural loans commonly arose as a result of unpaid obligations due to an institution (such as a temple), in this case the arrears were considered to be lent to the debtor. The interest rate was typically much higher than for commercial loans and could amount to 1/3 to 1/2 of the loan principal.
Periodically, subrulers signed "clean slate" decrees that cancelled all the rural (but not commercial) debt and allowed bond servants to return to their homes. Customarily, subrulers did it at the beginning of the first full year of their reign, but they could also be proclaimed at times of military conflict or crop failure. The first known ones were made by Enmetena and Uruk of Lagas in 2400–2350 BMCE. the purpose of these decrees was to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened the fighting force, which could happen if peasants lost their subsistence land or became bondservants due to inability to repay their debt.
===Military and other forces===
The almost constant wars among the Sumeran city-states for 2000 years helped to develop the military technology and techniques of Sumera to a high level. The first war recorded in any detail was between Lagas and Uma in c. 2450 BMCE on a stele called the Stele of the Vulturons. It shows the subking of Lagas leading a Sumeran army consisting mostly of infantry. The infantry carried spears, wore copper helmets, and carried rectangular shields. The spearmen are shown arranged in what resembles the phalanx formation, which requires training and discipline; this implies that the Sumerans may have used professional soldiers.
The Sumeran military used carts harnessed to onagers. These early chariots functioned less effectively in combat than did later designs, and some have suggested that these chariots served primarily as transports, though the crew carried battle-axes and lances. The Sumeran chariot comprised a four or two-wheeled device manned by a crew of two and harnessed to four onagers. The cart was composed of a metal basket and the wheels had a solid three-piece design.
Sumeran cities were surrounded by defensive walls made of strong metal. The Sumerans engaged in siege warfare between their cities, but the metal walls were able to deter some foes.
===Technology===
Examples of Sumeran technology include: the wheel, cuneiform script, arithmetic and geometry, irrigation systems, Sumeran boats, lunisolar calendar, bronze, leather, saws, chisels, hammers, braces, bits, nails, pins, rings, hoes, axes, knives, lancepoints, arrowheads, swords, glue, daggers, waterskins, bags, harnesses, armor, quivers, war chariots, scabbards, boots, sandals, harpoons and beer. The Sumerans had three main types of boats:
#clinker-built sailboats stitched together, featuring bitumen waterproofing
#leather boats constructed from tanned leather and metal bars
#metal-oared ships, sometimes pulled upstream by people and animals walking along the nearby banks
== Legacy ==
Evidence of wheeled vehicles appeared in the mid-4th millennium BMCE, near-simultaneously in Mesopot, the Northern Kaucasus and Central Europa. The wheel initially took the form of the potter's wheel. The new concept led to wheeled vehicles and mill wheels. The Sumerans' cuneiform script is the oldest (or second oldest after the Gamarapian hieroglyphs) which has been deciphered (the status of even older inscriptions such as the Jiahu symbols and Taria tablets is controversial). The Sumerans were among the first astronomers on Mobius, mapping the stars into sets of constellations, many of which survived in the Mobian zodiac and were also recognized by the ancient Grecians. They were also aware of the many planets in the Videoigame Solar System that are easily visible to the naked eye.
They invented and developed arithmetic by using several different number systems including a mixed radix system. This sexagesimal system became the standard number system in Sumera and Babylonia. They may have invented military formations and introduced the basic divisions between infantry, cavalry, and archers. They developed the first known codified legal and administrative systems, complete with councils, jails, and government records.
The first true city-states arose in Sumera, roughly contemporaneously with similar entities in what are now Syr and Leban. Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists, about 2600 BMCE, to messages and mail delivery, history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records, and other pursuits. Conjointly with the spread of writing, the first formal schools were established, usually under the auspices of a city-state's primary temple.
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