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Author: Paul Collins
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 178914423X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world’s earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BCE. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing, and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? Paul Collins reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from the archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last one hundred fifty years. Reconstructed through the biases of those who unearthed them, the Sumerians were never simply lost and found, but reinvented a number of times, both in antiquity and in the more recent past.
Author: Paul Collins
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 178914423X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world’s earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BCE. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing, and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? Paul Collins reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from the archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last one hundred fifty years. Reconstructed through the biases of those who unearthed them, the Sumerians were never simply lost and found, but reinvented a number of times, both in antiquity and in the more recent past.
Author: Paul Collins
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910807361
Category : Cuneiform inscriptions, Sumerian
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The story of one of the first and most important civilisations in history, and the first to invent writing.
Author: Samuel Noah Kramer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226452328
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. "There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. . . . One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation."—American Journal of Archaeology "An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity."—Library Journal
Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781539857006
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Examines the Sumerians' culture, daily life at the cities, and architecture *Includes ancient accounts describing the cities *Includes a bibliography for further reading In southern Iraq, a crushing silence hangs over the dunes. For nearly 5,000 years, the sands of the Iraqi desert have held the remains of the oldest known civilization: the Sumerians. When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament and the nascent field of Near Eastern studies had unraveled the enigma of the Akkadian language that was widely used throughout the region in ancient times, but the discovery of the Sumerian tablets brought to light the existence of the Sumerian culture, which was the oldest of all the Mesopotamian cultures. Although the Sumerians continue to get second or even third billing compared to the Babylonians and Assyrians, perhaps because they never built an empire as great as the Assyrians or established a city as enduring and great as Babylon, they were the people who provided the template of civilization that all later Mesopotamians built upon. The Sumerians are credited with being the first people to invent writing, libraries, cities, and schools in Mesopotamia (Ziskind 1972, 34), and many would argue that they were the first people to create and do those things anywhere in world. No site better represents the importance of the Sumerians than the city of Uruk. Between the fourth and the third millennium BCE, Uruk was one of several city-states in the land of Sumer, located in the southern end of the Fertile Crescent, between the two great rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Discovered in the late 19th century by the British archaeologist William Loftus, it is this site that has revealed much of what is now known of the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian people. Although Uruk was not the only city that the Sumerians built during the Uruk period, it was by far the greatest and also the source of most of the archeological and written evidence concerning early Sumerian culture (Kuhrt 2010, 1:23). Uruk went from being the world's first major city to the most important political and cultural center in the ancient Near East in relatively quick fashion. Long before Alexandria was a city and even before Memphis and Babylon had attained greatness, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur stood foremost among ancient Near Eastern cities. Today, the greatness and cultural influence of Ur has been largely forgotten by most people, partially because its monuments have not stood the test of time the way other ancient culture's monuments have. For instance, the monuments of Egypt were made of stone while those of Ur and most other Mesopotamian cities were made of mud brick and as will be discussed in this report, mud-brick may be an easier material to work with than stone but it also decays much quicker. The same is true to a certain extent for the written documents that were produced at Ur. At its height Ur was the center of a great dynasty that controlled most of Mesopotamia directly through a well maintained army and bureaucracy and the areas that were not under its direct control were influenced by Ur's diplomats and religious ideas. Ur was also a truly resilient city because it survived the downfall of the Sumerians, outright destruction at the hands of the Elamites, and later occupations by numerous other peoples, which included Saddam Hussein more recently.
Author: Jeremy A. Black
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199296330
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 444
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Book Description
Sumerian is the oldest written language of ancient Iraq, first written down some 5,000 years ago. Its literature, encompassing narrative myths, lyrical hymns, proverbs and love poetry, provides a stimulating insight into the world's first urban civilization. This is a comprehensive collection.
Author: Nick Hunter
Publisher: Capstone
ISBN: 1484625838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 50
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Book Description
This book explores what life was really like for everyday people in ancient Sumer. Using primary sources and information from archeological discoveries, it uncovers some fascinating insights and explodes some myths. Supported by timelines, maps, and references to important events and people, children will really feel they are on a time-traveling journey when reading this book.
Author: Stephen Feinstein
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1464403376
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 106
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Book Description
Mesopotamia is often called the Cradle of Civilization and it is this region that is the focus of this book. Ancient Mesopotamia, centering on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, features the rise of city-states and innovations in agriculture. The people of Mesopotamia also developed complex systems of writing, architectural wonders, advancements in military tactics and weaponry, and some of the first recorded legal codes.
Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781986839990
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament and the nascent field of Near Eastern studies had unraveled the enigma of the Akkadian language that was widely used throughout the region in ancient times, but the discovery of the Sumerian tablets brought to light the existence of the Sumerian culture, which was the oldest of all the Mesopotamian cultures. Although the Sumerians continue to get second or even third billing compared to the Babylonians and Assyrians, perhaps because they never built an empire as great as the Assyrians or established a city as enduring and great as Babylon, they were the people who provided the template of civilization that all later Mesopotamians built upon. The Sumerians are credited with being the first people to invent writing, libraries, cities, and schools in Mesopotamia (Ziskind 1972, 34), and many would argue that they were the first people to create and do those things anywhere in world. For a people so great it is unfortunate that their accomplishments and contributions, not only to Mesopotamian civilization but to civilization in general, largely go unnoticed by the majority of the public. Perhaps the Sumerians were victims of their own success; they gradually entered the historical record, established a fine civilization, and then slowly submerged into the cultural patchwork of their surroundings. They also never suffered a great and sudden collapse like other peoples of the ancient Near East, such as the Hittites, Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians did. A close examination of Sumerian culture and chronology reveals that the Sumerians set the cultural tone in Mesopotamia for several centuries in the realms of politics/governments, arts, literature, and religion. Even today, the world owes the Sumerians a tremendous amount. When Western Europe was still in the Stone Age, it was the Sumerians who invented writing and the wheel, divided time into minutes and seconds, tamed nature, and built gigantic cities. They embraced culture and the arts, and their caravans crossed the desert, opening up the first trade routes. Their myths and legends inspired various origin stories, and their memory lives on in the Old Testament. They wrote the history of the birth of mankind. The heritage of the Sumerian civilization and their successors is everywhere. Sumer: The History of the Cities and Culture that Established Ancient Mesopotamia's First Civilization chronicles the most important people, places, and events that took place across Sumer. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Sumer like never before.
Author: Leonard Woolley
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393002928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Describes the civilization of the Sumerians, who inhabited the land which today is Iraq, in the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C.
Author: Captivating History
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781718662209
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Explore the Captivating History of the Sumerians The sheer importance of Sumerian culture in regards to world culture as a whole is impossible to overstate. This civilization is single-handedly responsible for some of the most major innovations in nearly every field relevant to maintaining a civilized society - this includes religion, lawmaking, architecture, schooling, art, literature, and even entertainment. Naturally, most of what we see as negative aspects of society were established in Ancient Sumer as well. There wasn't an aspect of Sumerian life that wasn't plagued with corruption or devastation of one form or another. In other words, the Sumerians gave us both the sublimeness of faith and the rigidness of religious thought coupled with a desire for political supremacy. They gave us both the benevolent, caring monarchs and cruel, punishing tyrants; the educated child and the spoiled brat; the hard-working agrarian and the drunken reveler; and the epic empires as well as the pathetic remnants of them. The Sumerians did it all, and they did it first. Some of the topics and questions covered in this book include: The Ancient Sumerians In a Nutshell The Social Structure of Ancient Sumerians The Religion and Mythology of Ancient Sumerians The Sumerian Kingdoms Chronology The Everyday Life of Ancient Sumerians Sumerian Innovations Sumerian Culture Sumerian "Foreign Policy": Relations with Other Nations And a Great Deal More that You don't Want to Miss out on! Get the book now to learn more about the Sumerians!
