READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF SUMER AND AKKAD

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

THE LANDS OF SUMER AND AKKAD

THE study of origins may undoubtedly be regarded as the most striking characteristic of recent archaeological research. There is a peculiar fascination in tracking any highly developed civilization to its source, and in watching its growth from the rude and tentative efforts of a primitive people to the more elaborate achievements of a later day. And it is owing to recent excavation that we are now in a position to elucidate the early history of the three principal civilizations of the ancient world. The origins of Greek civilization may now be traced beyond the Mycenaean epoch, through the different stages of Aegean culture back into the Neolithic age. In Egypt, excavations have not only yielded remains of the early dynastic kings who lived before the pyramid-builders, but they have revealed the existence of Neolithic Egyptians dating from a period long anterior to the earliest written records that have been recovered. Finally, excavations in Babylonia have enabled us to trace the civilization of Assyria and Babylon back to an earlier and more primitive race, which in the remote past occupied the lower plains of the Tigris and Euphrates; while the more recent digging in Persia and Turkestan has thrown light upon other primitive inhabitants of Western Asia, and has raised problems with regard to their cultural connections with the West which were undreamed of a few years ago.

It will thus be noted that recent excavation and research have furnished the archaeologist with material by means of which he may trace back the history of culture to the Neolithic period, both in the region of the Mediterranean and along the valley of the Nile. That the same achievement cannot be placed to the credit of the excavator of Babylonian sites is not entirely due to defects in the scope or method of his work, but may largely be traced to the character of the country in which the excavations have been carried out. Babylonia is an alluvial country, subject to constant inundation, and the remains and settlements of the Neolithic period were doubtless in many places swept away, and all trace of them destroyed by natural causes. With the advent of the Sumerians began the practice of building cities upon artificial mounds, which preserved the structure of the buildings against flood, and rendered them easier of defence against a foe. It is through excavation in these mounds that the earliest remains of the Sumerians have been recovered; but the still earlier traces of Neolithic times, which at some period may have existed on those very sites, must often have been removed by flood before the mounds were built. The Neolithic and prehistoric remains discovered during the French excavations in the graves of Mussian and at Susa, and by the Pumpelly expedition in the two Kurgans near Anau, do not find their equivalents in the mounds of Babylonia so far as these have yet been examined.

In this respect the climate and soil of Babylonia present a striking contrast to those of ancient Egypt. In the latter country the shallow graves of Neolithic man, covered by but a few inches of soil, have remained intact and undisturbed at the foot of the desert hills; while in the upper plateaus along the Nile valley the flints of Palaeolithic man have lain upon the surface of the sand from Palaeolithic times until the present day. But what has happened in so rainless a country as Egypt could never have taken place in Mesopotamia. It is true that a few palaeoliths have been found on the surface of the Syrian desert, but in the alluvial plains of Southern Chaldea, as in the Egyptian Delta itself, few certain traces of prehistoric man have been forthcoming. Even in the early mat-burials and sarcophagi at Fara numerous copper objects and some cylinder-seals have been found, while other cylinders, sealings, and even inscribed tablets, discovered in the same and neighbouring strata, prove that their owners were of the same race as the Sumerians of history, though probably of a rather earlier date.

Although the earliest Sumerian settlements in Southern Babylonia are to be set back in a comparatively remote period, the race by which they were founded appears at that time to have already attained to a high level of culture. We find them building houses for themselves and temples for their gods of burnt and unburnt brick. They are rich in sheep and cattle, and they have increased the natural fertility of their country by means of a regular system of canals and irrigation-channels. It is true that at this time their sculpture shared the rude character of their pottery, but their main achievement, the invention of a system of writing by means of lines and wedges, is in itself sufficient indication of their comparatively advanced state of civilization. Derived originally from picture-characters, the signs themselves, even in the earliest and most primitive inscriptions as yet recovered, have already lost to a great extent their pictorial character, while we find them employed not only as ideograms to express ideas, but also phonetically for syllables. The use of this complicated system of writing by the early Sumerians presupposes an extremely long period of previous development. This may well have taken place in their original home, before they entered the Babylonian plain. In any case, we must set back in the remote past the beginnings of this ancient people, and we may probably picture their first settlement in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf some centuries before the period to which we may assign the earliest of their remains that have actually come down to us.

In view of the important role played by this early race in the history and development of civilization in Western Asia, it is of interest to recall the fact that not many years ago the very existence of the Sumerians was disputed by a large body of those who occupied themselves with the study of the history and languages of Babylonia. What was known as "the Sumerian controversy" engaged the attention of writers on these subjects, and divided them into two opposing schools. At that time not many actual remains of the Sumerians themselves had been recovered, and the arguments in favour of the existence of an early non-Semitic race in Babylonia were in the main drawn from a number of Sumerian texts and compositions which had been found in the palace of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, at Nineveh. A considerable number of the tablets recovered from the royal library were inscribed with a series of compositions, written, it is true, in the cuneiform script, but not in the Semitic language of the Assyrians and Babylonians. To many of these compositions Assyrian translations had been added by the scribes who drew them up, and upon other tablets were found lists of the words employed in the compositions, together with their Assyrian equivalents.

Henry Rawlinson. 1810 – 1895

The late Sir Henry Rawlinson rightly concluded that these strange texts were written in the language of some race who had inhabited Babylonia before the Semites, while he explained the lists of words as early dictionaries compiled by the Assyrian scribes to help them in their studies of this ancient tongue. The early race he christened "the Akkadians", and although we now know that this name would more correctly describe the early Semitic immigrants who occupied Northern Babylonia, in all other respects his inference was justified. He correctly assigned the non-Semitic compositions that had been recovered to the early non-Semitic population of Babylonia, who are now known by the name of the Sumerians.

Sir Henry Rawlinson's view was shared by M. Oppert, Professor Schrader, Professor Sayce, and many others, and, in fact, it held the field until a theory was propounded by M. Halévy to the effect that Sumerian was not a language in the legitimate sense of the term. The contention of M. Halévy was that the Sumerian compositions were not written in the language of an earlier race, but represented a cabalistic method of writing, invented and employed by the Babylonian priesthood. In his opinion the texts were Semitic compositions, though written according to a secret system or code, and they could only have been read by a priest who had the key and had studied the jealously guarded formulae. On this hypothesis it followed that the Babylonians and Assyrians were never preceded by a non-Semitic race in Babylonia, and all Babylonian civilization was consequently to be traced to a Semitic origin. The attractions which such a view would have for those interested in ascribing so great an achievement to a Semitic source are obvious, and, in spite of its general improbability. M. Halevy won over many converts to his theory, among others Professor Delitzsch and a considerable number of the younger school of German critics.

It may be noted that the principal support for the theory was derived from an examination of the phonetic values of the Sumerian signs. Many of these, it was correctly pointed out, were obviously derived from Semitic equivalents, and M. Halévy and his followers forthwith inferred that the whole language was an artificial invention of the Babylonian priests. Why the priests should have taken the trouble to invent so complicated a method of writing was not clear, and no adequate reason could be assigned for such a course. On the contrary, it was shown that the subject-matter of the Sumerian compositions was not of a nature to justify or suggest the necessity of recording them by means of a secret method of writing. A study of the Sumerian texts with the help of the Assyrian translations made it obvious that they merely consisted of incantations, hymns, and prayers, precisely similar to other compositions written in the common tongue of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and thus capable of being read and understood by any scribe acquainted with the ordinary Assyrian or Babylonian character.

M. Halevy's theory appeared still less probable when applied to such of the early Sumerian texts as had been recovered at that time by Loftus and Taylor in Southern Babylonia. For these were shown to be short building-inscriptions, votive texts, and foundation-records, and, as they were obviously intended to record and commemorate for future ages the events to which they referred, it was unlikely that they should have been drawn up in a cryptographic style of writing which would have been undecipherable without a key. Yet the fact that very few Sumerian documents of the early period had been found, while the great majority of the texts recovered were known only from tablets of the seventh century BC, rendered it possible for the upholders of the pan-Semitic theory to make out a case. In fact, it was not until the renewal of excavations in Babylonia that fresh evidence was obtained which put an end to the Sumerian controversy, and settled the problem once for all in accordance with the view of Sir Henry Rawlinson and of the more conservative writers.

That Babylonian civilization and culture originated with the Sumerians is no longer in dispute; the point upon which difference of opinion now centres concerns the period at which Sumerians and Semites first came into contact. But before we embark on the discussion of this problem, it will be well to give some account of the physical conditions of the lands which invited the immigration of these early races and formed the theatre of their subsequent history. The lands of Sumer and Akkad were situated in the lower valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and corresponded approximately to the country known by classical writers as Babylonia.

On the west and south their boundaries are definitely marked by the Arabian desert and the Persian Gulf which, in the earliest period of Sumerian history, extended as far northward as the neighbourhood of the city of Eridu. On the east it is probable that the Tigris originally formed their natural boundary, but this was a direction in which expansion was possible, and their early conflicts with Elam were doubtless provoked by attempts to gain possession of the districts to the east of the river.

The frontier in this direction undoubtedly underwent many fluctuations under the rule of the early city-states, but in the later periods, apart from the conquest of Elam, the true area of Sumerian and Semitic authority may be regarded as extending to the lower slopes of the Elamite hills. In the north a political division appears to have corresponded then, as in later times, to the difference in geological structure. A line drawn from a point a little below Samarra on the Tigris before its junction with the Adhem to Hît on the Euphrates marks the division between the slightly elevated and undulating plain and the dead level of the alluvium, and this may be regarded as representing the true boundary of Akkad on the north. The area thus occupied by the two countries was of no very great extent, and it was even less than would appear from a modern map of the Tigris and Euphrates valley. For not only was the head of the Persian Gulf some hundred and twenty, or hundred and thirty, miles distant from the present coast-line, but the ancient course of the Euphrates below Babylon lay considerably to the east of its modern bed.

In general character the lands of Sumer and Akkad consist of a flat alluvial plain, and form a contrast to the northern half of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, known to the Greeks as Mesopotamia and Assyria. These latter regions, both in elevation and geological structure, resemble the Syro-Arabian desert, and it is only in the neighbourhood of the two great streams and their tributaries that cultivation can be carried out on any extensive scale. Here the country at a little distance from the rivers becomes a stony plain, serving only as pasture-land when covered with vegetation after the rains of winter and the early spring. In Sumer and Akkad, on the other hand, the rivers play a far more important part. The larger portion of the country itself is directly due to their action, having been formed by the deposit which they have carried down into the waters of the Gulf. Through this alluvial plain of their own formation the rivers take a winding course, constantly changing their direction in consequence of the silting up of their beds and the falling in of the bajiks during the annual floods.

Of these two rivers the Tigris, owing to its higher and stronger banks, has undergone less change than the Euphrates. It is true that during the Middle Ages its present channel below Kut el-Amara was entirely disused, its waters flowing by the Shatt el-Hai into the Great Swamp which extended from Kufa on the Euphrates to the neighbourhood of Kurna, covering an area fifty miles across and nearly two hundred miles in length. But in the Sassanian period the Great Swamp, the formation of which was due to neglect of the system of irrigation under the early caliphs, did not exist, and the river followed its present channel. It is thus probable that during the earlier periods of Babylonian history the main body of water passed this way into the Gulf, but the Shatt el-Hai may have represented a second and less important branch of the stream.

The change in the course of the Euphrates has been far more marked, the position of its original bed being indicated by the mounds covering the sites of early cities, which extend through the country along the practically dry beds of the Shatt en-Nil and the Shatt el-Kar, considerably to the east of its present channel. The mounds of Abu Habba, Tell Ibrahim, El-Ohemir and Niffer, marking the sites of the important cities of Sippar, Cutha, Kish and Nippur, all lie to the east of the river, the last two on the ancient bed of the Shatt en-Nil. Similarly, the course of the Shatt el-Kar, which formed an extension of the Shatt en-Nil below Suk el-Afej passes the mounds of Abu Hatab (Kisurra), Fara (Shuruppak) and Hammam. Warka (Erech) stands on a further continuation of the Shatt en-Nil, while still more to the eastward are the mounds of Bismaya and Jokha, representing the cities of Adab and Umma. Senkera, the site of Larsa, also lies considerably to the east of the present stream, and the only city besides Babylon which now stands comparatively near the present bed of the Euphrates is Ur. The positions of the ancient cities would alone be sufficient proof that, since the early periods of Babylonian history, the Euphrates has considerably changed its course.

Abundant evidence that this was the case is furnished by the contemporary inscriptions that have been recovered. The very name of the Euphrates was expressed by an ideogram signifying "the River of Sippar", from which we may infer that Sippar originally stood upon its banks. A Babylonian contract of the period of the First Dynasty is dated in the year in which Samsu-iluna constructed the wall of Kish "on the bank of the Euphrates", proving that either the main stream from Sippar, or a branch from Babylon, flowed by El-Ohemir. Still further south the river at Nippur, marked as at El-Ohemir by the dry bed of the Shatt en-Nil, is termed "the Euphrates of Nippur", or simply "the Euphrates" on contract-tablets found upon the site. Moreover, the city of Shurippak or Shuruppak, the native town of Ut-napishtim, is described by him in the Gilgamesh epic as lying "on the bank of the Euphrates"; and Hammurabi, in one of his letters to Sin-idinnam, bids him clear out the stream of the Euphrates "from Larsa as far as Ur". These references in the early texts cover practically the whole course of the ancient bed of the Euphrates, and leave but a few points open to conjecture.

In the north it is clear that at an early period a second branch broke away from the Euphrates at a point about half-way between Sippar and the modern town of Faluja, and, after flowing along the present bed of the river as far as Babylon, rejoined the main stream of the Euphrates either at, or more probably below, the city of Kish. It was the extension of these western channels which afterwards drained the earlier bed, and we may conjecture that its waters were diverted back to the Euphrates at this early period by artificial means. The tendency of the river was always to break away westward, and the latest branch of the stream, still further to the west, left the river above Babylon at Musayyib. The fact that Birs, the site of Borsippa, stands upon its upper course, suggests an early date for its origin, but it is quite possible that the first city on this site, in view of its proximity to Babylon, obtained its water-supply by means of a system of canals. However this may be, the present course of this most western branch is marked by the Nahr Hindiya, the Bahr Nejef, and the Shatt Ateshan, which rejoins the Euphrates after passing Samawa. In the Middle Ages the Great Swamps started at Kufa, and it is possible that even in earlier times, during periods of inundation, some of the surplus water from the river may have emptied itself into swamps or marshy land below Borsippa.

The exact course of the Euphrates south of Nippur during the earliest periods is still a matter for conjecture, and it is quite possible that its waters reached the Persian Gulf through two, if not three, mouths. It is certain that the main stream passed the cities of Kisurra, Shuruppak, and Erech, and eventually reached the Gulf below Ur. Whether after leaving Erech it turned eastward to Larsa, and so southward to Ur, or whether it flowed from Erech direct to Ur, and Larsa lay upon another branch, is not yet settled, though the reference in Hammurabi's letter may be cited in favour of the former view. Another point of uncertainty concerns the relation of Adab and Umma to the stream. The mounds of Bismaya and Jokha, which mark their sites, lie to the east, off the line of the Shatt el-Kar, and it is quite possible that they were built upon an eastern branch of the river which may have joined the Shatt el-Hai above Lagash, and so have mingled with the waters of the Tigris before reaching the Gulf.

In spite of these points of uncertainty, it will be noted that every city of Sumer and Akkad, the site of which has been referred to, was situated on the Euphrates or one of its brandies, not upon the Tigris, and the only exception to this rule appears to have been Opis, the most northern city of Akkad. The preference for the Euphrates may be explained by the fact that the Tigris is swift and its banks are high, and it thus offers far less facilities for irrigation. The Euphrates with its lower banks tends during the time of high water to spread itself over the surrounding country, which doubtless suggested to the earliest inhabitants the project of regulating and utilizing the supply of water by means of reservoirs and canals. Another reason for the preference may be traced to the slower fall of the water in the Euphrates during the summer months. With the melting of the snow in the mountain ranges of the Taurus and Niphates during the early spring, the first flood-water is carried down by the swift stream of the Tigris, which generally begins to rise in March, and, after reaching its highest level in the early part of May, falls swiftly and returns to its summer level by the middle of June. The Euphrates, on the other hand, rises about a fortnight later, and continues at a high level for a much longer period. Even in the middle of July there is a considerable body of water in the river, and it is not until September that its lowest level is renewed. On both streams irrigation-machines were doubtless employed, as they are at the present day, but in the Euphrates they were only necessary when the water in the river had fallen below the level of the canals.

Between the lands of Sumer and Akkad there was no natural division such as marks them off from the regions of Assyria and Mesopotamia in the north. While the north-eastern half of the country bore the name of Akkad, and the south-eastern portion at the head of the Persian Gulf was known as Sumer, the same alluvial plain stretches southward from one to the other without any change in its general character. Thus some difference of opinion has previously existed, as to the precise boundary which separated the two lands, and additional confusion has been introduced by the rather vague use of the name Akkad during the later Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. Thus Ashurbanipal, when referring to the capture of Nana's statue by the Elamites, puts E-anna, the temple of Nana in Erech, among the temples of the land of Akkad, a statement which has led to the view that Akkad extended as far south as Erech. But it has been pointed out that on similar evidence furnished by an Assyrian letter, it would be possible to regard Eridu, the most southern Sumerian city as in Akkad, not in Sumer. The explanation is to be found in the fact that by the Assyrians, whose southern border marched with Akkad, the latter name was often used loosely for the whole of Babylonia. Such references should not therefore be employed for determining the original limits of the two countries, and it is necessary to rely only upon information supplied by texts of a period earlier than that in which the original distinction between the two names had become blurred.

From references to different cities in the early texts, it is possible to form from their context, a very fair idea of what the Sumerians themselves regarded as the limits of their own land. For instance, from the Tello inscriptions there is no doubt that Lagash was in Sumer. Thus the god Ningirsu, when informing Gudea, patesi of Lagash, that prosperity shall follow the building of E-ninnu, promises that oil and wool shall be abundant in Sumer; the temple itself, which was in Lagash, is recorded to have been built of bricks of Sumer; and, after the building of the temple was finished, Gudea prays that the land may rest in security, and that Sumer may be at the head of the countries. Again, Lugal-zaggisi, who styles himself King of the Land, i.e. the land of Sumer, mentions among cities subject to him, Erech, Ur, Larsa, and Umma, proving that they were regarded as Sumerian towns. The city of Kesh, whose goddess Ninkharsag is mentioned on the Stele of the Vultures, with the gods of Sumerian towns as guaranteeing a treaty between Lagash and Umma, was probably in Sumer, and so, too, must have been Isin, which gave a line of rulers to Sumer and Akkad in succession to Ur; about Eridu in the extreme south there could be no two opinions. On the other hand, in addition to the city of Agade or Akkad, Sippar, Kish, Opis, Cutha, Babylon and Borsippa are certainly situated beyond the limits of Sumer and belong to the land of Akkad in the north. Between the two groups lay Nippur, rather nearer to the southern than to the northern cities, and occupying the unique position of a central shrine. There is little doubt that the town was originally regarded as within the limits of Sumer, but from its close association with any claimant to the hegemony, whether in Sumer or in Akkad, it acquired in course of time a certain intermediate position, on the boundary line, as it were, between the two countries.

Of the names Sumer and Akkad, it would seem that neither was in use in the earliest historical periods, though the former was probably the older of the two. At a comparatively early date the southern district as a whole was referred to simply as "the Land", par excellence, and it is probable that the ideogram by which the name of Sumer was expressed, was originally used with a similar meaning. The twin title, Sumer and Akkad, was first regularly employed as a designation for the whole country by the kings of Ur, who united the two halves of the land into a single empire, and called themselves kings of Sumer and Akkad. The earlier Semitic kings of Agade or Akkad expressed the extent of their empire by claiming to rule "the four quarters (of the world)", while the still earlier king Lugal-zaggisi, in virtue of his authority in Sumer, adopted the title "King of the Land". In the time of the early city-states, before the period of Eannatum, no general title for the whole of Sinner or of Akkad is met with in the inscriptions that have been recovered. Each city with its surrounding territory formed a compact state in itself, and fought with its neighbours for local power and precedence. At this time the names of the cities occur by themselves in the titles of their rulers, and it was only after several of them had been welded into a single state that the need was felt for a more general name or designation. Thus, to speak of Akkad, and even perhaps of Sumer, in the earliest period, is to be guilty of an anachronism, but it is a pardonable one. The names may be employed as convenient geographical terms, as, for instance, when referring to the country as a whole, we speak of Babylonia during all periods of its history.

Akkadian Life-size Head of a Ruler

CHAPTER II

THE SITES OF EARLY CITIES AND THE RACIAL CHARACTER OF THEIR INHABITANTS