Sumerian Secrets - Babel - Anunnaki

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• published: 18 Jun 2016
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Sumer (/ˈsuːmər/)[note 1] was the first ancient urban civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southernIraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronzeages, and arguably the first civilization in the world.[1] Proto-writing in the region dates back to c. 3500 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC; early cuneiform writing emerged in 3000 BC.[2] Modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a language isolate.[3][4][5][6] These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called "proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[7]and are theorized to have evolved from theSamarra culture of northern Mesopotamia (Assyria).[8][9][10][11] The Ubaidians (though never mentioned by the Sumerians themselves) are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumer, draining the marshes for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery.[7] However, some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. It has been suggested by them and others, that the Sumerian language was originally that of the hunter and fisher peoples, who lived in the marshland and theEastern Arabia littoral region, and were part of the Arabian bifacial culture.[12] Reliable historical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer of any kind that have been dated before Enmebaragesi (c. 26th century BC). Professor Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians were settled along the coast ofEastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it flooded at the end of the Ice Age.[13] Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdat Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism.[14] Sumerian culture seems to have appeared as a fully formed civilization, with no pre-history. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (andvice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic,morphological, and phonologicalconvergence.[14] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund.[14] Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Neo-Sumerian Empire or Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) approximately 2100-2000 BC, but theAkkadian language also remained in use. The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of thePersian Gulf, is considered to have been the world's first city, where three separate cultures may have fused — that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.[15]