Sumerian culture. Religion of the ancient Sumerians

28.06.2019

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Sumerian culture

The basin of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers is called Mesopotamia, which in Greek means Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia. This natural area has become one of the largest agricultural and cultural centers of the Ancient East. The first settlements on this territory began to appear already in the 6th millennium BC. NS. In 4-3 millennia BC, the most ancient states began to form on the territory of Mesopotamia.

The revival of interest in the history of the ancient world began in Europe with the Renaissance. It took several centuries to come close to deciphering the long-forgotten Sumerian cuneiform. The texts written in the Sumerian language were read only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, at the same time archaeological excavations of Sumerian cities began.

In 1889, an American expedition began to explore Nippur, in the 1920s the English archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley conducted excavations in the territory of Ur, a little later a German archaeological expedition explored Uruk, British and American scientists found the royal palace and necropolis in Kish, and finally in 1946, archaeologists Fuad Safar and Seton Lloyd, under the auspices of the Iraqi Antiquities Authority, began digging in Eridu. Through the efforts of archaeologists, huge temple complexes were discovered in Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Eridu and other cult centers of the Sumerian civilization. Colossal stepped platforms freed from the sand ziggurats, which served as the basis for the Sumerian sanctuaries, testify that the Sumerians already in the 4th millennium BC. NS. laid the foundation for traditions of religious construction on the territory of the Ancient Mesopotamia.

Sumer - one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East, which existed in the late 4th - early 2nd millennia BC. NS. in the Southern Mesopotamia, the area of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates͵ in the south of modern Iraq. Around 3000 BC NS. On the territory of Sumer, the city-states of the Sumerians began to take shape (the main political centers were Lagash, Ur, Kish, etc.), who fought among themselves for hegemony. The conquests of Sargon the Ancient (24th century BC) - the founder of the great Akkadian state, stretching from Syria to the Persian Gulf, united Sumer.
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The main center was the city of Akkad, whose name served as the name of the new state. The Akkadian state fell in the 22nd century. BC NS. under the onslaught of the Kutis - tribes who came from the western part of the Iranian Highlands. With its fall on the territory of Mesopotamia, the period of civil strife began again. In the last third of the 22nd century. BC NS. the heyday of Lagash, one of the few city-states that retained relative independence from the Kutians, fell. Its prosperity was associated with the reign of Gudea (d. C. 2123 BC) - the king-builder, who erected a grandiose temple not far from Lagash, concentrating the cults of Sumer around the Lagash god Ningirsu. Many monumental stelae and statues of Gudea have survived to our time, covered with inscriptions glorifying his construction activities. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC. NS. the center of Sumer's statehood moved to Ur, whose kings managed to reunite all the regions of the Lower Mesopotamia. The last rise of Sumerian culture is associated with this period.

In the XIX century. BC. Babylon rises among the Sumerian cities [Sumerian.
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Kadingirra ("gates of God"), akkad. Babilu (the same meaning), Greek. Babulwn, lat. Babylon] is an ancient city in the north of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Euphrates (southwest of modern Baghdad). Founded, apparently, by the Sumerians, but was first mentioned during the time of the Akkadian king Sargon the Ancient (2350-2150 BC). It was an insignificant city until the establishment of the so-called Old Babylonian dynasty of Amorite origin in it, the ancestor of which was Sumuabum. The representative of this dynasty Hammurabi (ruled 1792-50 BC) turned Babylon into the largest political, cultural and economic center not only in Mesopotamia, but also in the whole of Western Asia. The Babylonian god Marduk became the head of the pantheon. In his honor, in addition to the temple, Hammurabi began to erect the Etemenanki ziggurat, known as the Tower of Babel. In 1595 ᴦ. BC NS. the Hittites under the leadership of Mursili I invaded Babylon, plundering and ravaging the city. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. NS. the king of Assyria Tukulti-Ninurta I defeated the Babylonian army and captured the king.

The subsequent period in the history of Babylon was associated with an ongoing struggle with Assyria. The city was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. From the time of Tiglathpalasar III, Babylon was incorporated into Assyria (732 BC).

The ancient state in the Northern Mesopotamia of Assyria (on the territory of modern Iraq) in the 14th-9th centuries. BC NS. repeatedly subjugated Northern Mesopotamia and the surrounding areas. The period of the highest power of Assyria is the 2nd half. 8 - 1st floor 7th century BC NS.

In 626 BC. NS. Nabopalasar, king of Babylon, destroyed the capital of Assyria, proclaimed the separation of Babylon from Assyria, and founded the New Babylonian dynasty. Babylon strengthened under his son, the king of Babylonia Nebuchadnezzar II(605-562 BC) who waged numerous wars. During his forty years of reign, he turned the city into the most magnificent city in the Middle East and in the entire then world. In Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar brought entire nations into captivity. The city under him developed according to a strict plan. The Ishtar Gate, the Processional Road, the fortress-palace with the Hanging Gardens were built and decorated, and the fortress walls were reinforced. From 539 A.D. Babylon practically ceased to exist as an independent state. It was conquered by the Persians, the Greeks, the A. Macedonian, or the Parthians. After the Arab conquest, 624 remains a small village, although the Arab population retains the memory of the majestic city hidden under the hills.

In Europe, Babylon was known for Bible references that reflected the impressions it once made on the ancient Jews. At the same time, the description of the Greek historian Herodotus who visited Babylon during his travels, compiled between 470 and 460 BC, has survived. e., but in details the "father of history" is not entirely accurate, since he did not know the local language. Later Greek and Roman authors did not see Babylon with their own eyes, but based on the same Herodotus and the stories of travelers, always embellished. Interest in Babylon flared up after the Italian Pietro della Valle in 1616 brought from here bricks with a cuneiform inscription. In 1765, the Danish scientist K. Niebuhr identified Babylon with the Arab village of Hille. Systematic excavations were initiated by the German expedition of R. Koldevei (1899). She immediately discovered the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace in Qasr Hill.
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Before the First World War, when the work was curtailed due to the advance of the British army, the German expedition excavated a significant part of Babylon during its heyday. Numerous reconstructions are presented at the Museum of Western Asia in Berlin.

One of the greatest and most significant achievements of early civilizations was the invention of writing . The world's oldest writing system was hieroglyphs, which were originally of a picturesque character.
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Later, hieroglyphs turned into symbolic signs. Most of the hieroglyphs were phonograms, that is, they denoted combinations of two or three consonants. Another type of hieroglyphs - ideograms - denoted individual words and concepts.

The picturesque character of hieroglyphic writing lost at the turn of 4–3 millennia BC. e .. About 3000 ᴦ. BC. arose in Sumer cuneiform. This term was introduced at the beginning of the 18th century by Kempfer to designate the letters used by the ancient inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. The Sumerian writing, which went from hieroglyphic, figurative signs-symbols to signs with which the simplest syllables began to be written, turned out to be an extremely progressive system that was borrowed and used by many peoples who spoke other languages. Due to this circumstance, the cultural influence of the Sumerians in the ancient Near East was enormous and outlived their own civilization for many centuries.

The name of cuneiform corresponds to the shape of the signs with a thickening at the top, but is true only for their later form; the original one, preserved in the most ancient inscriptions of the Sumerian and first Babylonian kings, bears all the features of pictorial, hieroglyphic writing. Through gradual reductions and thanks to the material - clay and stone, the signs acquired a less rounded and coherent form and finally began to consist of separate thickened strokes placed in different positions and combinations. Cuneiform is a syllabic letter consisting of several hundred characters, of which 300 are the most commonly used. Among them there are more than 50 ideograms, about 100 signs for simple syllables and 130 for complex ones; there are signs for numbers, in the sixtieth and decimal systems.

Although the Sumerian writing system was invented exclusively for economic needs, the first written literary monuments appeared among the Sumerians very early. Among the records dating back to the 26th century. BC e., there are already examples of genres of folk wisdom, cult texts and hymns. Found cuneiform archives brought to us about 150 monuments of Sumerian literature, among which there are myths, epic legends, ritual songs, hymns in honor of kings, collections of fables, sayings, debates, dialogues and edification. The Sumerian tradition played a large role in spreading legends composed in the form of a dispute - a genre typical for many literatures of the Ancient East.

One of the important achievements of the Assyrian and Babylonian cultures was the creation libraries. The largest library known to us was founded by the Assyrian king Ashurbanapal (7th century BC) in his palace of Ninuevia - archaeologists discovered about 25 thousand clay tablets and fragments. Among them: the royal annals, chronicles of the most important historical events, collections of laws, literary monuments, scientific texts. The literature as a whole was anonymous, the names of the authors were semi-legendary. Assyro-Babylonian literature is completely borrowed from Sumerian literary plots, only the names of heroes and gods have been changed.

The most ancient and significant monument of Sumerian literature is Epic of Gilgamesh("The Legend of Gilgamesh" - "About everything that has seen"). The history of the discovery of the epic in the 70s of the 19th century is associated with the name George Smith, an employee of the British Museum, who, among the extensive archaeological materials sent to London from Mesopotamia, discovered cuneiform fragments of the legend of the Flood. The report of this discovery, made in late 1872 at the Biblical Archaeological Society, caused a sensation; seeking to prove the authenticity of his find, Smith in 1873 went to the excavation site in Ninuevia and found new fragments of cuneiform tablets. J. Smith died in 1876 in the midst of work on cuneiform texts during his third trip to Mesopotamia, bequeathing in his diaries to subsequent generations of researchers to continue the study of the epic that he had begun.

Epic texts consider Gilgamesh to be the son of the hero Lugalbanda and the goddess Ninsun. The “royal list” from Nippur - a list of the dynasties of Mesopotamia - relates the reign of Gilgamesh to the era of the I dynasty of Uruk (c. 27-26 centuries BC). The duration of the reign of Gilgamesh is determined by the "Royal list" at 126 years.

There are several versions of the epic: Sumerian (3rd millennium BC), Akkadian (late 3rd millennium BC), Babylonian. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" is set out on 12 clay tables. As the plot of the epic develops, the image of Gilgamesh changes. The fabulous hero-hero, boasting of his strength, turns into a person who has learned the tragic transience of life. The mighty spirit of Gilgamesh revolts against the recognition of the inevitability of death; only at the end of his wanderings does the hero begin to understand that immortality can be brought to him by the eternal glory of his name.

The Sumerian legends about Gilgamesh are part of an ancient tradition closely related to oral creativity and having parallels with the stories of other peoples. The epic contains one of the oldest versions of the Flood, known from the biblical book of Genesis. The intersection with the motif of the Greek myth of Orpheus is also interesting.

Information about the musical culture is of the most general nature.
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Music was an important component in all three layers of art of ancient cultures, which can be distinguished in accordance with their purpose:

Folklore (from anᴦ. Folk-lore - folk wisdom) - folk song and poetry with elements of theatricalization and choreography;
Temple art - cult, liturgical, which grew out of ritual acts;
Palace - secular art; its functions are hedonistic (to give pleasure) and ceremonial.

Accordingly, the music sounded during cult and palace ceremonies, at folk festivals. We have no way to restore it. Only a few relief images, as well as descriptions in ancient written monuments, make it possible to make certain generalizations. For example, common images harp make it possible to consider it a popular and revered musical instrument. It is known from written sources that in Sumer and Babylon they revered flute. The sound of this instrument͵, according to the Sumerians, was able to bring the dead back to life. Apparently, this was due to the very way of producing sound - breathing, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ was considered a sign of life. At the annual festivities in honor of Tammuz, the eternally resurrecting god, flutes sounded, personifying the resurrection. One of the clay tablets read: ʼʼIn the days of Tammuz, play for me the azure flute ... ʼʼ

Sumerian culture - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Sumerian culture" 2017, 2018.

The Sumerians are an ancient people who once inhabited the territory of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the south of the modern state of Iraq (Southern Mesopotamia or Southern Mesopotamia). In the south, the border of their habitat reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, in the north - to the latitude of modern Baghdad.

For a whole millennium, the Sumerians were the protagonists in the ancient Near East. According to the currently accepted relative chronology, their history continued during the Proto-Written Period, the Early Dynastic Period, the Akkad Dynasty, the Cutians, and the Third Dynasty of Ur. Proto-writing period (XXX-XXVIII centuries) * - the time of the arrival of the Sumerians to the territory of the Southern Mesopotamia, the construction of the first temples and cities and the invention of writing. The early Dynastic period (abbreviated as RD) is divided into three sub-periods: RD I (about 2750 - about 2615), when the statehood of the Sumerian cities is still being formed; RD II (approx. 2615-approx. 2500), when the formation of the main institutions of Sumerian culture (temple and school) begins; RD III (about 2500 - about 2315) - the beginning of the internecine wars of the Sumerian rulers for supremacy in the region. Then the reign of kings of Semitic origin, who came from the city of Akkad (XXIV-early XXII centuries) lasted for more than a century. Sensing the weakness of the last Akkadian rulers, the wild tribes of the Kutians attack the Sumerian land, who have also ruled the country for a century. The last century of Sumerian history is the era of the III dynasty of Ur, the period of centralized government of the country, the dominance of the accounting and bureaucratic system and, paradoxically, the heyday of the school and the verbal and musical arts (XXI-XX centuries). After the fall of Ur under the blows of the Elamites in 1997, the history of Sumerian civilization ends, although the basic institutions of the state and traditions created by the Sumerians over ten centuries of active work continue to be used in Mesopotamia for about two more centuries, until Hamurappi came to power (1792-1750).

Sumerian astronomy and mathematics were the finest in the entire Middle East. We still divide the year into four seasons, twelve months and twelve signs of the zodiac, we measure angles, minutes and seconds in sixties - as the Sumerians first began to do. We call the constellations by their Sumerian names, translated into Greek or Arabic, and through these languages entered ours. We also know astrology, which, together with astronomy, first appeared in Sumer and over the centuries has not lost its influence on the human mind.

We care about the education and harmonious upbringing of children - and the world's first school, which taught sciences and arts, emerged at the beginning of the III millennium - in the Sumerian city of Ur.

Going to an appointment with a doctor, we all ... receive prescriptions for medicines or advice from a psychotherapist, without thinking at all that herbal medicine and psychotherapy first developed and reached a high level among the Sumerians. Receiving a subpoena and counting on the justice of the judges, we also do not know anything about the founders of legal proceedings - the Sumerians, whose first legislative acts contributed to the development of legal relations in all parts of the Ancient World. Finally, thinking about the vicissitudes of fate, lamenting that we were cheated at birth, we repeat the same words that were first written on the clay by the philosophizing Sumerian scribes - but we hardly even know about it.

But perhaps the most significant contribution of the Sumerians to the history of world culture is the invention of writing. Writing has become a powerful accelerator of progress in all areas of human activity: with its help, property accounting and production control was established, economic planning became possible, a stable education system appeared, the volume of cultural memory increased, resulting in a new kind of tradition based on following the canon. written text. Writing and education have changed the attitude of people towards one written tradition and the value system associated with it. The Sumerian type of writing - cuneiform - was used in Babylonia, Assyria, the Hittite kingdom, the Hurrian state of Mitanni, in Urartu, in Ancient Iran, in the Syrian cities of Ebla and Ugarit. In the middle of the second millennium, cuneiform was a letter of diplomats; even the pharaohs of the New Kingdom (Amenhotep III, Akhenaten) used it in their foreign policy correspondence. Information from cuneiform sources was used in one form or another by the compilers of the books of the Old Testament and Greek philologists from Alexandria, scribes from Syrian monasteries and Arab-Muslim universities. They were known both in Iran and in medieval India. In the Europe of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, "Chaldean wisdom" (the ancient Greeks called astrologers and doctors from Mesopotamia Chaldeans) was in high esteem, first among the hermetic mystics, and then among the theologians-orientalists. But over the centuries, errors in the transmission of ancient traditions inexorably accumulated, and the Sumerian language and cuneiform were so thoroughly forgotten that the sources of human knowledge had to be discovered a second time ...

Note: In fairness, it must be said that at the same time as the Sumerians, writing appears among the Elamites and Egyptians. But the influence of Elamite cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics on the development of writing and education in the ancient world cannot be compared with the meaning of cuneiform writing.

the author is carried away in his admiration for the Sumerian writing, firstly, omitting the facts of the existence of writing much earlier both in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, and in Europe. And secondly, if we discard Amenhotep III and Akhenaten (who were “troublemakers” and after whom Egypt returned to its old traditions), then we are talking about just one, rather limited region ...

in general, the author absolutely leaves aside all more or less important discoveries in the field of linguistics already for the last fifty years before the publication of his book (at least, the Terterian finds indicating the presence of writing long before the Sumerians, already somewhere from the age of 50) ...

... even the father of Assyriology, Rawlinson in 1853 [AD], defining the language of the inventors of writing, called it “Scythian or Türkic” ... Some time later, Rawlinson was already inclined to compare the Sumerian language with Mongolian, but towards the end of his life he became convinced of the Türkic hypothesis ... Despite the inconclusiveness of the Sumerian-Türkic kinship for linguists, this idea is still popular in the Türkic-speaking countries, among people who are looking for noble ancient relatives.

After the Turkic, the Sumerian language was compared with the Finno-Ugric (also agglutinative system), Mongolian, Indo-European, Malay-Polynesian, Caucasian, Sudanese, Sino-Tibetan languages. The last hypothesis to date was put forward by IM Dyakonov in 1997 [AD]. According to the St. Petersburg scientist, the Sumerian language may be related to the languages of the Munda peoples living in the northeast of the Indian subcontinent and being the most ancient pre-Aryan substratum of the Indian population. Dyakonov discovered the indices of the 1st and 2nd person singular pronouns common for Sumerian and Mund, a common indicator of the genitive case, as well as some similar kinship terms. His assumption can be partly confirmed by the reports of Sumerian sources about contacts with the land of Aratta - a similar settlement is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts of the Vedic period.

The Sumerians themselves do not say anything about their origin. The oldest cosmogonic fragments begin the history of the universe from individual cities, and this is always the city where the text was created (Lagash), or the sacred cult centers of the Sumerians (Nippur, Eredu). The texts of the beginning of the 2nd millennium name the island of Dilmun (modern Bahrain) as the birthplace of life, but they were composed precisely in the era of active trade and political contacts with Dilmun, therefore, they should not be taken as historical evidence. Much more serious is the information contained in the ancient epic "Enmerkar and the lord of Ararty". It speaks of a dispute between two rulers for the settlement of the goddess Inanna in their city. Both rulers equally revere Inanna, but one lives in the south of Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian city of Uruk, and the other in the east, in the country of Aratta, famous for its skilled craftsmen. Moreover, both rulers bear Sumerian names - Enmerkar and Ensuhkeshdanna. Do these facts not speak of the Eastern, Iranian-Indian (of course, pre-Aryan) origin of the Sumerians?

Another evidence of the epic: the Nippur god Ninurta, fighting in the Iranian highlands with certain monsters seeking to usurp the Sumerian throne, calls them "children of An", and meanwhile it is well known that An is the most venerable and old god of the Sumerians and, therefore, Ninurta is related to his opponents. Thus, the epic texts make it possible to determine, if not the region of origin of the Sumerians itself, then at least the eastern, Iranian-Indian direction of migration of the Sumerians to the Southern Mesopotamia.

this allows us to fix only the fact that the war of the gods was between relatives. That's all. Some kind of "ancestral home" of the Sumerians, what has it to do with it? ..

Already by the middle of the III millennium, when the first cosmogonic texts were created, the Sumerians completely forgot about their origin and even about their difference from the rest of Mesopotamia. They themselves called themselves sang-ngig - "black-headed", but the Mesopotamian Semites also called themselves in their own language. If the Sumerian wanted to emphasize his origin, he called himself “the son of such and such a city,” that is, a free citizen of the city. If he wanted to oppose his country to foreign countries, then he called it the word kalam (etymology is unknown, it is written with the sign “people”), and foreign - the word chickens (“mountain, the afterlife”). Thus, there was no national identity in the self-determination of a person at that time; territorial affiliation was important, which often combined the origin of a person with his social status.

The Danish Sumerologist A. Westenholz suggests understanding “Sumer” as a distortion of the phrase ki-eme-gir - “the land of a noble language” (this is how the Sumerians called their language).

“Noble” in the ancient understanding - first of all “leading its origin from the gods” or “having a divine origin” ...

In Lower Mesopotamia, there is a lot of clay and almost no stone. People learned to use clay not only for making ceramics, but also for writing and for sculpture. In the culture of Mesopotamia, molding prevails over carving on solid material ...

Lower Mesopotamia is not rich in vegetation. There is practically no good timber for construction (you need to go east to the Zagros mountains for it), but there is a lot of reeds, tamarisk and date palms. Reed grows along the shores of swampy lakes. Bundles of reeds were often used in dwellings as seats; both dwellings and cattle pens were built from reeds. Tamarisk is well tolerated by heat and drought, so it grows in these places in large numbers. Tamarisk was used to make handles for various tools, most often for hoes. The date palm has been a source of abundance for palm plantation owners. Several dozen dishes were prepared from its fruits, including tortillas, porridge, and delicious beer. Various household utensils were made from the trunks and leaves of the palm tree. And reeds, and tamarisk, and the date palm were sacred trees in Mesopotamia, they were sung in incantations, hymns to the gods and literary dialogues.

There are almost no minerals in Lower Mesopotamia. Silver had to be delivered from Asia Minor, gold and carnelian - from the Indian subcontinent, lapis lazuli - from the regions of present-day Afghanistan. Paradoxically, this sad fact played a very positive role in the history of culture: the inhabitants of Mesopotamia were constantly in contact with neighboring peoples, not knowing the period of cultural isolation and preventing the development of xenophobia. The culture of Mesopotamia in all centuries of its existence was susceptible to other people's achievements, and this gave it a constant incentive to improve.

the listed "minerals" for primitive man have no practical value (from the standpoint of survival and nutrition). So what special incentive can there be? ..

Another feature of the local landscape is the abundance of deadly fauna. In Mesopotamia, there are about 50 species of poisonous snakes, many scorpions and mosquitoes. It is not surprising that one of the characteristic features of this culture is the development of herbal and conspiracy medicine. A large number of spells have come down to us against snakes and scorpions, sometimes accompanied by recipes for magical actions or herbal medicine. And in the temple decor, the snake is the most powerful amulet, which all demons and evil spirits should have feared.

The founders of the Mesopotamian culture belonged to different ethnic groups and spoke languages unrelated to each other, but had a single economic structure. They were mainly engaged in sedentary cattle breeding and irrigation agriculture, as well as fishing and hunting. Cattle breeding played an outstanding role in the culture of Mesopotamia, influencing the images of state ideology. The sheep and the cow are marked with the greatest reverence here. Sheep wool was used to make excellent warm clothing, which was considered a symbol of wealth. The poor were called “the one without wool” (nu-shiki). They tried to find out the fate of the state from the liver of the sacrificial lamb. Moreover, the constant epithet of the king was the epithet "righteous sheep shepherd" (sipazid). It arose from the observation of a flock of sheep, which can only be organized with the skillful direction of the shepherd. The cow, which provided milk and dairy products, was no less appreciated. They plowed on oxen in Mesopotamia, admired the productive power of the bull. It is no coincidence that the deities of these places wore a horned tiara on their heads - a symbol of power, fertility and constancy of life.

do not forget that the turn of the III-II millennia is the change of the era of Taurus to the era of Aries! ..

Agriculture in Lower Mesopotamia could only exist thanks to artificial irrigation. Water with silt was diverted into specially built canals to be supplied to the fields if necessary. The work on the construction of the canals required a large number of people and their emotional cohesion. Therefore, people here have learned to live in an orderly manner and, if necessary, sacrifice themselves without a murmur. Each city arose and developed near its own canal, which created the preconditions for independent political development. Until the end of the 3rd millennium, it was not possible to form a nationwide ideology, since each city was a separate state with its own cosmogony, calendar and features of the pantheon. The unification took place only during severe disasters or for the solution of important political problems, when it was required to elect a military leader and representatives of various cities gathered in the cult center of Mesopotamia - the city of Nippur.

The anthropological type of the Sumerians can, to a certain extent, be judged by the bone remains: they belonged to the Mediterranean small race of the Caucasian large race. The Sumerian type is still found in Iraq to this day: these are swarthy people of short stature, with a straight nose, curly hair and abundant vegetation on the face and body. Hair and vegetation were carefully shaved off to protect themselves from lice, which is why there are so many images of shaven-headed and beardless people in Sumerian figurines and reliefs. It was also necessary to shave for cult purposes - in particular, the priests always went shaved. The same images show big eyes and big ears, but this is just a stylization, also explained by the requirements of the cult (big eyes and ears as containers of wisdom).

something in this may be ...

Neither the men nor women of Sumer wore underwear. But until the end of their days, they did not remove from the waist a magical double lace worn on a naked body, which protected life and health. The main clothing of the man was a sleeveless shirt (tunic) made of sheep wool, well above the knees, and a loincloth in the form of a woolen cloth with a fringe on one side. A fringed edge could be attached to legal documents instead of a seal, if the person was not well-known and did not have a personal seal. In very hot weather, a man could appear on people in only one bandage, and often completely naked.

Women's clothing differed relatively little from men's, but women never went without a tunic and did not appear in one tunic, without other clothes. A women's tunic could reach the knees and below, sometimes it had slits on the side. A skirt was also known, sewn from several horizontal panels, and the top was wrapped in a harness-belt. The traditional clothing of noble people (both men and women), in addition to a tunic and a bandage, was a “wrapping” of a cloth covered with sewn flags. These flags are probably nothing more than a fringe made of colored yarn or fabric. There was no veil that would cover the woman's face in Sumer. Of the headdresses, felt round caps, hats and caps were known. From shoes - sandals and boots, but they always came to the temple barefoot. When the cold days of late autumn came, the Sumerians wrapped themselves in a cloak - a rectangular cloth, in the upper part of which one or two straps were attached on both sides, tied in a knot on the chest. But there were few cold days.

The Sumerians were very fond of jewelry. Rich and noble women wore a tight “collar” of beads adjoining each other, from the chin to the neckline of the tunic. Expensive beads were made of carnelian and lapis lazuli, cheaper ones were made of colored glass (Hurrian), the cheapest ones were made of ceramics, shell and bone. Both men and women wore a cord around their necks with a large silver or bronze pectoral ring and metal hoops on their arms and legs.

Soap had not yet been invented, so lathering plants, ash and sand were used for washing and washing. Pure fresh water without silt was at a great price - it was brought from wells dug in several places in the city (often on high hills). Therefore, it was taken care of and spent most often for washing hands after a sacrificial meal. The Sumerians knew both anointing and incense. Resins of coniferous plants for the manufacture of incense were imported from Syria. The women eyed them with a black-green antimony powder that protected them from the bright sunlight. Facials also had a pragmatic function - they prevented excessive dryness of the skin.

No matter how pure the fresh water of city wells was, it was impossible to drink it, and treatment facilities had not yet been invented. Moreover, it was impossible to drink the water of rivers and canals. There remained barley beer - the drink of common people, date beer - for richer people, and grape wine - already for the noblest. Sumerian food, for our modern taste, was rather scarce. These are mainly cakes made from barley, wheat and spelled, dates, dairy products (milk, butter, cream, sour cream, cheese) and various types of fish. Meat was eaten only on major holidays, eating up the rest of the victim. Sweets were made from flour and date syrup.

The typical house of the average city dweller was one-story, built of adobe bricks. The rooms in it were located around an open courtyard - the place of sacrifices to the ancestors, and even earlier, the place of their burial. The well-to-do Sumerian house was one floor higher. Archaeologists count up to 12 rooms in it. Downstairs were the living room, kitchen, toilet, human room and a separate room, which housed the home altar. The upper floor housed the private chambers of the owners of the house, including the bedroom. There were no windows. Rich homes have high-backed chairs, reed mats and woolen rugs on the floor, and bedrooms have large beds with carved wooden headboards. The poor contented themselves with bundles of reeds as seats and slept on mats. The property was stored in earthen, stone, copper or bronze vessels, where even the plates of the household archive fell. Apparently, there were no cupboards, but dressing tables in the master's chambers and large tables at which they took food are known. This is an important detail: in a Sumerian home, the hosts and guests did not sit on the floor at the meal.

From the earliest pictographic texts that came down from the temple in the city of Uruk and deciphered by A.A. Vaiman, we learn about the content of the ancient Sumerian economy. The signs of the letter themselves, which at that time still did not differ in any way from the drawings, help us. There are large numbers of images of barley, spelled, wheat, sheep and sheep's wool, date palm, cows, donkeys, goats, pigs, dogs, all sorts of fish, gazelles, deer, tours and lions. It is clear that plants were cultivated, and some of the animals were bred, while others were hunted. Among household items, images of vessels for milk, beer, incense and for loose bodies are especially frequent. There were also special vessels for sacrificial libations. The sketches have preserved for us images of metal tools and a forge, spinning wheels, shovels and hoes with wooden handles, a plow, a sled for carrying cargo over wetlands, four-wheeled carts, ropes, rolls of cloth, reed boats with high curved noses, reed pens and sheds for cattle, reed emblems of the ancestor gods and much more. There is at this early time and designation of the ruler, and signs for priestly offices, and a special sign to designate a slave. All these most valuable evidence of writing indicate, first, the agricultural and pastoralist character of civilization with the residual phenomena of hunting; secondly, the existence of a large temple economy in Uruk; thirdly, the presence of social hierarchy and relations of slavery in society. The data of archaeological excavations testify to the existence of two types of irrigation system in the south of Mesopotamia: basins for the accumulation of spring flood waters and long main canals with permanent dam nodes.

in general, everything points to a fully formed society in the form that is observed further ...

Since all the economic archives of early Sumer came to us from temples, the idea arose and strengthened in science that the Sumerian city itself was a temple city and that all the land in Sumer belonged exclusively to the priesthood and temples. At the dawn of Sumerology, this idea was expressed by the German-Italian researcher A. Daimel, and in the second half of the twentieth century [AD] he was supported by A. Falkenstein. However, from the works of I.M. Dyakonov, it became clear that, in addition to the temple land, there was also community land in the Sumerian cities, and this community land was much larger. Dyakonov calculated the size of the urban population and compared it with the size of the temple staff. Then he likewise compared the total area of the temple lands with the total area of all the land of the Southern Mesopotamia. The comparisons were not in favor of the temple. It turned out that the Sumerian economy knew two main sectors: the community economy (uru) and the temple economy (e). In addition to numerical ratios, documents on the sale and purchase of land, which were completely ignored by Daimel's supporters, also speak of the non-temple communal land.

The picture of Sumerian land tenure is best drawn from the reporting documents that have come down from the city of Lagash. According to temple household documents, there were three categories of temple land:

1. Priestly land (ashag-nin-ena), which was cultivated by temple agricultural workers who used cattle and tools given to them by the temple. For this they received land plots and in-kind payments.

2. Feeding land (ashag-kur), which was distributed in the form of separate allotments to officials of the temple administration and various artisans, as well as to the headmen of groups of agricultural workers. The same category began to include fields that were issued personally to the ruler of the city as an official.

3. Land of cultivation (ashag-nam-uru-lal), which was issued from the temple land fund as separate allotments, but not for service or work, but for a share in the harvest. It was taken by the temple officials and workers in addition to their service allotment or ration, as well as the relatives of the ruler, members of the staff of other temples and, perhaps, generally any free citizen of the city who has the strength and time to process an additional allotment.

Representatives of the communal nobility (including the priests) either did not have allotments on the land of the temple, or only had small allotments, mainly on the land of cultivation. From the sale and purchase documents, we know that these persons, like the relatives of the ruler, had large land holdings received directly from the community, and not from the temple.

The existence of non-temple land is reported by a variety of types of documents attributed by science to sales contracts. These are clay tablets with a lapidary statement of the main aspects of the transaction, and inscriptions on the obelisks of the rulers, where it is reported about the sale of large land plots to the king and the transaction procedure itself is described. All these testimonies are undoubtedly important to us. From them it turns out that the land outside the temple was owned by a large-family community. This term means a collective connected by a common origin on the paternal side, a common economic life and land ownership and includes more than one family and marriage unit. Such a collective was headed by the patriarch, who organized the procedure for the transfer of land to the buyer. This procedure consisted of the following parts:

1. the ritual of the transaction - driving a peg into the wall of the house and pouring oil next to it, handing over the rod to the buyer as a symbol of the territory being sold;

2. payment by the buyer of the price of the land plot in barley and silver;

3. surcharge for the purchase;

4. “gifts” to relatives of the seller and poor members of the community.

The Sumerians cultivated barley, spelled and wheat. Calculations for the sale and purchase were carried out in terms of barley grain or in silver (in the form of silver scrap by weight).

Cattle breeding in Sumer was distant pasture: cattle were kept in pens and barns and were driven out to pasture every day. Shepherds-goat herders, shepherds of cow herds are known from the texts, but shepherds of sheep are better known.

The handicraft and trade in Sumer developed very early. The oldest lists of names of temple artisans have retained terms for the professions of a blacksmith, coppersmith, carpenter, jeweler, saddler, tanner, potter, weaver. All artisans were temple workers and received both in-kind payments and additional land plots for their labor. However, they rarely worked on the land and over time lost any real connection with the community and agriculture. Known from the oldest lists and trading agents, and shipbuilders who transported goods across the Persian Gulf for trade in the eastern countries, but they also worked for the temple. A special, privileged part of the artisans included scribes who worked in a school, in a temple or in a palace and received large payments in kind for their labor.

isn't there a situation here similar to the initial version only about the temple's ownership of the land? .. It is hardly possible that artisans were only at the temples ...

In general, the Sumerian economy can be considered as an agricultural and pastoralist with a subordinate position of crafts and trade. It is based on a subsistence economy that fed only the inhabitants of the city and its authorities and only occasionally supplied its products to neighboring cities and countries. The exchange went mainly towards imports: the Sumerians sold surplus agricultural products, importing timber and stone, precious metals and incense into their country.

The diachronic structure of the Sumerian economy outlined as a whole has not undergone significant changes. With the development of the despotic power of the kings of Akkad, strengthened by the monarchs of the III dynasty of Ur, more and more land ended up in the hands of the insatiable rulers, but they never owned all the land suitable for cultivation in Sumer. And although the community had already lost its political power by this time, all the same, the Akkadian or Sumerian king had to redeem the land from her, scrupulously observing the procedure described above. Over time, craftsmen were more and more entrenched by the king and temples, which reduced them to almost the status of slaves. The same thing happened with the sales agents, who were accountable to the king in all their actions. Against their background, the work of a scribe was invariably viewed as free and well-paid work.

... already in the earliest pictographic texts from Uruk and Jemdet-Nasr there are signs to designate administrative, priestly, military and craft positions. Therefore, no one was separated from anyone, and people of different social destinations lived in the very first years of the existence of the most ancient civilization.

... the population of the Sumerian city-state was divided as follows:

1. To know: the ruler of the city, the head of the temple administration, the priests, members of the council of elders of the community. These people had tens and hundreds of hectares of communal land in the order of family-communal or tribal, and often individual, and exploiting clients and slaves. In addition, the ruler often used the temple land for personal enrichment.

2. Ordinary members of the community who had plots of communal land in the order of family and communal ownership. They made up more than half of the total population.

3. Clients of the temple: a) members of the temple administration and artisans; b) people subordinate to them. These are former members of the community who have lost their communal ties.

4. Slaves: a) slaves of the temple, little different from the lower categories of clients; b) slaves of private individuals (the number of these slaves was relatively small).

Thus, we see that the social structure of Sumerian society is quite clearly distributed over two main economic sectors: the community and the temple. Nobility is determined by the amount of land, the population either cultivates its allotment, or works for the temple and large landowners, artisans are attached to the temple, and the priests are attached to the communal land.

The ruler of the Sumerian city in the initial period of the history of Sumer was en ("lord, possessor"), or ensi. He combined the functions of a priest, military leader, city governor and chairman of parliament. His duties included the following:

1. Leadership of the community cult, especially participation in the sacred marriage ceremony.

2. Construction management, especially temple building and irrigation.

3. Leadership of an army of persons dependent on the temples and from him personally.

4. Presiding over the assembly of the people, especially the council of elders of the community.

En and his people traditionally had to ask permission for their actions from the popular assembly, which consisted of the "youths of the city" and the "elders of the city." We learn about the existence of such a collection mainly from hymn-poetic texts. As some of them show, even without receiving the approval of the assembly or having received it from one of the chambers, the ruler could still decide on his risky venture. Subsequently, as power was concentrated in the hands of one political group, the role of the people's assembly completely disappeared.

In addition to the position of governor, the title lugal is known from the Sumerian texts - “big man”, in different cases translated either as “king” or as “master”. IM Dyakonov in his book “Ways of History” suggests translating it into the Russian word “prince”. This title first appears in the inscriptions of the rulers of the city of Kish, from where, quite possibly, he went. Initially, it was the title of a military leader, who was chosen from among the Aen by the supreme gods of Sumer in the sacred Nippur (or in his city with the participation of the Nippur gods) and temporarily occupied the position of the master of the country with the powers of a dictator. But later they became kings not by choice, but by inheritance, although during enthronement they still observed the old Nippur rite. Thus, one and the same person was at the same time an ene of a city and a lugal of the country, so the fight for the title of lugal was going on at all times in the history of Sumer. True, quite soon the difference between the Lugal and Ensk titles became apparent. During the capture of Sumer by the Kutiyas, no ensi had the right to bear the title of Lugal, since the invaders called themselves Lugals. And by the time of the III dynasty of Ur, the Ensi were officials of the city administrations, completely subordinate to the will of the Lugal.

Documents from the archives of the city of Shuruppak (XXVI century) show that people ruled in this city by turns, and the ruler changed annually. Each line, apparently, fell by lot not only on this or that person, but also on a certain territorial area or temple. This indicates the existence of a collegial governing body, whose members took turns in the office of an eponymous elder. In addition, there is evidence of mythological texts about the order in the rule of the gods. Finally, the very term for the term of Lugal bal's rule literally means “turn”. Does this mean that the earliest form of government in the Sumerian city-states was precisely the alternate rule of representatives of neighboring temples and territories? It is quite possible, but it is rather difficult to prove it.

If the ruler on the social ladder occupied the upper step, then slaves huddled at the foot of this ladder. Translated from the Sumerian “slave” means “lowered, lowered”. First of all, the modern slang verb “to lower” comes to mind, that is, “to deprive someone of their social status, subordinating them as property”. But we also have to take into account the historical fact that the first slaves in history were prisoners of war, and the Sumerian army fought with their opponents in the Zagros mountains, so the word for a slave may simply have the meaning “descended from the eastern mountains”. Initially, only women and children were taken prisoners, since the weapons were imperfect and it was difficult to escort the captive men. After being captured, they were most often killed. But later, with the advent of bronze weapons, men were also spared. The labor of prisoner-of-war slaves was used in private farms and in churches ...

In addition to captive slaves, debtor slaves appeared in the last centuries of Sumer, captured by their creditors until the payment of the debt with interest. The fate of such slaves was much easier: in order to regain their former status, they only needed to be ransomed. Captive slaves, even having mastered the language and starting a family, could rarely count on freedom.

At the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia, on the territory of the Southern Mesopotamia, three peoples, completely different in origin and language, met and began to live in a common economy. The first to come here were native speakers of the language conventionally called “banana” because of the large number of words with repeating syllables (such as Zababa, Huvava, Bunene). It was their language that the Sumerians owed to the terminology in the field of crafts and metal processing, as well as the names of some cities. The bearers of the “banana” language did not leave any memory of the names of their tribes, since they were not lucky enough to invent writing. But their material traces are known to archaeologists: in particular, they were the founders of the agricultural settlement, which now bears the Arabic name of El-Ubeid. The masterpieces of ceramics and sculptures found here testify to the high development of this unnamed culture.

since in the early stages the writing was pictographic and was not oriented at all to the sound of the word (but only to its meaning), then it is simply impossible to detect the “banana” structure of the language with such writing! ..

The second to come to Mesopotamia were the Sumerians, who founded the settlements of Uruk and Dzhemdet-Nasr (also an Arabic name) in the south. The last to come from Northern Syria in the first quarter of the 3rd millennium were the Semites, who settled mostly in the north and northwest of the country. Sources from different eras of Sumerian history show that all three peoples lived compactly on a common territory, with the difference that the Sumerians lived mainly in the south, the Semites in the northwest, and the "banana" people in the south and In the north of the country. There was nothing like national disagreements, and the reason for such a peaceful coexistence was that all three peoples were newcomers to this territory, equally experienced the difficulties of life in Mesopotamia and considered it an object of joint development.

Very weak arguments of the author. As the not so distant historical practice shows (the development of Siberia, the Zaporozhye Cossacks), the millennium is not at all needed for adaptation to the new territory. Already after a hundred or two years, people consider themselves completely “their own” on this land, where their ancestors came not so long ago. Most likely, some kind of “resettlement” has nothing to do with it. They might not exist at all. And the "banana" style of language is observed quite often among primitive peoples all over the Earth. So their "trace" is just the remnants of an older language of the same population ... It would be interesting to look precisely from this angle at the vocabulary of the "banana" language and later terms.

Determining for the history of the country was the organization of the network of main canals, which existed without radical changes until the middle of the second millennium.

by the way, a very curious fact. It turns out that a certain people came to this area; for no reason, no reason, built a developed network of canals and dams; and for one and a half thousand years (!) this system has not changed at all !!! Why then historians are tormented with the search for the "ancestral home" of the Sumerians - you just need to find traces of a similar irrigation system, and that's it! a new place already with these skills! .. somewhere in the old place he had to “train” and “develop his skills”! .. But this is nowhere to be found !!! Here's another hitch for the official version of the story ...

The main centers of education of the states - cities - were also connected with the network of channels. They grew up in the place of the original groups of agricultural settlements, which were concentrated on separate drained and irrigated areas reclaimed from swamps and deserts in the previous millennia. Cities were formed by settling the inhabitants of the abandoned villages in the center. However, most often it did not reach the complete relocation of the entire district to one city, since the inhabitants of such a city could not cultivate fields within a radius of more than 15 kilometers and the already developed land lying outside these limits would have to be abandoned. Therefore, in one district, three or four or more interconnected cities usually arose, but one of them has always been the main one: the center of common cults and the administration of the entire district were located here. I.M. Dyakonov, following the example of Egyptologists, suggested calling each such district No. In Sumerian it was called ki, which means “land, place”. The city itself, which was the center of the district, was called Uru, which is usually translated as “city”. However, in Akkadian this word corresponds to alu - “community”, so one can assume the same original meaning for the Sumerian term. Tradition secured the status of the first fenced settlement (i.e. the city itself) for Uruk, which is quite likely, since archaeologists have found fragments of the high wall surrounding this settlement.

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China

India

Egypt

B. BC - Babylon rises among the Sumerian cities.

Around 3000 BC NS. in the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates, on the territory of Sumer, the city-states of the Sumerians began to take shape.

Sumer

CHRONOGRAPH

OK. 3000 BC NS. - arose in Sumer writing - cuneiform.

24 c. BC NS.- the founder of the great Akkadian state (fell in the 22nd century BC) Sargon the Ancient united Sumer, stretching from Syria to the Persian Gulf.

1792-1750 BC NS. - years of government Hammurabi, building ziggurat Etemenanki, known as the Tower of Babel.

2nd floor 8-1st floor. 7th century BC NS.- the period of the highest power of Assyria.

7 c. BC. - Assyrian king Ashurbanipal founded in his palace Nineveh the largest known library,

605-562 BC NS. - the heyday of Babylonia under the king Nebuchadnezzar II.

70s of the 19th century- opening George Smith Epic of Gilgamesh.

Early kingdom (c. 3000-2800 BC)- the appearance of writing - hieroglyphs; at the beginning of the third millennium BC, papyrus (a herbaceous plant) was used to make writing material.

Ancient kingdom (2800-2250 BC) - construction of pyramids.

Middle Kingdom(2050-1700 BC)

New kingdom (c. 1580 - c. 1070)- construction of huge temple complexes.

Late period (c. 1070 - 332 BC)

ser. 3rd - 1st floor. 2nd millennium BC NS- Harappan civilization - archaeological culture of the Bronze Age in India and Pakistan.

OK. 1500 BC - the decline of the Harappan culture; settlement of the Indus Valley by the Aryans.

10c. BC. - registration of the "Rig Veda" - the oldest collection of the Vedas.

20s 20th century- opening Harappan civilization.

Around 2500 BC – Longshan culture, one of the first dynasties.

about 1766-1027 BC- the first known examples of Chinese writing on oracular bones, dating back to the time the Shang dynasty.

XI to VI c. BC NS. - "Book of Songs" ("Shi Tsznn")- a collection of works of song and poetic creativity of the Chinese.

Sumer - one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East, which existed at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. in the Southern Mesopotamia, the area of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the south of modern Iraq. Around 3000 BC NS. On the territory of Sumer, the city-states of the Sumerians began to take shape (the main political centers were Lagash, Ur, Kish, etc.), who fought among themselves for hegemony. The conquests of Sargon the Ancient (24th century BC) - the founder of the great Akkadian state, stretching from Syria to the Persian Gulf, united Sumer. The main center was the city of Akkad, whose name served as the name of the new state. The Akkadian state fell in the 22nd century. BC NS. under the onslaught of the Kutis - tribes who came from the western part of the Iranian Highlands. With its fall on the territory of Mesopotamia, the period of civil strife began again. In the last third of the 22nd century. BC NS. the heyday of Lagash, one of the few city-states that retained relative independence from the Kutians, fell. Its prosperity was associated with the reign of Gudea (d. C. 2123 BC) - the king-builder, who erected a grandiose temple not far from Lagash, concentrating the cults of Sumer around the Lagash god Ningirsu. Many monumental stelae and statues of Gudea have survived to our time, covered with inscriptions glorifying his construction activities. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC. NS. the center of Sumerian statehood moved to Ur, whose kings managed to reunite all the regions of the Lower Mesopotamia. The last rise of Sumerian culture is associated with this period.

In the XIX century. BC. Babylon rises among the Sumerian cities [Sumerian. Kadingirra ("gates of god"), akkad. Babilu (the same meaning), Greek. Babulwn, lat. Babylon] is an ancient city in the north of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Euphrates (southwest of modern Baghdad). Founded, apparently, by the Sumerians, but was first mentioned during the time of the Akkadian king Sargon the Ancient (2350-2150 BC). It was an insignificant city until the establishment of the so-called Old Babylonian dynasty of Amorite origin in it, the ancestor of which was Sumuabum. The representative of this dynasty, Hammurabi (ruled 1792-50 BC), turned Babylon into the largest political, cultural and economic center not only in Mesopotamia, but throughout Asia Minor. The Babylonian god Marduk became the head of the pantheon. In his honor, in addition to the temple, Hammurabi began to erect the Etemenanki ziggurat, known as the Tower of Babel. In 1595 BC. NS. the Hittites under the leadership of Mursili I invaded Babylon, plundering and ravaging the city. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. NS. the king of Assyria Tukulti-Ninurta I defeated the Babylonian army and captured the king.

In 626 BC. NS. Nabopalasar, king of Babylon, destroyed the capital of Assyria, proclaimed the separation of Babylon from Assyria and founded the New Babylonian dynasty. Babylon strengthened under his son, the king of Babylonia Nebuchadnezzar II(605-562 BC) who waged numerous wars. During forty years of his reign, he turned the city into the most magnificent in the Middle East and in the entire then world. In Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar brought entire nations into captivity. The city under him developed according to a strict plan. The Ishtar Gate, the Processional Road, the fortress-palace with the Hanging Gardens were built and decorated, and the fortress walls were reinforced. From 539 BC Babylon practically ceased to exist as an independent state. It was conquered by the Persians, the Greeks, the A. Macedonian, or the Parthians. After the Arab conquest, 624 remains a small village, although the Arab population retains the memory of the majestic city hidden under the hills.

In Europe, Babylon was known for Bible references that reflected the impressions it once made on the ancient Jews. In addition, a description of the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Babylon during his travels, has been preserved, compiled between 470 and 460 BC. e., but in details the "father of history" is not entirely accurate, since he did not know the local language. Later Greek and Roman authors did not see Babylon with their own eyes, but based on the same Herodotus and the stories of travelers, always embellished. Interest in Babylon flared up after the Italian Pietro della Valle in 1616 brought from here bricks with a cuneiform inscription. In 1765, the Danish scientist K. Niebuhr identified Babylon with the Arab village of Hille. Systematic excavations were initiated by the German expedition of R. Koldevei (1899). She immediately discovered the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace in Qasr Hill. Before the First World War, when the work was curtailed due to the advance of the British army, the German expedition excavated a significant part of Babylon during its heyday. Numerous reconstructions are presented at the Museum of Western Asia in Berlin.

One of the greatest and most significant achievements of early civilizations was the invention of writing . The world's oldest writing system was hieroglyphs, which were originally of a picturesque character. Later, hieroglyphs turned into symbolic signs. Most of the hieroglyphs were phonograms, that is, they denoted combinations of two or three consonants. Another type of hieroglyphs - ideograms - denoted individual words and concepts.

The hieroglyphic writing lost its pictorial character at the turn of 4–3 millennia BC. BC .. Around 3000 BC. arose in Sumer cuneiform. This term was introduced at the beginning of the 18th century by Kempfer to designate the letters used by the ancient inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. The Sumerian writing, which went from hieroglyphic, figurative signs-symbols to signs with which the simplest syllables began to be written, turned out to be an extremely progressive system that was borrowed and used by many peoples who spoke other languages. Due to this circumstance, the cultural influence of the Sumerians in the ancient Near East was enormous and outlived their own civilization for many centuries.

The name of cuneiform corresponds to the shape of the signs with a thickening at the top, but is true only for their later form; the original one, preserved in the most ancient inscriptions of the Sumerian and first Babylonian kings, bears all the features of pictorial, hieroglyphic writing. Through gradual cuts and thanks to the material - clay and stone, the signs acquired a less rounded and coherent shape and finally began to consist of separate thickened strokes placed in different positions and combinations. Cuneiform is a syllabic letter consisting of several hundred characters, of which 300 are the most commonly used. Among them there are more than 50 ideograms, about 100 signs for simple syllables and 130 for complex ones; there are signs for numbers, in the sixtieth and decimal systems.

One of the important achievements of the Assyrian and Babylonian cultures was the creation libraries. The largest library known to us was founded by the Assyrian king Ashurbanapal (VII century BC) in his palace of Nineveh - archaeologists have discovered about 25 thousand clay tablets and fragments. Among them: the royal annals, chronicles of the most important historical events, collections of laws, literary monuments, scientific texts. The literature as a whole was anonymous, the names of the authors were semi-legendary. Assyro-Babylonian literature is completely borrowed from Sumerian literary plots, only the names of heroes and gods have been changed.

The most ancient and significant monument of Sumerian literature is Epic of Gilgamesh("The Legend of Gilgamesh" - "About everything that has seen"). The history of the discovery of the epic in the 70s of the 19th century is associated with the name George Smith, an employee of the British Museum, who, among the extensive archaeological materials sent to London from Mesopotamia, discovered cuneiform fragments of the legend of the Flood. The report of this discovery, made in late 1872 at the Biblical Archaeological Society, caused a sensation; Seeking to prove the authenticity of his find, Smith went to an excavation site in Nineveh in 1873 and found new fragments of cuneiform tablets. J. Smith died in 1876 in the midst of work on cuneiform texts during his third trip to Mesopotamia, bequeathing in his diaries to subsequent generations of researchers to continue the study of the epic that he had begun.

Epic texts consider Gilgamesh to be the son of the hero Lugalbanda and the goddess Ninsun. The "royal list" from Nippur - a list of dynasties of Mesopotamia - refers the reign of Gilgamesh to the era of the 1st dynasty of Uruk (c. 27-26 centuries BC). The duration of the reign of Gilgamesh is determined by the "Royal List" at 126 years.

There are several versions of the epic: Sumerian (3rd millennium BC), Akkadian (late 3rd millennium BC), Babylonian. The Epic of Gilgamesh is set out on 12 clay tablets. As the plot of the epic develops, the image of Gilgamesh changes. The fabulous hero-hero, boasting of his strength, turns into a person who has learned the tragic transience of life. The mighty spirit of Gilgamesh revolts against the recognition of the inevitability of death; only at the end of his wanderings does the hero begin to understand that immortality can bring him the eternal glory of his name.

Information about the musical culture is of the most general nature. Music was included as the most important component in all three layers of art of ancient cultures, which can be distinguished in accordance with their purpose:

Folklore (from the English Folk-lore - folk wisdom) - folk song and poetry with elements of theatricalization and choreography;
Temple art - cult, liturgical, which grew out of ritual acts;
Palace - secular art; its functions are hedonistic (to give pleasure) and ceremonial.

Accordingly, the music sounded during cult and palace ceremonies, at folk festivals. We have no way to restore it. Only a few relief images, as well as descriptions in ancient written monuments, make it possible to make certain generalizations. For example, common images harp make it possible to consider it a popular and revered musical instrument. It is known from written sources that in Sumer and Babylon they revered flute. The sound of this instrument, according to the Sumerians, was able to bring the dead back to life. Apparently, this was due to the very way of producing sound - breathing, which was considered a sign of life. At the annual festivities in honor of Tammuz, the eternally resurrecting god, flutes sounded, personifying the resurrection. One of the clay tablets read: "In the days of Tammuz, play for me the azure flute ..."

The Sumerian culture is considered the first civilization on Earth. Around the beginning of the third millennium BC, the nomadic tribes living in Asia are supposed to have formed the first slave states on the lands of Mesopotamia. A Sumerian culture was formed, in which there were still strong remnants of the primitive communal system. Together with numerous fragmented states, the art of the Sumerians began to develop, which subsequently had a strong impact on the art of all peoples and states that existed after. The art of the Sumerian and Akkad, the peoples inhabiting Mesopotamia, was not only unique and original, it was the first, therefore its role in world history cannot be overestimated.

Sumerian culture - the first foci

Among others, the first to emerge were such Sumerian cities as Uruk and Lagash. It was they who became the first strongholds of the development of the Sumerian culture. Subsequently, certain economic and political reasons forced small city-states to unite into larger formations. Most of these formations took place with the help of military force, as evidenced by the few Sumerian artifacts.

Approximately in the second half of the third millennium, it can be said that the culture of mankind experienced a tangible leap in its development, the reason for which was the formation of a single state on the lands of Mesopotamia under the rule of King Sargon I. The formed Akkadian state represented the interests of the slave-owning elite. In those days, the Sumerian culture literally depended on religion, and the main element of cultural life was the priesthood and the numerous celebrations associated with it. Faith and religion represented the worship of a complex cult of the gods and the deification of the reigning king. A significant role in the culture of the Sumerians and their religion was played by the worship of the forces of nature, which was a relic of the communal cult of animals. The Sumerian culture of the Akkadian era did only what received the condescension of religious leaders, so it is not surprising that most of the ancient Sumerian art samples are mythological legends and frescoes depicting gods. The ancient masters, whose hands created the Sumerian culture, portrayed the gods in the form of animals, beast-men and fantastic creatures with wings, horns and other elements inherent in the inhabitants of the fauna rather than people.

It was during this period, during the period of turmoil, economic and political instability, that the first features of ancient art began to take hold, the culture of the Sumerians, who lived in Dvur'ch'e in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, began to form. The ancient world was far from the humanity inherent in modern people, it was far from what we draw in our imaginations. The Sumerian culture that actually existed was based on the unusual architecture of palace and temple buildings, on decorations, sculpture and painting, the main purpose of which was to glorify the gods and the ruling king. The architecture, culture of the Sumerian and their way of life, conditioned by the military doctrine of the existing city-states, were exclusively serfdom in nature, life was cruel and merciless to people, as evidenced by the remains of urban structures, ancient Sumerian art, defensive walls, with prudently erected towers and the remains of people buried for thousands of years under the rubble.

The main material for the construction of cities and majestic structures in Mesopotamia was raw brick, in more rare cases, burnt brick. The Sumerian culture has developed a truly unique way of construction, its main feature is that most of the ancient buildings were erected on artificial platforms. This unique feature of the Sumerian culture explains the need to isolate residential, religious and whatever else buildings from flooding and dampness. To a lesser extent, the Sumerians were motivated by the desire to show themselves in front of their neighbors, making the building visible from all sides. The windows of architectural samples of ancient art were built into the upper part of one of the walls and were so narrow that they barely let light through. The Sumerian culture and architecture developed in such a way that the main source of light in their buildings was often doorways and specially constructed openings in the ceiling. The main institutions of Sumerian culture were famous for their skill and unusual approach, for example, the structures discovered and preserved in good condition in the south had an open and surprisingly large courtyard, around which small buildings were grouped. This method of planning was conditioned by the climatic conditions of Mesopotamia and extremely high temperatures. In the northern part of the ancient state, which was created by the Sumerian culture, buildings of a completely different layout were discovered. These were residential buildings and palace buildings, devoid of an open courtyard; their place was occupied by a covered central room. In some cases, the structures were two-story.

Sumerian culture and examples of art of the ancient people

A striking example of the art inherent in the Sumerian people is the ancient temple architecture that developed in the cities of the third millennium BC. One such temple that the Sumerian culture built was the temple, now ruins, at El Obeid. The construction, dedicated to the goddess of fertility Nin-Khursag, dates back to 2600 BC. According to the reconstructions carried out, the temple was located on a hill, an artificial platform made of rammed tiles. The walls, according to tradition, were divided by vertical ledges, from below they were painted with black bitumen. There was an architectural rhythm in horizontal sections, however, it was achieved in completely different ways, which was developed by the Sumerian culture, for example, with the help of numerous horizontal sections.

It was in this temple that the relief was first applied and it was for it that sculptures were first created. Sumerian culture, ancient craftsmen created lions, located on the sides of the entrance. The sculptures were made of wood covered with a layer of bitumen and finely embossed copper sheets. In addition to the eyes, tongue and other elements of the lion statue, colored stones were inlaid, giving them a bright and memorable look.

Along the front wall of the temple, in the niches between the ledges, there were figurines of bulls carved out of copper. she used a certain set of materials and rarely changed her traditions. The upper part of the wall was decorated with three friezes located at a short distance from each other. One of them was in bas-relief and contained images of copper bulls, the other two were flat with a mosaic relief of white mother-of-pearl and black slate plates. The Sumerian culture, using such a contrast of materials, created a unique color scheme that echoed both the color of the platforms and the style of the temple itself.

On one of the friezes of the temple were depicted scenes of the everyday, everyday life of a resident of the ancient empire, perhaps they were forcibly of some kind of cultural significance or the Sumerian culture, creating them, pursued goals unknown to scientists. Another frieze contained images of sacred birds and animals. The inlay technique, first tried by the ancient Sumerians, was also used to create the facade and columns of the temple. Some of them were decorated with colored stones, shells and mother-of-pearl, others with metal tiles attached to nails.

The copper bas-relief located above the entrance to the temple deserves special attention and praise. Sumerian culture was famous for its enviable masters, however, here the ancient architects surpassed themselves. This bas-relief, which in places turned into a rounded sculpture, contained an image of an eagle with the head of a lion, clawing a deer. Similar images were found on the walls of several other ancient temples at once, which created the Sumerian culture in the region of the third millennium BC. An important feature of the relief above the entrance is the almost perfectly symmetrical heraldic composition, which later became a characteristic feature of the Near East relief.

The Sumerian culture created a ziggurat - a completely unique type of religious buildings that occupied a significant place in the architecture of a number of ancient states and empires. The ziggurat was always erected at the temple of the dominant local deity and was a high stepped tower made of raw bricks. At the top of the ziggurat that the Sumerian culture created, there was a small building called "the dwelling of the god." The Sumerian people with enviable regularity erected such structures, which served as the sanctuary of the territorial gods, all of them were exceptionally grandiose.

Sumerian art in architecture

Better than other ziggurats, it has been preserved many times in Uert. This ziggurat / temple was erected in the 22-21 centuries BC, more precisely, during these centuries it was reconstructed and completed. The art of the Sumerians during the construction of this ziggurat and during its reconstruction showed itself to the maximum. The ziggurat consisted of several, presumably three, massive towers, built one above one, forming wide terraces connected by stairs.

At the base of the ziggurat was a rectangle with sides of 65 and 43 meters, the walls were 13 meters high. The total height of the building, created by the art of the Sumerians, is 21 meters, which is equal to the modern average 5-7 storey building. The outer space of the ziggurat was either absent in principle, or was deliberately limited to a small room. All the towers of the ziggurat in Ur were of different colors. The lower tower was the color of black bitumen, the middle one was red, the color of natural brick, while the upper tower was white.

Sumerian art honored its traditions that had developed over many centuries in the ancient state. On the terrace, located at the top of the ziggurat (the dwelling of the god), all kinds of ritual mysteries took place and religious celebrations were held. At the same time, at an inopportune hour, the ziggurat, as a unique example of Sumerian art, served as a kind of observatory for the ancient priests, who were also astronomers. The monumentality that the Sumerian art developed was achieved with the help of simple shapes and volumes, as well as the obvious proportions that gave the impression of a grandiose structure and majestic architecture. In terms of impressions, the ziggurat is comparable to the pyramids in Egypt, in terms of impressions, but not in proportions.

The art of the Sumerians of the southern side of Mesopotamia, which were the cities of Lagash and Ur, was distinguished by the integrity of the stone blocks used and a peculiar interpretation of the need to use decorative elements. Most of the local sculpture is a squat figure with no neck and a beak-like nose combined with large eyes. The art of the Sumerians in the northern part of the country (the settlements of Khafaj and Ashnunak) was distinguished by the presence of more elongated proportions, detailed elaboration of details and naturalism bordering on insanity; perfect bodies and surprisingly strange noses and faces in general, as an example.

Special attention among other features that have developed institutions of Sumerian culture, deserves metal-plastic and related types of handicrafts. Finds of metal products dating back to the 26-27th century BC testify to class differentiation and the cult of the dead, which reached right up to the art of the Sumerian empire. Luxurious utensils, decorated with colored stones, in some tombs border on the poverty of others. Among the most valuable items found in the graves, the king's golden helmet of the finest workmanship stands out. The art of the Sumerians created this most valuable specimen and placed it for eternal rest in the grave of the ruler Meskalamdurg. The helmet reproduced a gold-colored wig with the smallest inlays. No less valuable is a gold dagger with a filigree sheath, found all in the same tomb. In addition, images of animals, figurines and other valuable items made of gold were found in the tombs. Some of them took the shape of a bull, others were simple rings, earrings and beads.

The oldest art of Sumerian and Akkad in history

In the tombs of the city of Ur, numerous, however, all similar in style, samples of mosaic products were found. The art of Sumerian and Akkad produced them in huge quantities. The most notable example is the so-called "standard", the name given by archaeologists to two oblong rectangular plates, fixed in a tilted position. This “standard”, which the culture of the ancient Sumera could be proud of, was made of wood and covered with pieces of lapis lazuli against the background and shells in the form of figures, as a result of which a beautiful ornament is formed. The plates, divided into several tiers, according to the tradition already established at that time, contained images, paintings, battles and battles in which the famous army of Ur took part. The “standard” of the Sumerian and Akkad art was made with the aim of glorifying the ruling rulers who won such significant victories.

The most remarkable example of the sculptural relief of the Sumerians, what created the art of the Sumerian and Akkad, is the stele of Eannatum, called the Stele of Korshunov. This monument was erected in honor of the victory of the ruler of the city of Lagush over his enemies and over the city of Ummah in particular. It was made around the 25th century BC. Today is the stele that was built the culture of the Sumerian civilization, looks like fragments, however, even they make it possible to study and determine the basic principles of monumental art and relief inherent in the Sumerians. The image of the stele is divided by several horizontal lines along which the composition is built. Separate, often multi-temporal images are shown in the forming belt, opening a visual narration about certain events. Remarkably, the art of Sumerian and Akkad created the stele in such a way that the heads of the depicted people are always or almost always at the same level. The only exceptions are the heads of God and the king, which emphasize their divine origin and proclaim over everyone.

Human figures in the image are exactly the same, they are static and often take the same position: the legs and head are turned in profile, while the shoulders and eyes are in front. On the front side of the "Stele of Korshuns", which was created by the Akkad and Sumerian culture, there is an image of a large figure of the supreme god of the city of Lagash, the god holds a network with the enemies of the ruler Eannatum gathered in it. On the reverse side, which is logical, the great king is depicted at the head of his army, marching over the corpses of fallen enemies. The inscription on the stele reveals the content of both the images themselves and the role of the set in general, it describes the victory of the army of Lagash and glorifies the courage of the king, who personally commanded the army and was directly involved in the battle.

Of particular importance to the culture represented by Sumerian and Akkad art, have monuments of glyptics, carved stones, amulets and seals. These elements often act as filling gaps caused by the lack of monumental architecture as such. These glyptics allow scientists to imagine and model the stages of development of the art of Mesopotamia, and at the same time the most ancient state of the Sumerians. The images on cylinder seals are often distinguished by outstanding craftsmanship, which could not boast of the early art of Sumerian and Akkad, which developed during the first several centuries in the history of the state. They, made of completely different stone rocks, some of the softer, others made, on the contrary, of hard (carnelian, hematite and others), are the most valuable example of the skills of the architects of the first civilization on Earth. Surprisingly, they were all made using the simplest devices, which makes them even more important.

The cylinder seals created by the culture of the ancient Sumerians are diverse. Favorite subjects of the ancient masters are the myths of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian hero who possessed incredible strength, courage, ingenuity and dexterity. There are also other contents that are of higher value for modern researchers, in particular those that narrate the events of the great flood described in the individual myths of the Sumerian people. Also, scientists have discovered several seals that tell the story of the flight of a local hero Etana on an eagle to heaven for a special grass that can resurrect people.

The press, as well as the Sumerian culture in general, is rife with conventions. Sketchy figures of people, animals and even gods, low detailing of images, the desire to cover the image with unnecessary, often stupid decorative elements. In seals, reliefs, bas-reliefs and other examples of ancient craft, artists try to adhere to a schematic arrangement of figures, in which the heads of the depicted people are fixed at the same level, and the bodies are, if not in the same, then in similar positions. The only exceptions are single pieces of art of special value, which were primarily aimed at the glorification of the great Gilgamesh. If you understand this, probably, one of the most popular topics that Sumerian art developed, unfortunately, it has survived to this day in single copies, which does not diminish the role and influence exerted by the Sumerian people on the development of subsequent cultures.

It developed in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and existed from the 4th millennium BC. until the middle of the VI century. BC. Unlike the Egyptian culture of Mesopotamia was not homogeneous, it was formed in the process of multiple interpenetration of several ethnic groups and peoples and therefore was multilayer.

The main inhabitants of Mesopotamia were Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Chaldeans in the south: Assyrians, Hurrians and Arameans in the north. The culture of Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria reached the greatest development and significance.

The emergence of the Sumerian ethnos is still a mystery. It is only known that in the 4th millennium BC. the southern part of Mesopotamia was inhabited by the Sumerians and laid the foundations for all subsequent civilization of this region. Like the Egyptian, this civilization was river. By the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. in the south of Mesopotamia, several city-states appear, the main of which are Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Jlapca, etc. They alternately play a leading role in the unification of the country.

Sumer's history has had several ups and downs. The XXIV-XXIII centuries deserve special emphasis. BC when elevation occurs the Semitic city of Akkad, located north of Sumer. Under King Sargon the Ancient Akkad, I manage to subjugate the whole of Sumer to my power. Akkadian supplants Sumerian and becomes the main language throughout Mesopotamia. Semitic art also has a great influence on the entire region. In general, the significance of the Akkadian period in the history of Sumer turned out to be so significant that some authors call the entire culture of this period Sumerian-Akkadian.

Sumer culture

The economy of Sumer was based on agriculture with a developed irrigation system. Hence it is clear why one of the main monuments of Sumerian literature was the "Agricultural Almanac", containing instructions on farming - how to maintain soil fertility and avoid salinization. It was also important cattle breeding. metallurgy. Already at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. the Sumerians began to make bronze tools, and at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. entered the Iron Age. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. a potter's wheel is used in the production of tableware. Other crafts are successfully developing - weaving, stone-cutting, blacksmithing. Extensive trade and exchange takes place both between the Sumerian cities and with other countries - Egypt, Iran. India, the states of Asia Minor.

The importance of Sumerian writing. The cuneiform script invented by the Sumerians turned out to be the most successful and effective. Improved in the 2nd millennium BC Phoenicians, it formed the basis of almost all modern alphabets.

System religious and mythological ideas and cults Sumeria partly overlaps with the Egyptian. In particular, it also contains the myth of a dying and resurrecting god, which is the god Dumuzi. As in Egypt, the ruler of the city-state was declared a descendant of a god and was perceived as an earthly god. At the same time, there were also noticeable differences between the Sumerian and Egyptian systems. So, among the Sumerians, the funeral cult, belief in the afterlife did not acquire much importance. Equally, the priests among the Sumerians did not become a special layer that played a huge role in public life. In general, the Sumerian system of religious beliefs seems to be less complex.

As a rule, each city-state had its own patron god. However, there were gods who were worshiped throughout Mesopotamia. Behind them stood those forces of nature, the importance of which for agriculture was especially great - heaven, earth and water. These were the sky god An, the earth god Enlil and the water god Enki. Some gods were associated with individual stars or constellations. It is noteworthy that in the Sumerian letter the star pictogram meant the concept of "god". Of great importance in the Sumerian religion was the mother goddess, the patroness of agriculture, fertility and childbirth. There were several such goddesses, one of them was the goddess Inanna. patroness of the city of Uruk. Some myths of the Sumerians - about the creation of the world, the worldwide flood - had a strong influence on the mythology of other peoples, including Christians.

In Sumer, the leading art was architecture. Unlike the Egyptians, the Sumerians did not know stone construction and all structures were created from raw bricks. Because of the swampy terrain, buildings were erected on artificial platforms - embankments. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians were the first to begin to widely use arches and vaults in the construction.

The first architectural monuments were two temples, White and Red, discovered in Uruk (end of the 4th thousand BC) and dedicated to the main deities of the city - the god Anu and the goddess Inanna. Both temples are rectangular in plan, with ledges and niches, decorated with relief images in the "Egyptian style". Another significant monument is the small temple of the goddess of fertility Ninhursag in Ur (XXVI century BC). It was built using the same architectural forms, but decorated not only with relief, but also with a round sculpture. In the niches of the walls there were copper figures of walking bulls, and on the friezes there were high reliefs of lying bulls. At the entrance to the temple there are two statues of lions made of wood. All this made the temple festive and elegant.

In Sumer, a peculiar type of cult building was formed - the zikkurag, which was a stepped, rectangular tower. On the upper platform of the ziggurat, there was usually a small temple - "the dwelling of the god." The ziggurat for thousands of years played about the same role as the Egyptian pyramid, but unlike the latter, it was not an afterlife temple. The most famous was the ziggurat ("temple-mountain") in Ur (XXII-XXI centuries BC), which was part of a complex of two large temples and a palace and had three platforms: black, red and white. Only the lower, black platform has survived, but even in this form the ziggurat makes a grandiose impression.

Sculpture in Sumer was less developed than architecture. As a rule, it had a cult, "initiatory" character: the believer put a statuette made by his order, most often small in size, in the church, which, as it were, prayed for his fate. The person was depicted conventionally, schematically and abstractly. without observing proportions and without portrait resemblance to the model, often in the pose of a prayer. An example is the female figurine (26 cm) from Lagash, which has mostly common ethnic features.

In the Akkadian period, sculpture changes significantly: it becomes more realistic, acquires individual features. The most famous masterpiece of this period is the copper portrait head of Sargon the Ancient (XXIII century BC), which perfectly conveys the unique character traits of the king: courage, will, severity. This work of rare expressiveness is almost indistinguishable from modern ones.

The Sumerian literature. In addition to the aforementioned "Agricultural Almanac", the most significant literary monument was the "Epic of Gilgamesh." This epic poem tells about a man who saw everything, experience everything, cognized everything and who was close to solving the mystery of immortality.

By the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Sumer gradually fell into decay, and was eventually conquered by Babylonia.

Babylonia

Its history falls into two periods: Ancient, covering the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, and New, falling in the middle of the 1st millennium BC.

Ancient Babylonia reaches its highest rise under the king Hammurabi(1792-1750 BC). Two significant monuments have survived from his time. The first one is The laws of Hammurabi - became the most outstanding monument of ancient Eastern legal thought. 282 articles of the code of law cover almost all aspects of the life of Babylonian society and constitute civil, criminal and administrative law. The second monument is a basalt pillar (2 m), which depicts King Hammurabi himself, sitting in front of the god of the sun and justice Shamash, and also captures part of the text of the famous codex.

New Babylonia reached its highest flowering under the king Nebuchadnezzar(605-562 BC). Under him, the famous "Hanging Gardens of Babylon", which became one of the seven wonders of the world. They can be called a grandiose monument of love, since they were presented by the king to his beloved wife to ease her longing for the mountains and gardens of her homeland.

No less famous monument is also Tower of Babel. It was the highest ziggurat in Mesopotamia (90 m), consisting of several stacked towers, on the top of which was the sanctuary and she of Marduk, the chief god of the Babylonians. Seeing the tower, Herodotus was shocked by its grandeur. She is mentioned in the Bible. When the Persians conquered Babylonia (6th century BC), they destroyed Babylon and all the monuments it contained.

Babylonia's achievements deserve special mention gastronomy and mathematics. Babylonian astrologers with surprising accuracy calculated the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth, made a solar calendar and a map of the starry sky. The names of the five planets and twelve constellations of the solar system are of Babylonian origin. Astrologers gave people astrology and horoscopes. Even more impressive were the successes of mathematicians. They laid the foundations of arithmetic and geometry, developed a "positional system" where the numerical value of a sign depends on its "position", knew how to square and extract the square root, created geometric formulas for measuring land plots.

Assyria

The third powerful state of Mesopotamia - Assyria - emerged in the 3rd millennium BC, but reached its peak in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. Assyria was poor in resources, but rose to prominence due to its geographic location. She found herself at the crossroads of caravan routes, and trade made her rich and great. Assyrian capitals were successively Ashur, Kalach and Nineveh. By the XIII century. BC. it became the most powerful empire in the entire Middle East.

In the artistic culture of Assyria - as in the whole Mesopotamia - the leading art was architecture. The most significant architectural monuments were the palace complex of King Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin and the palace of Ashur-banapal in Nineveh.

The Assyrian reliefs, decorating the palace premises, the subjects of which were scenes from the royal life: cult ceremonies, hunting, military events.

One of the best examples of Assyrian reliefs is the "Great Lion Hunt" from the Ashurbanipal Palace in Nineveh, where the scene depicting wounded, dying and slain lions is filled with deep drama, sharp dynamics and vivid expression.

In the VII century. BC. the last ruler of Assyria, Ashur-banapap, created a magnificent library, containing more than 25 thousand clay cuneiform tablets. The library has become the largest in the entire Middle East. In it were collected documents, in one way or another, related to the entire Mesopotamia. Among them, the aforementioned "Epic of Gilgamesh" was also kept.

Mesopotamia, like Egypt, has become a real cradle of human culture and civilization. Sumerian cuneiform and Babylonian astronomy and mathematics are already enough to speak of the exceptional significance of the culture of Mesopotamia.