Sumer: Cities of Eden

Lost Civilizations

by Dale Brown (Editor)

Surveys what is known about the ancient Babylonian civilization, looks at ruins and artifacts, and describes the work of archaeologists in the region

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Ancient History, Reference

168 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Dale^^Brown Time-Life editor/author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[David Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite all that we have learned about ancient Sumer in the past 150 years, there still seems to be little awareness of this great civilization among people today. Perhaps it is because their monuments are not so large and impressive as the pyramids of Egypt. Much has been lost and forgotten about these important people.

It is amazing the high level of civilization that was achieved as far back as 3500 BC. Unfortunately so much about the people who created this has been lost to antiquity. The sands of time and the changing flows of the Mesopotamian rivers left great cities in a state of utter desolation.

This book serves as a good introduction to the subject of Sumer, as well as a good review for those who have already studied the subject. We have so much to learn from those who have gone before us. We are fortunate for those treasures of art, literature, and architecture that have been discovered. While this is not among the great books, it meets its objectives well.

[Osama Siddique · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is deeply fascinating and not a little humbling to think that an entire civilization was deemed by many experts to not exist at all, as late as the second half of the 19th century. Will those in the future also quibble over us and not be able to tell whether we existed as distinct cultures and civilizations, when we too shall be covered over by clay and sand?

What's all the more significant is that the civilization whose distinct identity was in question was a vast one with its own pre-history and many firsts to its credit - the first city, the first urban civilization, the first writing, the first depiction of a standing army, the first known author, the first known elaborate and ritualized religions as well as legal edicts, and so much more. But Sumer was indeed only belatedly recognized as the vibrant precursor to other ancient civilizations that were to flourish in Mesopotamia. Many important sites still lie buried under mounds in the trackless desert in a region ravaged by conflict over the millennia and the US led Iraq wars followed by the barbaric excesses of ISIS in more recent times. Mesopotamia remains however the cradle of human civilization and promises to offer more insights into our early days in years to come.

I cherish the "Lost Civilizations" series by Time-Life Books which I accumulated - all 24 volumes - during my lawyering days in New York. They have well researched scholarly essays that look at multiple aspects of the civilizations they cover, and are beautifully proceed and richly illustrated with maps, illustrations and photographs. While maintaining academic rigor they stir the imagination; for ancient history and archaeology enthusiasts like me they are a real treat. This volume has four sections with different focal points, an essay each and multiple sub-sections focusing on different themes.

The first section titled "History's Forgotten People," as the name suggests, dwells on how the world came to know of the existence of Sumer in the first place, going into great detail about the cumbersome archeological digs, pitched debates amongst experts, the wonder of discovery and painstaking piecing of new evidence, and the eventual path-breaking realization of the existence of an entire civilization to which Biblical references existed (such as Ur of Chaldees for instance where Prophet Abraham is said to be born; we learn also eventually of the story of the Great Deluge and even Original Sin existing in the Sumerian tradition. All this has made the region additionally interesting, at times causing the problem of incentivizing artifact looters, for Bible scholars and zealots). To some the details may appear tedious, but to me this section drove home the toil, labor and passion required on part of driven and often idiosyncratic archaeologists (and at times their wives; Agatha Christie lived with her archeologist husband for some years and was inspired to write in the desert) to trace entire civilizations in crumbling dust and shifting sands, in harsh and adversarial conditions of "heat, haze and sudden dust storms", with primitive tools and multiple other obstacles. What emerges from years of excavation - at times innovative and at others crude - is a sophisticated urban civilization with its ziggurats, elaborate religion, organized economy and polity, and extensive writing in the cuneiform script surviving on clay tablets.

The second section "Milestones on the Road to Civilization" traces the Ubaid people as the precursors of the Sumerians, periodizes them and related cultures (the Hayssuna culture and the Samara culture), and elaborates on other aspects of the ancestry and prehistory of Sumer. Here individual significant finds of pottery sherds, vessels, tools, statues etc., are the focus and as they are used by experts to recreate an elaborate mosaic reflecting what like in Sumer was like — its urban, political, agricultural and economic evolution. Here too we are told the story of the deciphering of the Sumerian language. There is a special section also on the City of Uruk and discoveries made there —it is now thought to be the first ever city of the human civilization.

In the section "Royal Splendors Buried under Layers of Time," we get further fascinating details of the digs and finds, an extensive narrative on the macabre discovery of ritualized (and likely consensual) human sacrifice around demise of royalty to sanctify the same, highly precious and insightful objects such as the Standard of Ur, and various statues, tablets, plaques, friezes, reliefs, votive figures and other objects providing insights into Sumerian religious rituals, funerary rites, warfare, and other aspects of social and cultural life.

In the final section "The Bloody Legacy of the Gardner's Son," we learn of the life, exploits and times of the humble born consolidator of the Sumerian states under unitary power and creator of an Akkadian dynasty — Sargon of Akkad, and his equally remarkable daughter Enheduanna, chief priestess of Ur's moon-god cult and the first author in history to leave her name and works; the Gutean leader Gudea of Lagash, the scribal school of Edubba and Sumerian bureaucracy, mention of trade with faraway places including Meluhha (likely the Indus Valley Ccivilization), Sumer's populous pantheon, its fearful dependence on deities, the sacred practices of Sumerian cults, royal obligations to divine powers, and that particular feature of Sumerian architecture, marrying religion with politics — the Ziggurats or mountains that step to heaven.

Such evocative names of the cities and sites — Uruk, Ur, Nippur, Eridu, Choga Mami, Umma, Tell Awayli, Tell-Mardikh, Ebla, Puabi Nin, Kish, Lagash, Agade; of rulers, generals, governors, gods and dieties — King Shulgi, King Lugalzaggesi, Queen Puabi, King Sharkalisharri, General Enna-Dagan, Amar-Sin, Ur-Nammu, Naram-Sin, Ur-Nanshe, Shurrupak, Ishbi-Irra, Ibbi-Sin, Nanna, Ningirsu, Ningal, Ningizzida, Ninhursag, Nammu, Inanna, Enlil, Shamash, Enki, Bau; and of texts and objects that give us vital glimpses into ancient history — The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Curse of Agade, the Tell-Mardikh texts, the Stela of Ur-Nammu, the Stela of Vultures.

So much of this sounds alien and yet how familiar the underlying sentiments and drives of the people who built and peopled this world and then disappeared beneath the sands. Sumer is in all of us and the more we know of it the more we know ourselves.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of two books published by Time-Life Books in its Lost Civilizations series dealing with the archaeology of ancient Iraq. The first chapter tells the story of the rediscovery of the world’s first civilisation which originated in Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Subsequent chapters detail the development of this Sumerian civilsation from the first farmers to its flowering and final decline. As with all books in this series it is highly informative and readable, and beautifully illustrated. Unlike other books in the series, hindsight now casts a dark shadow over its 1993 celebration of archaeological discovery in Iraq, as the United States has since condoned and made possible the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and many of the archaeological sites celebrated in the book.

[Naomi Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some of this is a little outdated (it was written in 1993), it has a lot of good information and a lot of pictures, which is great. Very useful as a reference book for Future Projects. I especially appreciated the summary at the end that gave a brief overview of the fourth time periods discussed.

Also, as an aside, I really want to find out more about Katharine Keeling.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fucking love Sumer.