Sumer (Template:IPAc-en)[1] is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages, and arguably the first civilization in the world with Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley.[2]Template:Pageneeded Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. Proto-writing in the prehistory dates back to c. 3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC; early cuneiform script writing emerged in 3000 BC.[3]
Etymology[]
The term Sumerian is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga (cuneiform: 𒌦 𒊕 𒈪 𒂵), phonetically /uŋ saŋ gi ga/, literally meaning "the black-headed people", and to their land as ki-en-gi(-r) (cuneiform: 𒆠𒂗𒄀) ('place' + 'lords' + 'noble'), meaning "place of the noble lords".[4] The Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain.[5] Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar(a), all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of Shumer.[5]
References[]
- ↑ The name is from Akkadian Template:Lang; Sumerian 𒆠𒂗𒂠 Template:Lang, approximately "land of the civilized kings" or "native land". Template:Lang means "native, local", in(ĝir NATIVE (7x: Old Babylonian) from The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary). Literally, "land of the native (local, noble) lords". Stiebing (1994) has "Land of the Lords of Brightness" (William Stiebing, Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture). Postgate (1994) takes en as substituting eme "language", translating "land of the Sumerian heart" (John Nicholas Postgate (1994). Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. Routledge (UK).. Postgate believes it not that eme, 'tongue', became en, 'lord', through consonantal assimilation.)
- ↑ King, Leonid W. (2015) A History of Sumer and Akkad (Template:ISBN)
- ↑ Cuneiform ancient.eu
- ↑ W. Hallo; W. Simpson (1971). The Ancient Near East. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. p. 28.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 K. van der Toorn, P. W. van der Horst (Jan 1990). "Nimrod before and after the Bible". The Harvard Theological Review 83 (1): 1–29. doi:10.1017/S0017816000005502.