mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ 
For complete access to all the files of this collection
	see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php 
==========================================================
_Earth's Ancient History_

_A Website dedicated to Ancient Times_
_________________________________________________________________

Search my website, type a word or phrase and hit search 0

Search Query ____________________ Search

[1]Links [2]Mailinglist [3]New additions [4]World news [5]Public
domain 
_________________________________________________________________

_Sub Domain Navigation_

[ [6]Main Index ][ [7]America ][ [8]Apochrypha ][ [9]Arabia ][
[10]Atlantis ][ [11]Babylon ][ [12]Egypt ][ [13]Europe ][ [14]Greece
][ [15]India ][ [16]Islam ][ [17]Jewish ][ [18]Persian ][
[19]Pseudepigrapha ][ [20]Roman ][ [21]Sumer ]

_Site Navigation_

[22]Home [23]Up 

Chapter 11
_________________________________________________________________

__chapter 11

Introduction to The Sumerian king list

Updated and partly revised by the author.
______________________________________________________________

In chapter 8, 9 and 10 I mentioned that the timetable of our
Ancient history, handed by Scholars, is wrong and the period from,
the so called Dark ages, about 10,000 BCE must be placed much
earlier in history, We will see later on that the time past from
first " Creation" of Humanity until the Flood must be placed at
least 433,500 BCE and also the time from the Flood to historical
times, as will be proven later in chapter 12 is also much earlier
in time then handed by Scholars, about 30,400 years BCE.

Before I explain my theory about the timetable of Mesopotamia in
chapter 12 we will first have a closer look at the timetable and
the history of Mesopotamia handed by Scholars at present time.
______________________________________________________________

Part one :

1. The classical and medieval views of Mesopotamia

In 1800 AD very little more was known than in 400 BCE about the
earliest history of Mesopotamia, although these sources had served
to stir the imagination of poets and artists, down to
"Sardanapalus" (probably Ashurbanipal, or, as he was known to the
Greeks, Sardanapalus, reigned from 668 to 626 BCE.).

Before the first minor excavations in Mesopotamia took place, about
1840 AD, more than 2,400 years had passed during which knowledge of
the ancient Middle East was derived from three sources only: the
Bible, Greek and Roman authors, and the excerpts from the writings
of Berosus, also spelled Berossus, Berossos, or Berosos, his
Akkadian name was Bel-usur he flourished about 290 BCE he was a
Babylonian who wrote in Greek.

Berosus was a Chaldean priest of Bel in Babylon who wrote a work in
three books (in Greek) on the history and culture of Babylonia; it
was widely used by later Greek compilers, whose versions in turn
were quoted by religious historians such as Eusebius and
[24]Josephus. Thus Berosus, though his work, survived only
fragmentary.

The Bible only mention the building of the Tower of Babel in
Mesopotamia and later on only in historical contexts in which the
kings of Assyria and Babylonia affected the course of events in
Israel and Judah: in particular Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V,
and Sennacherib, with their policy of deportation, and the
Babylonian Exile introduced by Nebuchadnezzar II.

Of the Greeks, Herodotus of Halicarnassus (5th century BCE, a
contemporary of Xerxes I and Artaxerxes I) was the first to report
on "Babylon and the rest of Assyria"; at that date the Assyrian
empire had been overthrown for more than 100 years.

The Athenian Xenophon

took part in an expedition (during 401-399 BCE) of Greek
mercenaries who crossed Anatolia, made their way down the Euphrates
as far as the vicinity of Baghdad, and returned up the Tigris after
the famous Battle of Cunaxa (401 BCE).

Xenophon
describes In his "Cyropaedia" the final struggle between Cyrus II
and the Neo-Babylonian empire. Later, the Greeks adopted all kinds
of fabulous tales about King Ninus, Queen Semiramis, and King
Sardanapalus. These stories are described mainly in the historical
work of Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE), who based them on the
reports of a Greek physician, Ctesias (405-359 BCE).

Herodotus saw Babylon with his own eyes, and Xenophon gave an
account of travels and battles.

All later historians, however, wrote at second or third hand, with
one exception, Berosus ( 340 BCE), who emigrated at an advanced age
to the Aegean island of Cos, where he is said to have composed the
three books of the "Babyloniaca". Unfortunately, only extracts from
them survive, prepared by one Alexander Polyhistor (1st century
BCE), who, in his turn, served as a source for the Church Father
Eusebius (342 AD).

Berosus derided the "Greek historians" who had so distorted the
history of his country. He knew, for example, that it was not
[25]Semiramis who founded the city of Babylon, but he was himself
the prisoner of his own environment and cannot have known more
about the history of his land than was known in Babylonia itself in
the 4th century BCE.

Berosus's first book dealt with the beginnings of the world and
with a myth of a composite being, Oannes, half fish, half man, who
came ashore in Babylonia at a time when men still lived like the
wild beasts. Oannes taught them the essentials of civilization:
writing, the arts, law, agriculture, surveying, and architecture.
The name Oannes must have been derived from the cuneiform U'anna
(Sumerian) or Umanna (Akkadian), a second name of the mythical
figure Adapa, the bringer of civilization.

A translation of the beginning of the first book of Berosus

"At Babylon there was (in these times) a great resort of people of
various nations, who inhabited Chaldea, and lived in a lawless
manner like the beasts of the field. In the first year there
appeared, from that part of the Eritrean sea which borders upon
Babylonia, an animal destitute of reason (sic), by name Oannes,
whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that
of a fish, that under the fish's head he had another head, with
feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's
tail. His voice too, and language, was articulated and human, and a
representation of him is preserved even to this day.

"This Being was accustomed to pass the day among men; but took no
food at that season; and he gave them an insight into letters and
sciences, and arts of every kind. He taught them to construct
cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them
the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish
the seeds of the earth, and showed them how to collect the fruits;
in short, he instructed them in everything which could tend to
soften manners and humanize their lives. From that time, nothing
material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions.
And when the sun had set, this Being Oannes, retired again into the
sea, and passed the night in the deep; for he was amphibious. After
this there appeared other animals like Oannes.

- Berossus, from Ancient Fragments (Isaac Preston Cory)

The second book of Berosus contained the Babylonian king list from
the beginning to King Nabonassar (Nabu-nasir, 747-734 BCE), a
contemporary of Tiglath-pileser III.

Berosus's tradition, beginning with a list of primeval kings before
the Flood, is a reliable one; it agrees with the tradition of the
Sumerian king list, and even individual names can be traced back
exactly to their Sumerian originals. Even the immensely long reigns
of the primeval kings, which lasted as long as "18 sars" (= 18 *
3,600 = 64,800) of years, are found in Berosus books. His list was
based on older versions of the Sumerian Kinglist.

Furthermore, he was acquainted with the story of the Flood, with
Cronus (Enki) as its instigator and Xisuthros (or Ziusudra, Noah in
the Bible) as its hero, and with the building of an ark.

The third book is presumed to have dealt with the history of
Babylonia from Nabonassar to the time of Berosus himself.

Diodorus (circa 90-21 BCE) made the mistake of locating Nineveh on
the Euphrates, and Xenophon (430 - 355 BCE) gave an account of two
cities, Larissa (probably modern Nimrud (ancient Kalakh), 20 miles
southeast of modern Mosul) and Mespila (ancient Nineveh, just north
of Mosul).

The name Mespila probably was nothing more than the word of the
local Aramaeans for ruins; there can be no clearer instance of the
rift that had opened between the ancient Middle East and the
classical West. In sharp contrast, the East had a tradition that
the ruins opposite Mosul (in north Iraq) concealed ancient Nineveh.

1,400 years later when a Spanish rabbi from Navarre, Benjamin of
Tudela, was travelling in the Middle East between 1160 and 1173 AD,
Jews and Muslims alike knew the position of the grave of the
prophet Jonah.

The credit for the rediscovery of the ruins of Babylon goes to an
Italian, Pietro della Valle, who correctly identified the vast
ruins north of modern Al-Hillah, (60 miles south of Baghdad); he
must have seen there the large rectangular tower that represented
the ancient ziggurat.

Previously, other travellers had sought the Tower of Babel in two
other monumental ruins: Birs Nimrud, the massive brick structure of
the ziggurat of ancient Borsippa (modern Birs, near Al-Hillah),
vitrified by lightning, and the ziggurat of the Kassite capital,
Dur Kurigalzu, at Burj 'Aqarquf, 22 miles west of Baghdad. Pietro
della Valle brought back to Europe the first specimens of cuneiform
writing, stamped brick, of which highly impressionistic
reproductions were made.

Thereafter, European travelers visited Mesopotamia with increasing
frequency, among them Carsten Niebuhr (an 18th-century German
traveler), Claudius James Rich (a 19th-century Orientalist and
traveler), and Ker Porter (an 19th-century traveler).

It is obvious that even from the time 400 BCE until the 16th
century AD Scholars had a different meaning about historical places
and also later, until this day most of the Ancient Historical
places are uncertain, including ancient Babylon.

In modern times a third Middle Eastern ruin drew visitors from
Europe, Persepolis, in the land of Persia east of Susiana, near
modern Shiraz, Iran. In 1602, reports had filtered back to Europe
of inscriptions that were not in Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Georgian,
or Greek. In 1700 an Englishman, Thomas Hyde, coined the term
"cuneiform" for these inscriptions, and by the middle of the 18th
century it was known that the Persepolis inscriptions were related
to those of Babylon.

Niebuhr distinguished three separate alphabets (Babylonian,
Elamite, and Old Persian cuneiform). The first promising attempt at
decipherment was made by the German philologist Georg Friedrich
Grotefend in 1802, by use of the kings' names in the Old Persian
versions of the trilingual inscriptions, although his later efforts
led him up a blind alley.

Thereafter, the efforts to decipher cuneiform gradually developed
in the second half of the 19th century into a discipline of ancient
Oriental philology, which was based on results established through
the pioneering work of Emile Burnouf, Edward Hincks, Sir Henry
Rawlinson, and many others.

Modern Assyriology

Today this subject is still known as Assyriology, because at the
end of the 19th century the great majority of cuneiform texts came
from the Assyrian city of Nineveh, in particular from the library
of King Ashurbanipal in the mound of Kuyunjik at Nineveh.

The reader have already mentioned that even 2,400 years ago (400
BCE) Scholars of those days had different theories about the
history of Mesopotamia and we wills see that we have made only a
few steps forward since that time regarding our knowledge of
ancient Mesopotamia.

The knowledge of the Babylonian period (1,800 BCE) is, even in
present day, still in largely undiscovered, so what about the
history of the Sumerians and Akkadians who flourished long before
the Babylonian period (4,000 to 2,000 BCE).

The knowledge of the Mesopotamian history is a relative young part
of the ancient history knowledge of the Middle East. Before the
mid-19th century AD, the existence of the Sumerian people and
language was not suspected.
______________________________________________________________

2. Rediscovery of Sumer

The first major excavations leading to the discovery of Sumer were
conducted (18421854) at Assyrian sites such as Nineveh, Dur
Sharrukin, and Calah by the French archaeologists Paul Émile Botta
and Victor Place (18181875); the British archaeologists Sir Austen
Henry Layard (18171894) and Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson; and the
Iraqi archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam (18261910).

Thousands of tablets and inscriptions dating from the 1st
millennium BCE, the vast majority written in Akkadian, were
uncovered. Thus, scholars assumed at first that all Mesopotamian
cuneiform inscriptions were in the Akkadian language. Rawlinson and
the Irish clergyman Edward Hincks (17921866) made a study of the
inscriptions, however, and discovered that some were in a
non-Semitic language. In 1869 the French archaeologist Jules Oppert
(18251905) suggested that the numerous inscriptions, be applied to
the language.

A. Nineveh

Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817 1894) was one of the leading British
archaeologists of the nineteenth century. Befitted as a Victorian
gentleman, he was not a professional archaeologist, nor did he
restrict his intellectual activities to archaeology. He wore many
hats in his public career, as a diplomat, a politician, an art
connoisseur and a man of letters. He is now known as Layard of
Nineveh. Layard was not a scholar.

In the period between 1845-1854 he discovered and explored the
ruins of Nineveh and specially the ruins of the library of King
Ashurbanipal, king of ancient Assyria (669-633 BCE).

The Library of Ashurbanipal

Taken from Archaeology Odyssey, July/August 2000.

At the imposing mound of Nineveh, the last great capital of the
Assyrian Empire, the archaeological giants who dug there include
the then-consul of France, Paul-Emile Botta, who sunk a few
trenches at Nineveh (with little success) as early as 1842, and
Austen Henry Layard, who dug there on behalf of the British Museum
from 1846 until 1851.

It was Layard who discovered the first substantial hoard of
cuneiform tablets. He was followed in 1852 by his resourceful
assistant, Hormuzd Rassam, who was even more successful. Together
they recovered nearly 24,000 clay tablets. The tablets from Nineveh
form the basis of perhaps the greatest collection of cuneiform
tablets in the world, that of the British Museum. Fully 35 of the
75 known manuscripts of the so-called Standard Babylonian (SB)
version of the Gilgamesh epic were found at Nineveh.

This is not surprising: In Nineveh, the Assyrian emperor
Assurbanipal (668-627 BCE.) added to tablet collections started by
his predecessors, the kings Sennacherib (704-681 BCE.) and
Esarhaddon (681-669 BCE.), to create the first world-class library.

True, Assurbanipal was a plunderer of Egypt and Susa, but he was
also a "bibliophile"; his agents combed other ancient seats of
learning to collect, copy and translate famous texts, including, of
course, the Epic of Gilgamesh. A cuneiform inscription tells us
that a recension of the epic was "written down according to the
original and collated in the palace of Assurbanipal, King of the
World, King of Assyria."

Ashurbanipal's outstanding contribution resulted from his academic
interests. He assembled in Nineveh the first systematically
collected and catalogued library in the ancient Middle East (of
which approximately 20,720 Assyrian tablets and fragments have been
preserved in the British Museum).

At royal command, scribes searched out and collected or copied
texts of every genre from temple libraries. These were added to the
basic collection of tablets culled from Ashur, Calah, and Nineveh
itself. The major group includes omen texts based on observations
of events; on the behavior and features of men, animals, and
plants; and on the motions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars.
Lexicographical texts list in dictionary form Sumerian, Akkadian,
and other words, all essential to the scribal system. Ashurbanipal
also collected many incantations, prayers, rituals, fables,
proverbs, and other "canonical" and "extracanonical" texts. The
traditional Mesopotamian epics-such as the stories of Creation,
Gilgamesh, Irra, Etana, and Anzu -- have survived mainly due to
their preservation in his library. The presence of handbooks,
scientific texts, and some folk tales (The Poor Man of Nippur was a
precursor of one of the Thousand and One Nights tales of Baghdad)
show that this library, of which only a fraction of the clay
tablets has survived, was more than a mere reference library geared
to the needs of diviners and others responsible for the King's
spiritual security; it covered the whole range of Ashurbanipal's;
personal literary interests, and many works bear the royal mark of
ownership in their colophons.

From these tablets are most still unreadable because most tablets
are written in an unknown language. I mentioned that already in
part 1 of my book but some are translated and you can find a lot of
them on this website. The tablets found in Nineveh who were written
in the Sumerian language had to wait for translation until the
1930s before they could be read.
______________________________________________________________

B. Nippur, Lagash and Umma

In the late 19th century, a series of excavations was undertaken at
Lagash by French archaeologists working under the direction of the
Louvre Museum and at Nippur by Americans under the auspices of the
University of Pennsylvania.

The French excavations at Lagash were conducted from 1877 to 1900
by Ernest de Sarzec (18371901); from 1903 to 1909 by Gaston Cros
(18611915); from 1929 to 1931 by Henri de Genouillac (18811940);
and from 1931 to 1933 by André Parrot (190180).

The excavations at Nippur were conducted (18891900) by John Punnett
Peters (18521921), John Henry Haynes (18491910), and Hermann
Vollrat Hilprecht (18591924).

Nippur

[26][LINK] 

Map of the holy city of the Sumerians

click image to enlarge

Copyright © 1997 Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

A large fraction of texts in Old Sumerian and most of our knowledge
on this language is derived from texts already found before 1900 AD
in Nippur, a holy city, the religious capital of Sumer, seat of
Enlil, the supreme god of the Sumerian pantheon. Nippur has been
the focus of major excavation since 1889 when the University of
Pennsylvania opened the first American expedition in the Middle
East. Finding the site a rich source for cuneiform tablets, that
expedition continued to excavate at Nippur until 1900 (Hilprecht
1903; Peters 1897).

The main achievements of the expedition were to locate the ziggurat
and temple of Enlil and to recover more than 30,000 cuneiform
tablets of extraordinary literary, historical, grammatical, and
economic importance. These tablets (more than 30,000) can now be
found in Istanbul, Jena and Philadelphia.

More than 80% of all known Sumerian literary compositions have been
found at Nippur. Included were the earliest recognized versions of
the Flood Story, parts of the Gilgamesh Epic, and dozens of other
compositions including parts of the Sumerian King list.

It was these Sumerian works, plus an invaluable group of lexical
texts and bilingual (Sumerian/Akkadian) documents that allowed
scholars to make real progress in deciphering and understanding
Sumerian.

As important in historical terms are royal inscriptions from all
periods, especially those of the Kassite Dynasty which ruled
Mesopotamia from about 1600 to 1225 BCE. But more than 80% of our
knowledge of this dynasty has come from Nippur texts. More info you
can read at : [27]The Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago Nippur has been excavated by Scholars from all over the
world for more than a century and it still is researched now.

Since 1948, excavations have been conducted by archaeologists
working under the direction of the University of Pennsylvania, the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and the American
Schools of Oriental Research (after 1957 under the sole direction
of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago).

Other Sumerian excavations have been conducted at Kish, Adab,
Erech, Eridu, Eshnunna, Jemdat Nasr, Shuruppak, Tell al-Ubaid,
Tutub, and Ur.

The canalled city of Kish, which was situated 13 km (8 miles) east
of Babylon on the Euphrates River, is known to have been one of the
most important cities of Sumer. Extensive excavations since 1922
have uncovered an invaluable sequence of pottery.

Archaeologists also unearthed a temple of Nebuchadnezzar II and
Nabonidus (r. 556539 BCE) and the palace of Sargon of Akkad, ruins
that date from the 3d millennium BCE to about 550 BCE.

The reconstructed history of Mesopotamia is based on the above
written excavations made in the last 150 years. Most of the tablets
and fragments found at Nippur are still unreadable, including a
large amount of tablets found at Nineveh, Lagash and Umma.

The reader can imagine that it looks a little strange that Scholars
could reconstruct the WHOLE history of Sumer, Akkad and Babylonia
in such a short time, including the total timeline of that area,
its kings and its inhabitants.

I am sceptic about the timeline of Mesopotamia made by Scholars
because it is based on the small amount of "readable" tablets while
most tablets found in the whole area are not readable until this
day because they are written in an unknown language.

A strange phenomenon is also that parts of the tablets who are
readable are accepted as the true written history but one of the
most important tablets found, "The Sumerian King list" is only
partly accepted as history, an exclusion is made for the first part
of it, the part in witch the Kings lived for a long time (some of
them for thousands of years). Why ?. Almost the whole religious
world accept the long lifetime of the Earth-fathers from Adam to
Abraham as true, why not the written history of the Sumerian King
list where the Bible and the Quran are based on ?

In chapter 12 we will have a closer look at this famous King list
ourselves and I hope that we can find the answer than.
______________________________________________________________

Part two :

The history of Mesopotamia handed by Scholars

In part one of this chapter we could read how we gathered our
knowledge of Ancient Mesopotamia in the period from 400 BCE until
2,000 AD.

But first we will have a look at the timetable handed by Scholars,
you should have noticed already that I disagree with them about the
time the Kings lived because the Sumerian King list describes
clearly the years of rule of the Kings and the Dynasties, In my
opinion scholars rejects the time of rule of most kings because
they won't accept the, in some cases, very long period of rule of
these Kings. I have never found the arguments why these lifetimes
were set aside.

When we take a look at the timetable handed by Scholars, we will
see that also Scholars disagree with each other about the dates of
the reign of a lot of Kings and especially the period between
10,000 BCE until 1,000 BCE. (see also the table in chapter 8)

After 1,000 BCE (Early Neo Babylonian ages) the timeline of all
Scholars is mostly the same, with a difference of at most a few
years. Before 1,000 BCE there are larger differences in dates,
names and places.

[28][LINK] 

[29][LINK] 

_Map of the Ancient world_

_Map of the earliest Civilizations_

click image to enlarge

thanks to [30]hyperhistory.com/online

Some of the descriptions and dates are taken form the
[31]Encyclopaedia of the Orient,
[32]Iraq [33]History page, Christopher Siren and [34]John Heise
______________________________________________________________

Timeline Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia, in Sumerian Ki-engir; Akkadian Shumerum, corresponding
approximately to Babylonia of biblical times.

_Period_ _Time_ 

_Dark Ages / Pre Historic_    _10000-5000 BCE_

_Ubaid_    _5000-3500 BCE_

_Uruk_    _3500-3100 BCE_

_Jemdet Nasr_    _3100-2900 BCE_

_Early Dynastic I-III_    _2900-2350 BCE_

_Akkadian_    _2350-2100 BCE_

_Ur III_    _2100-2000 BCE_

_Isin-Larsa_    _2000-1800 BCE_

_Old Babylonian_    _1800-1600 BCE_

_Kassite_    _1600-1150 BCE_

_Post Kassite_    _1150-1000 BCE_

_Early Neo-Babylonian_    _1000-625 BCE_

_Neo-Babylonian_    _625-539 BCE_

_Achaemenid_    _539-331 BCE_

_Seleucid_    _331-125 BCE_

_Parthian_    _125 BCE-226 AD_

_Sasanian_    _226-637 AD_

_Islamic_    _637-1500 AD_

_Ottoman_    _1500-1918 AD_

Antediluvian cites

Cities before the flood

These were: Eridu (Eridug), Bad-Tibira, Larag (Larak), Zimbir
(Sippar) and Uruppag (Surrupak, Uruppak).

The location of most antediluvian cities has been located but not
all of them were found and even the location of some "discovered"
cities is uncertain.

Still not found at present day are: Bad-tibira and Larag.

Eridu

The first city mentioned in the Sumerian King list, is the city of
the water god Enki/Ea, (one of the top three deities in the
Sumerian pantheon).

Scholars have it situated in the extreme south of Mesopotamia near
the sea or a lagoon. It is said that the 'principle of agriculture'
was revealed by a god to the first king of Eridu: Emmeduranki.

Sippar

The city of the sun god, Sumerian Utu, later called ama in Akkadian
and Shamash in Babylonian.

It is said that the secrets of divination were shown to a king of
Sippar, also by divine revelation. Gods make their will, intentions
and answers known to the people by supernatural means: numerous
omens and signs that needed explanation. The exegesis of omens was
seen as a discipline ('science') to inquire the gods. It was an
official institution, used by the king to collect information. No
decision of any importance was taken without proper consulting. The
sun god Utu is in particular connected with the discipline of
divination. He is in a position to oversee everything.

It is uncertain but possible that Sippar is the same city as the
Postdeluvian city Nippur (see chapter 12).

Shurrupak

City on the banks of the Euphrates, near modern Fara. The last king
of urruppak, Ziusudra, was the hero in the Flood story.

The antediluvian cites are in my opinion not Sumerian but owned by
the "Gods" themselves who build them, with the help of the local
people as slaves. Prove of that we can find in several tablets
found in Mesopotamia and other place around the World.

When the Aryans who invaded the area and became the Sumerians saw
these enormous cities with all their luxury they adored what they
saw and they tried to copy the Godly cities, sometimes with the
help of the "Gods", so was born religion. In chapter 12 I will
explain my theory about the timeline in which this all happened.
______________________________________________________________

From the king lists an important caesura becomes apparent, the
great Flood or Deluge.

The Flood story

The motive of the Flood, a ''word wide'' catastrophe, circulates in
all of antiquity. All kinds of versions of the catastrophe are
passed down from generation to generation and from country to
country. There are Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Hittite versions
and probably independently in much of the world's folklore
elsewhere.

When the first texts about the Flood (Akkadian abübum, a
devastating storm surge) were discovered in 1872 by George Smith,
it made headline news in all papers, because of the similarities
with the story in the Bible (dated almost two millennia later).
Fantasy was further stirred by the English archaeologists Sir L.
Woolley. He found (1929) in excavations a deposit of silt of a few
meters thickness, under which artifacts were found dated to the 5th
millennium.

NOTE : Scholars have a theory that these deposits, however, are
always localized to a small area, as Woolley himself has later
"discovered". Time, place and extend of this flood would be
inconsistent with the literary tradition. Scholars believes that a
local breakthrough of the river is a sufficient explanation.

Scholars think to have found prove of that because all alluvial
plains and river deltas in the world have suffered from major
floods. A series of floods in the 15th century for instance, called
The St. Elisabeth's Flood, has shaped part of the Netherlands in
the Rhine delta located at Dordrecht and Kinderdijk. Millions of
people in The Netherlands and elsewhere (Bangladesh) even now are
in constant danger because of flood threat, so it is not surprising
that the story still addresses the imagination.

I disagree with Scholars because of the simple fact that the Flood
story is spread all over the world (see chapter 6) and could never
had so great impact on the memory of Human kind all over the world
when it was only a local event.

The Sumerian Flood hero (the early Noah) is called Zi-u-sura, a son
of king Ubara-Tutu ('Friend of the god Tutu'), in other versions
Ziusudra ('Life of long days') In the Akkadian version he is called
Utnapitim ('he who found everlasting) life') elsewhere as Atrahasis
('exceedingly wise'). The epic named after the latter is very
famous and is in Old Babylonian form dated to 1635 BCE. It exists
also in earlier and later traditions (see chapter 10).

Names and events are either antediluvian or postdiluvial. In later
epics the Flood signals the end of mythological times, when things
were formed, and inaugurates the beginning of historical times.

After the Flood various city-states by turns became the temporary
seat of power but it is obvious that the most important city after
the flood was Kish (Kic). The Sumerians and eventually earlier
civilizations had built up a society based in 12 city-states:

Kish, Uruk (in the Bible, Erech), Ur, Sippar, Akshak, Larak,
Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa.

The Sumerians had never been very warlike, and they had only a
citizen army, called to arms in time of danger.

In about 2450 BCE King Sargon of Akkad conquered them and went on
to build an empire that stretched westward to the Mediterranean Sea
called Akkad.
The empire, though short-lived, fostered art and literature.

Led by Ur, during the third dynasty, the Sumerians again spread
their rule far westward but now for the last time. During Ur's
supremacy (about 2150 to 2050 BCE) Sumerian and Akkadian culture
reached its highest development.

Shortly thereafter the cities lost their independence forever, and
gradually the Sumerians completely disappeared as a people. Their
language, however, lived on as the language of culture. Their
writing, their business organization, their scientific knowledge,
and their mythology and law were spread westward by the Babylonians
and Assyrians.
______________________________________________________________

Pre Historic period (10,000-5,000 BCE)

People have been living in Mesopotamia for many thousands of years,
the region probably belong to the longest inhabited regions of the
world.

The antediluvian period is also seen as the era of divine
revelations, such as the invention of agriculture, the invention of
writing etc.

Some of the antediluvian cities mentioned are Eridu, Sippar,
Bad-tibira and urruppak.

10th millennium BCE: Agriculture is starting to be developed in
northern Mesopotamia.

7th millennium BCE: Tiny settlements start to grow into villages.
______________________________________________________________

Ubaid period (5,000-3,500 BCE)

Second half 5th millennium BCE: A non-Semitic people moves into
Mesopotamia, and gradually start developing the area. The people
are called proto-Euphrateans or Ubaidians (after the village
Al-Ubaid, where their earliest remains were discovered). The main
achievements of the Ubaidians were draining the marshes so that
they could be used in agriculture, they developed trade and
established industries like weaving, leatherwork, metalwork,
masonry and pottery.

5000 BCE Early development of Sumer.

4th millennium BCE: Irrigation agriculture of southern Mesopotamia
is starting to be developed, and proves to be more effective than
the agriculture in the northern regions.

4000 BCE High civilization developing.

Around 4000 BCE: Semites move in from the desert of modern Syria
and Arabia. Some of the villages started to grow into cities, where
Eridu and Uruk were among the very first.

Around 3500 BCE: City-states in southern Mesopotamia develop, and
form the culture we call Sumer.
______________________________________________________________

SUMER (3,500-2,350 BCE)

The history of Sumer tends to be divided into five periods.

1. The Uruk period, which saw the dominance of the city of that
name.

2. The Jemdat Nasr period.

3. The Early Dynastic periods.

4. The Agade (Akkadian) period.

5. The Ur III period.

The entire span lasting from 3800 BCE to around 2000 BCE, where
after other cultures, based upon the Sumerian, continued the
civilization. These cultures were principally the Assyrian and the
Babylonian.

Sumer represented one half of Mesopotamia, where Akkad, to the
north, represented the other half. The heartland of Sumer
corresponds much to the heartland of latter Babylonia.

There is evidence of the Sumerians in the area both prior to the
Uruk period (3,500 BCE) and after the Ur III Dynastic period (2,100
BCE), but relatively little is known about the former age. The
latter time period is most heavily dominated by the Babylonians.

The history of Sumer has been reconstructed solely from
fragmentary writings on clay tablets and from other evidence
uncovered and interpreted by modern archaeologists. Use of the name
Sumer dates probably from about the beginning of the 3rd millennium
BCE.

Cultural and Scientific achievements

The Sumerians were the first to start using the alloy bronze, which
allowed them the development of much better instruments than what
had been possible before. The discovery of how to mould bronze soon
spread all over the rest of the Middle East.

Among the earliest cultural expressions in Sumer, was pottery.
Around 3000 BCE the Sumerians started carving in stones and shells,
and creating statues. Jewellery was also created from gold and
silver. It was the inhabitants of Sumer that developed the first
pictographic writing system, which after a few hundred years
developed into the writing style that we now call cuneiform. They
also developed what is the oldest known law system, as well as the
city-state, as it is known through cities like principally Ur. The
city-state was a prerequisite for urbanization in those days the
city had to precede the state.

The Sumerians also developed the studies of mathematics, astronomy,
along with other sciences. The Sumerians developed many ways of
understanding time. They even had an accurate calendar, that was
vital to planning agriculture. The Sumerians also developed
pseudo-science like astrology, within the context of religion.

The Sumerians believed that the stars on the sky were Gods that
controlled the events in the world, and that the position between
these gods could be used to predict events in the world, as well as
the fortune for individuals.

The architecture of Sumer was limited, in the respect that there
were no solid building materials available in the region. Stone,
metal and wood had to be imported. Therefore, they had to use mud
and reed for most houses, but this gradually developed into using
mud brick. Of technical developments, Sumerians developed the
potter's wheel, the sailboat and the seed plow.

The Sumerians also performed trade with foreign countries, they
even trade with other peoples out in the Persian Gulf, from where
they among other things bought home ivory and other luxury items.
______________________________________________________________

Uruk period (3,500-3,100 BCE)

The Uruk period, stretched from 3800 BCE to 3200 BCE. It is to this
era that the Sumerian King Lists ascribe the reigns of Dumuzi the
shepherd, and the other antediluvian kings. After his reign Dumuzi
was worshipped as the god of the spring grains.

This time saw an enormous growth in urbanization such that Uruk
probably had a population around 45,000 at the period's end. It was
easily the largest city in the area, although the older cities of
Eridu to the south and Kish to the north may have rivaled it.

Irrigation improvements as well as a supply of raw materials for
craftsmen provided an impetus for this growth. In fact, the city of
An and Inanna also seems to have been at the heart of a trade
network which stretched from what is now southern Turkey to what is
now eastern Iran. In addition people were drawn to the city by the
great temples there.

The E-anna of Uruk, a collection of temples dedicated to Anu and
Inanna, was constructed at this time and bore many mosaics and
frescoes. These buildings served civic as well as religious
purposes, which was fitting as the "en", or high priest, served as
both the spiritual and temporal leader. The temples were places
where craftsmen would practice their trades and where surplus food
would be stored and distributed. Around 3,500 BCE: The oldest
document describing the wheel.

The Exact timeline when the Uruk period ended and the Jemdat Nasr
period (see next) began is uncertain and Scholars disagree with
each other about the ending of the first and the beginning of the
last.

NOTE : In my opinion is the reason of this dispute the gap in the
missing exact location of some antediluvian cities like Eridug,
Bad-Tibira e.o. Some of the ancient cities will never be found
because in my opinion they are totally lost before or during the
flood and other ancient disasters on Earth during a long period of
time. We can find a lot of prove for this theory when we are
willing to read the Sumerian clay tablets literal and not only as
an religious expression of the ancients. Keep also in mind that it
was usual for the ancients to rebuild their cities on older ones,
with one exception, when the city was build by the "Gods" they
evade the area for a long time. We can see that phenomenon all over
the world, for instance: Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in India, Eridu
in Mesopotamia, Tiauanaco in South America and many others.
Abandoned ancient cities we can find all over the world.

You have already noticed that I disagree with Scholars about the
history of Mesopotamia as from about 2,400 BCE because the tablets
are telling another story when we forget religion for a moment. In
chapter 12 I will try to convince the reader that the timeline of
Scholars must be wrong. Even Scholars are aware that the Sumerian
"puzzle" is still unsolved at present day, there are still to many
missing links.
______________________________________________________________

Jemdat Nasr period (3,100-2,900 BCE)

Around 3300 BCE: A people called Sumerians move into the territory.
We do not know with certainty from where they came, but it is often
suggested that their homeland was today's Turkey.

NOTE : It is notable that Scholars also disagree with each other
where the Sumerians originally came from. Possibilities : India,
Pakistan (Aryans), Armenia, Turkey, Russia. In my opinion they were
Aryans from the Indus valley in what is now India. In later
chapters I will come back with this subject.

The urban revolution, the building of the first cities, took place
in 3100-2900 BCE in the transition from prehistory to history.
(from the time before and after the Flood)

The change in human settlement pattern from isolated settlements to
larger village communities, described before, continued. The dry
climate at the end of the 4th millennium now allowed habitation of
the great plains in the extreme south of Mesopotamia, the area
later called Sumer. Inadequate rainfall stimulated the continuing
development of irrigation works. The production of bronze, an alloy
of copper and other metals, mainly tin, allows the manufacturing of
new weapons, for which protection was sought by the construction of
fortifications around the villages and walls around cities.

The Jemdat Nasr period lasted from 3200 BCE to 2900 BCE. It was not
particularly remarkable and most adequately described as an
extension and slowing down of the Uruk period. This is the period
during which the great flood is supposed to have taken place. The
Sumerians' account of the flood may have been based on a flooding
of the Tigris, Euphrates, or both rivers onto their already marshy
country.

NOTE : I also disagree with most Scholars that the Flood was a
local disaster, we can find to many prove that it was worldwide.
(see chapter 6 and 7) . The reader could read above that Scholars
have a problem with the explanation of the period 3,500 BCE - 2,800
BCE. First the city of Uruk was build on about 3,500 BCE and later
we can read that the first cities were build about 3,100 BCE. A
difference of 400 years. In chapter 12 we will see that the
difference in the timeline handed by Scholars and the "real"
timeline of Mesopotamia is enormous.

Around 3100 BCE: The cuneiform writing system is starting to be
used.

Around 3000 BCE Political and military rivalries.
______________________________________________________________

Sumerian Kingdoms,

Old Sumerian Age

Table of The Sumerian period handed by Scholars

Dynasty I of Kish Dynasty I of Uruk

21 kings
since
the Flood

Mes-ki-ang-sher

c.2740

Enmerkar

Lugalbanda

Dumuzi

En-me-barage-si

c.2700

Gilgamesh

c.2700

Agga

Ur-nungal

Laba-X-IR

Uhub

c.2570

E-nun-dara-anna

Dynasty I of Ur

Lagash

Mesilim

c.2550

Mes-HE

Mes-anne-padda

c.2560-2525

En-hegal

c.2570
Dynasty II of Kish

Lugal-ki-kun

c.2550

A-anne-padda

c.2525-2485

Lugal-shag-engur

c.2500

Dadasig

Mes-kiag-nunna

c.2485-2450

Ur-Nanshe

c.2490

Magalgalla

Elili

c.2445

Akurgal

c.2465

Kalbum

Balili

Eannatum

c.2455-2425

[2 kings]

Dynasty II of Uruk Dynasty II of Ur

Enannatum I

c.2425

Enbi-Ishtar

c.2430

En-shakush-anna

c.2430-2400

Identical to Uruk II in
Roux 1964; "4 kings
(names unknown)" in
Roux 1992

Entemena

c.2400

Lugal-mu

Lugal-kinishe-dudu

c.2400

Enannatum II
Dynasty III of Kish

Lugal-kisal-si

En-entarzi
Dynasty IV of Kish
Dynasty III of Uruk

Lubalanda

Ur-Zababa

c.2340

Lugal-zage-si

c.2340-2316

Ur-inimgina

c.2350
_________________________________________________________________

In accordance to this timetable of Scholars the ancient Kings of Kic
and Unug ruled for an unbelievable short period of only 250 years.
_________________________________________________________________

Postdiluvian cities

Cities after the flood

As mentioned, from early on, Sumer consisted of 12 city-states: Adab,
Akshak, Bad-tibira, Erech (Uruk, Unug), Kish, Lagash, Larak, Larsa,
Nippur, Sippar, Umma and Ur. These city-states were independent
entities, that often waged war against each other, but there were also
wars against a unity of them and Akkad and Elam.

Central in every city was the temple, and every city had its own
deity, that was believed to protect the city. The city was fortified,
and to it belonged a rural zone where agriculture was performed. The
major crops were barley, wheat, dates and vegetables. They also raised
cattle, donkeys, sheep and goats. Textiles were made from wool from
the sheep.
_________________________________________________________________

Early Dynastic I-III

The bloom and further development of the city states is called the
Early Dynastic period (2900-2400 BCE) or Old Sumerian period.

It is divided into three periods in which different cities dominate.
The Old Sumerian period is characterized by strong rivalry between
city states and an increasing division between state and religion.
Monumental buildings that should be called palaces as opposed to
temples are attested for the first time. Despite the rivalry there are
strong similarities in architecture, building materials, motives of
ornaments etc., The people shared a common religion and spoke the same
language. So in general one could speak of a Sumerian art and culture.
_________________________________________________________________

Kish, Early Dynastic I (2900-2700 BCE)

the Golden Age

Place 1 : Kish is situated in the north of the plains of southern
Mesopotamia on a critical spot at the Euphrates river. A breakthrough
of the river to the lowlands in the direction south west (to modern An
Najat, where the Euphrates flows nowadays) would mean that a whole
system of irrigation channels would be without water supply. The
control of the Euphrates in the neighborhood of Kish thus was of vital
importance to the rulers in the south of Mesopotamia. The title 'king
of Kish' could have indicated the ruler that exercised this control.

Place 2 : City in the north of Babylonia near modern Tel el-ehêmir, is
the first postdiluvial city mentioned in the Sumerian King Lists.
After the great Flood, 'kingdom lowered again from heaven'. The first
kings had Semitic names. It is an age in which 'the four quarters of
the world' lived in harmony.

You see that also Scholars disagree with each other about the exact
location of the ancient cities.

From excavations it appears indeed that Kish has been an important
city. It is the center of the first Sumerian dynasty, called Early
Dynastic-I.

The findings point to a specialization in labor and a high quality of
craftsmanship, which must have been the result of a long tradition.
Beautiful golden daggers and other artefacts are found in tombs. In
Kish archaeologist found the first monumental building which must have
been a palace, rather than a temple.

The king in power had a title " King of Kish The importance attached
to Kish is also shown in the title 'King of Kish', in Akkadian ar ki
ati. This title was used by kings even many centuries later to show
prestige, as if it meant 'king of the whole world'. The title was even
used when another king was actually the king of Kish and also long
after Kish had ceased to be the seat of kingship. It is possible that
the title was more than just prestige.

The Early Dynastic period ran from 2900 BCE to 2370 BCE and it is this
period for which we begin to have more reliable written accounts
although some of the great kings of this era later evolved mythic
tales about them and were deified. Kingship moved about 100 miles
upriver and about 50 miles south of modern Baghdad to the city of
Kish. One of the earlier kings in Kish was Etana who "stabilized all
the lands" securing the First Dynasty of Kish and establishing rule
over Sumer and some of its neighbors. Etana was later believed by the
Babylonians to have rode to heaven on the back of a giant Eagle so
that he could receive the "plant of birth" from Ishtar (their version
of Inanna) and thereby produce an heir.

Around 2800 BCE: The king of Kish, Etana, manages to defeat the other
city states, and unites the country.

The first Sumerian ruler of historical record, Etana, king of Kish
(about 2800 BCE), was described in a document written centuries later
as the "man who stabilized all the lands." Shortly after his reign
ended, a king named Meskiaggasher founded a rival dynasty at Uruk
(biblical Erech), far to the south of Kish. Meskiaggasher, who won
control of the region extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Zagros Mountains, was succeeded by his son Enmerkar (fl. about 2750
BCE). The latter's reign was notable for an expedition against Aratta,
a city-state far to the northeast of Mesopotamia. Enmerkar was
succeeded by Lugalbanda, one of his military leaders. The exploits and
conquests of Enmerkar and Lugalbanda form the subject of a cycle of
epic tales constituting the most important source of information on
early Sumerian history.

28th century BCE: King Meskiaggasher of Erech takes control of Sumer
and extends his kingdom an area from Mediterranean Sea to the
[35]Zagros Mountains (situated in the western part of Iran).

Meanwhile, in the south, the Dynasty of Unug (Erech) was founded by
Meskiaggasher, who, along with his successors, was termed the "son of
Utu", the sun-god. Following three other kings, including another
Dumuzi, the famous Gilgamesh took the throne of Erech around 2600 BCE
and became involved in a power struggle for the region with the Kish
Dynasts and with Mesannepadda, the founder of the Dynasty of Ur. While
Gilgamesh became a demi-god, remembered in epic tales, it was
Mesannepadda who was eventually victorious in this three-way power
struggle, taking the by then traditional title of "King of Kish".

Although the dynasties of Kish and Erech fell by the wayside, Ur could
not retain a strong hold over all of Sumer. The entire region was
weakened by the struggle and individual city-states continued more or
less independent rule. The rulers of Lagash declared themselves "Kings
of Kish" around 2450 BCE, but failed to seriously control the region,
facing several military challenges by the nearby Umma. Lugalzagesi,
ensi or priest-king of Umma from around 2360-2335 BCE, razed Lagash,
and conquered Sumer, declaring himself "king of Erech and the Land".
Unfortunately for him, all of this strife made Sumer ripe for conquest
by an outsider and Sargon of Agade seized that opportunity.

Sargon united both Sumer and the northern region of Akkad - from which
Babylon would arise about four hundred years later - not very far from
Kish. Evidence is sketchy, but he may have extended his realm from the
Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River. This unity would survive its
founder by less than 40 years. He built the city of Agade and
established an enormous court there and he had a new temple erected in
Nippur. Trade from across his new empire and beyond swelled the city,
making it the center of world culture for a brief time.

After Sargon's death, however, the empire was fraught with rebellion.
Naram-Sin, Sargon's grandson and third successor, quelled the
rebellions through a series of military successes, extending his
realm. He declared himself 'King of the Four corners of the World' and
had himself deified. His divine powers must have failed him as the
Guti, a mountain people, razed Agade and deposed Naram-Sin, ending
that dynasty. After a few decades, the Guti presence became
intolerable for the Sumerian leaders. Utuhegal of Uruk/Erech rallied a
coalition army and ousted them. One of his lieutenants, Ur-Nammu,
usurped his rule and established the third Ur dynasty around 2112 BCE.
He consolidated his control by defeating a rival dynast in Lagash and
soon gained control of all of the Sumerian city-states. He established
the earliest known recorded law-codes and had constructed the great
ziggurat of Ur, a kind of step-pyramid which stood over 60' tall and
more than 200' wide. For the next century the Sumerians were extremely
prosperous, but their society collapsed around 2000 BCE under the
invading Amorites. A couple of city-states maintained their
independence for a short while, but soon they and the rest of the
Sumerians were absorbed into the rising empire of the Babylonians.
(Crawford pp. 1-28; Kramer 1963 pp. 40-72)
_________________________________________________________________

Uruk, Early Dynastic II, (2700-2500 BCE)

The Heroic Age

Sumerian Unug, in the bible Erech) is situated near modern Warka
(still showing the same root consonants *'rk but with a different
vocalization). This period under the hegemony of Uruk is also called
the Heroic Age. Dynasties are known from epics written some time
later. Uruk is the city of the goddess Inanna and the supreme god An.
Kings of Uruk are called

en
'lord'. A reconstruction from later mythology shows this period to be
a primitive democracy. Major decisions are taken by the king after
consultancies with a counsel of elderly men.

Enmerkar, king of Uruk and Kullub, has as epithet 'he who build Uruk'
and is known from two epics. There is no known inscription or plaque
that bears his name, so there is no archaeological proof of his
existence. The texts refer to commercial and military contacts with a
city called Aratta (not yet localized, probably in Iran), where the
Sumerian goddess Inanna (later Akkadian Itar) and Dumuzi were also
worshiped. These epics are seen as a proof of trade contacts, e.g. the
trade in precious stones, like lapis lazuli. Enmerkar was the first,
according to legend, to write on clay tablets.

NOTE : It was not Enmerkar who build Uruk but his father
Mec-ki-aj-gacer as we can clearly read in the Sumerian King list (see
chapter 12).

Lugalbanda (lugal 'king', banda 'small', so 'junior king') was the
third king in the first dynasty of Uruk, and also featuring in
heroic-epic Sumerian poems, the so called Lugal banda-epic (two parts,
together 900 lines).

Around 2750 BCE Legendary Gilgamesh rules Uruk, Enmebaragesi and Agga
rule Kish.

At the end of Lugalbanda's reign, Enmebaragesi (fl. about 2700 BCE), a
king of the Etana dynasty at Kish, became the leading ruler of Sumer.
His outstanding achievements included a victory over the country of
Elam and the construction at Nippur of the Temple of Enlil, the
leading deity of the Sumerian pantheon. Nippur gradually became the
spiritual and cultural center of Sumer.

Gilgamesh
is grandson of Enmerkar. His fame spread over a large region through
the Gilgamesh-epic. An Assyrian version is found in the library of
Aurbanipal (around 650 BCE) and probably dates back to 1700 BCE.
Smaller Sumerian fragments with only a few hundred lines are dated
around 2000 BCE. The spread in time and location indicates that the
epic was known for more than 15 centuries in a large region up to
Anatolia. It is nowadays (as one of the few Mesopotamian epics) still
played on stage.

Gilgamesh was responsible for the construction of the city walls of
Uruk. Indeed, it appears from archaeological records that these walls
were expanded around 2700 BCE with its typical plano-convex type of
bricks. Archaeologists take the use of this material as a
characteristic for the start of Early Dynamic-II. There is no
archaeological evidence for the existence of Gilgamesh. An other royal
name in this dynasty, Mesanepada, has been found written on a golden
plate (dated to 2600 BCE) with a votive inscription.

Around 2700 BCE: King Enmebaragesi becomes the ruler of Sumer, and
wins over Elam. He makes Nippur the cultural centre of Sumer.

Enmebaragesi's son Agga (probably d. before 2650 BCE), the last ruler
of the Etana dynasty, was defeated by Mesanepada, king of Ur (fl.
about 2670 BCE), who founded the so-called 1st Dynasty of Ur and made
Ur the capital of Sumer. Soon after the death of Mesanepada, the city
of Uruk achieved a position of political prominence under the
leadership of Gilgamesh (fl. about 27002650 BCE), whose deeds are
celebrated in stories and legends.

27th century BCE: King Mesanepada of Ur defeats the ruler of Sumer,
and founds what is referred to as the 1st dynasty of Ur.

2550 BCE Mesalim rules Kish.

NOTE : Wrong again, we will see in chapter 12 that Aga was already
"dead" for about 2,000 years when Mec-ane-padda became King of Ur.

Around 2500 BCE: King Lugalanemundu of Adab extends Sumer to cover the
area from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, bordering the
Taurus mountains in the north, and the Zagros mountains in the east.

Sometime before the 25th century BCE the Sumerian Empire, under the
leadership of Lugalanemundu of Adab (fl. about 25252500 BCE), was
extended from the Zagros to the Taurus mountains and from the Persian
Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Subsequently the empire was ruled by
Mesilim (fl. about 2500 BCE), king of Kish. By the end of his reign,
Sumer had begun to decline. The Sumerian city-states engaged in
constant internecine struggle, exhausting their military resources.
Eannatum (fl. about 2425 BCE), one of the rulers of Lagash, succeeded
in extending his rule throughout Sumer and some of the neigh boring
lands. His success, however, was short-lived. The last of his
successors, Uruinimgina (fl. about 2365 BCE), who was noteworthy for
instituting many social reforms, was defeated by Lugalzagesi (r. about
23702347 BCE), the governor of the neigh boring city-state of Umma.
Thereafter, for about 20 years, Lugalzagesi was the most powerful
ruler in the Middle East.

25th century BCE: Conflicts between the city-states of Sumer, making
the entire country weaker.

NOTE : A strange phenomenon in the timetable of Scholars is that the
first dynasties of Kic, the first dynasty of Unug and the first
dynasty of Ur existed in a few hundred years (2,900 - 2,500 BCE) this
is in contradiction with the Sumerian King list, even when "we" can't
accept the long lifetime of most of the Kings at that time it's
impossible that such a long list of Kings ruled in such a short period
(see later chapter 12).
_________________________________________________________________

Lagash and the religious metropolis Girsu (2570-2350 BCE)

Cities in the extreme south of Mesopotamia.

Lagash (Modern Telloh) Girsu [Al-Hiba] one of the most important
capital cities in ancient Sumer, located midway between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in south-eastern Iraq. The ancient name of the mound
of Telloh was actually Girsu, while Lagash originally denoted a site
southeast of Girsu, later becoming the name of the whole district and
also of Girsu itself......

TELLOH: (Iraq) A tell (mound) site in southern Mesopotamia, excavated
by the French between 1877 and 1909. For many years it was thought to
be the site of ancient Lagash, but has more recently been identified
as Girsu, possibly a religious centre within the state of Lagash,
though not its capital. Telloh has produced a wealth of art objects
and clay tablets, but little attention was paid to the architectural
remains in the excavations. Most of the finds belong to the 3rd
millennium BC, from the Early Dynastic, Akkad and Ur III periods, and
include a large number of cuneiform tablets and many fine statues of
Gudea, who was governor of Lagash in the 22nd century BC. One of the
most important tablets from Telloh is the so-called 'Urukagina reform
text'. Urukagina was the last Early Dynasty king of Lagash (mid-24th
century BC on the middle chronology) and the text records a series of
sweeping reforms he instituted, directed against a corrupt and over
powerful palace bureaucracy. (AHSFC)

Lagash has substantial and important remains of the Early Dynastic
Period. In the later 3rd and early 2nd millennia the main center of
occupation was transferred to Girsu. Al-Hiba has been excavated since
the late 1960s by an expedition from New York University's Institute
of Fine Arts. Major finds include an oval temple dedicated to Inanna,
goddess of love and war, and part of the temple of Lagash's major
deity, Ningirsu, that appears to have functioned as a brewery. (Mesa
CC)

Many Old Sumerian texts have been found here, mostly on hard materials
like albast, copper and gold, e.g. the royal inscriptions of Lagash
and texts about the eternal border conflicts between Lagash and the
nearby city Umma. The conflicts often concern water rights and were
sometimes settled by mediation of the king of Kish.

The patron deity of Lagash is Ningirsu, later associated with Ninurta
(NOTE : the God Yahweh in the Bible) a warrior god and central in the
elimination of demons. Some of the kings of Lagash are: Eannatum,
(E-ana-tum) the first king who called himself 'King of Kish', 'he who
overrules the countries'. He boasts that his territory extends from
Kish in the north, to Mari in the west, Uruk in the south and Elam in
the east, although it is not clear what the 'ruling' over these cities
actually means. He has had a long reign, but after his reign his
territory was reduced again to its original size. See also the poem
[36]Ningirsu´s temple., [37]Ninurta's exploits, [38]Ninurta's return
to Nibru and [39]Ninurta and the Turtle.

Famous is the victory depicted on the so called vulture stele of
Eannatum. It is the oldest direct witness of the political and
military power of a king, of which 1/3 is preserved. The texts
announces new borders and the victory of Eannatum of Lagash over the
ruler of Umma. It depicts military high lights, imprisoning of the
enemy, the burial of the dead and the vultures who escape with the
bones of the dead. It is shown as a serie of unrelated pictures. It is
either an artist impression of a historical battle or just expresses
the intention of such a battle.

Urukagina is the last and pious king of the dynasty in Lagash, also
called Uru-inimgina. The name is written with the sign ka 'mouth',
which also stands for inim 'word'. Proper names often do not give
enough context to know the correct reading of the sign. He was the
last king of the first dynasty of Lagash, and introduced many reforms
('social reforms of Uru-inimgina') and enacted edicts related to the
problem of enslavements which were caused by running up debts. High
extortionate rates of the interest on capital (often 33.3 percent) had
to be paid by enslaving one's children until the debts were paid off.
Uru-inimgina remits the debts by decree.
_________________________________________________________________

Ur and Lagash, Early Dynastic III (2500-2350 BCE)

Officially, according to the Sumerian King Lists, Ur has the hegemony
in this era, the Early Dynastic-III. In practice 'hegemony' probably
was fairly marginal. Ur is a port with connection to the Persian Gulf.

The Early Dynastic-III period is outside proto history and usually
considered to be part of history. Many source and archives are known.
One of them, contemporaneously with the archeological stratus of
Uruk-IVa with archaic pictographical texts, is found in uruppak
(modern Fara). Another site is only known by its modern name, the
village Abu salabih, with Old Sumerian texts. The majority of these
texts have an economical/administrative nature.

2475 BCE Ur-Nanshe rules Lagash, Meskalamdug rules Ur, military
conflict between Lagash and Umma continues a long time.

2375 BCE Lugalzagesi of Umma unifies Sumer briefly.

Around 2330: Mesopotamia is conquered by the Akkadians.
_________________________________________________________________

Akkadian period (2,350-2,100 BCE)

By the 23d century BCE the power of the Sumerians had declined to such
an extent that they could no longer defend themselves against foreign
invasion.

The Semitic ruler Sargon I (r. about 23352279 BCE), called Sargon The
Great, succeeded in conquering the entire country. Sargon founded a
new capital, called Agade, in the far north of Sumer and made it the
richest and most powerful city in the world. The people of northern
Sumer and the conquering invaders, fusing gradually, became known
ethnically and linguistically as Akkadians. The land of Sumer acquired
the composite name Sumer and Akkad.

Table of The Acadian period

_Name of King_ _from_ _until_ _Notes_
_Sargon I_ _2334 BCE_ _2279 BCE_ _United Mesopotamia (Sumer & Akkad)_
_Rimush_ _2278 BCE_ _2270 BCE_ _Conquers Elam and Marhashi (Central
Iran)_
_Manishtushu_ _2269 BCE_ _2255 BCE_ _Renovates the temple of Ishtar_
_Naram-Sin_ _2254 BCE_ _2214 BCE_ _Arrogates god-like status to
himself_
_Shar-Kali-Shari_ _2217 BCE_ _2193 BCE_ _Akkadian Empire weakens_
_Igigi_ _2192 BCE_ _?_
_Nanium_ _?_ _?_
_Imi_ _?_ _?_
_Elul-dan_ _2190 BCE_ _?_
_Dudu_ _2189 BCE_ _2169 BCE_
_Shu-Turul_ _2168 BCE_ _2154 BCE_ _The Akkadian empire collapses_

2350 BCE Sargon of Agade defeats Umma and takes over Sumer and Akkad
and creates significant political and economic empire.

NOTE : The time in which Sargon lived is also a disputable issue
between Scholars wit a difference of 100 years earlier and some even
later.

Around 2330 BCE: Sargon 1 the Great conquers all of Sumer, and makes
the north-Mesopotamian city Agade his new capital. This became the
beginning of the Akkadian dynasty.

The Akkadian dynasty lasted about a century. During the reign of
Sargon's grandson Naram-Sin (r. about 22552218 BCE), the Gutians, a
belligerent people from the Zagros Mountains (Iran), sacked and
destroyed the city of Agade. They then subjugated and laid waste the
whole of Sumer. After several generations the Sumerians threw off the
Gutian yoke. The city of Lagash again achieved prominence,
particularly during the reign of Gudea (c. 21442124 BCE), an
extraordinarily pious and capable governor. Because numerous statues
of Gudea have been recovered, he has become the Sumerian best known to
the modern world. The Sumerians achieved complete independence from
the Gutians when Utuhegal, king of Uruk (r. about 21202112 BCE), won a
decisive victory later celebrated in Sumerian literature.

2230 BCE Gutian invasion disrupts unity of Sumer and Akkad.

Approx. 2218: The tribesmen Gutians defeat the Akkadians.
_________________________________________________________________

The Gutian period

Approx. 2218 BCE: The tribesmen Gutians defeat the Akkadians.

22nd century BCE: The 3rd dynasty of Ur gets control over large parts
of Mesopotamia, and the region is revived.

Around 2220 BCE: The Gutians from the Zagros mountains conquer and
take control over Akkad and Sumer.

2175 BCE Gudea rules Lagash.

Around 2150 BCE: The rulers of Lagash rise to become important
political factors in Sumer, but is still under the governance of
Gutian rulers.

Around 2115 BCE: Sumer comes back under local rulers, when Utuhegal of
Erech beats the Gutians.
_________________________________________________________________

Late Sumerian Ur III period

22nd century: The 3rd dynasty of
Ur gets control over large parts of Mesopotamia, and the region is
revived.

One of Utuhegal's generals, Ur-Nammu (r. 21132095 BCE), founded the 3d
Dynasty of Ur. In addition to being a successful military leader, he
was also a social reformer and the originator of a law code that
antedates that of the Babylonian king Hammurabi by about three
centuries (see The code of Hammurabi). Ur-Nammu's son Shulgi (r.
2095-2047 BCE) was a successful soldier, a skilful diplomat, and a
patron of literature. During his reign the schools and academies of
the kingdom flourished.

2110 BCE Ur-Nammu of Ur unifies Sumer and Akkad.

Around 2100 BCE: Ur-Nammu, a general, founds the 3rd dynasty of Ur.

21st century BCE: Sumer flourishes under stable leadership.

2030 BCE Elamites disrupt unity of Sumer and Akkad.

Around 2000 BCE: The Elamites destroy Ur and capture the king.

Table of The Ur-III period

_Name of king_

_from_

_until_

_Notes_

_Ur-Nammu_ _2112 BC_ _2095 BC_ _Establishes the 3rd dynasty of Ur_
_Shulgi_ _2094 BC_ _2047 BC_ _Extends father's empire to all of
Assyria_
_Amar-Sin_ _2046 BC_ _2038 BC_
_Shu-Sin_ _2037 BC_ _2027 BC_
_Ibbi-Sin_ _2028 BC_ _2004 BC_ _Amorites weaken Sumerian power_

Isin - Larsa period (2,000-1,800 BCE)

The Old Babylonian period

Before the beginning of the 2d millennium BCE the Amorites, Semitic
nomads from the desert to the west of Sumer and Akkad, invaded the
kingdom.

They gradually became masters of such important cities as Isin and
Larsa. The resultant widespread political disorder and confusion
encouraged the Elamites to attack (c. 2004 BCE) Ur and to take into
captivity its last ruler, Ibbi-Sin (r. 20292004 BCE).

_Isin_ _Larsa_ _Babylonia_
_Ishbi-Erra 2017-1985
33 years_ _Naplanum 2025-2005
21 years_
_Shu-ilishu 1984-1975
10 years_ _Emisum 2004-1977
28 years_
_Iddin-Dagan 1974-1954
21 years_ _Samium 1976-1942
35 years_
_Ishme-Dagan 1953-1935
19 years_ _Zabaya 1941-1933
9 years_
_Lipit-Ishtar 1934-1924
11 years_ _Gungunum 1932-1906
27 years_
_Ur-Ninurta 1923-1896
28 years_ _Abisare 1905-1895
11 years_
_Bur-Sin 1895-1874
22 years_ _Sumu-el 1894-1866
29 years_ _Sumu-abum 1894-1881
14 years_
_Lipit-Enlil 1873-1869
5 years_ _Sumu-la-el 1880-1845
36 years_
_Irra-imitti 1868-1861
8 years_ _Nur-Adad 1865-1850
16 years_
_Enlil-bani 1860-1837
24 years_ _Sin-iddinam 1849-1843
7 years_ _Sabium 1844-1831
14 years_
_Zambiya 1836-1834
3 years_ _Sin-eribam 1842-1841
2 years_
_Iter-pisha 1833-1831
3 years_ _Sin-iqisham 1840-1836
5 years_ _Apil-Sin 1830-1813
18 years_
_Ur-Dukuga 1830-1828
3 years_ _Silli-Adad 1835
1 year_
_Sin-magir 1827-1817
11 years_ _Warad-Sin 1834-1823
12 years_
_Damiq-ilishu 1816-1794
23 years_ _Rim-Sin 1822-1763
60 years_ _Sin-muballit 1812-1793
20 years_
_Hammurapi 1792-1750
43 years_
_Samu-iluna 1749-1712
38 years_
_Abi-eshuh 1711-1684
28 years_
_Ammiditana 1683-1647
37 years_
_Ammisaduqa 1646-1626
21 years_
_Samuditana 1625-1595
31 years_

NOTE : The last kings of Isin and Larsa ruled together with the first
Kings of Babylon, they were no more then vassals to the Kings of
Babylon.

During the centuries following the fall of Ur bitter intercity
struggle for the control of Sumer and Akkad occurred, first between
Isin and Larsa and later between Larsa and Babylon. Hammurabi of
Babylon defeated Rim-Sin of Larsa (r. about 18231763 BCE) and became
the sole ruler of Sumer and Akkad. This date probably marks the end of
the Sumerian state. Sumerian civilization, however, was adopted almost
in its entirety by Babylonia.

2020 BCE Ishbi-Erra the Amorite ruler of Isin seeks to rebuild unity
in the land.

20th century BCE: Many wars between city-states in Sumer, at first
between Isin and Larsa, later between Larsa and Babylon.

Around 1900 BCE: The Semitic tribe Amorites conquers most of
Mesopotamia, and establishes their kings in Babylon.
_________________________________________________________________

Babylonian period (1,800-1,600 BCE)

1795 BCE : Rim-Sin of Larsa defeats Isin and takes over Sumer and
Akkad.

1792 BCE: Hammurabi becomes king of Babylonia, and over the next 3
decades he made Babylon the strong power in Mesopotamia. From him, we
stop talking about Sumer, and start talking about Babylonia. However,
Sumerian culture became a central part of Babylonian society.

Around 1760: Most of Mesopotamia comes under the control of Hammurabi
and Babylonia.

1760 BCE Hammurabi of Babylon defeats Larsa and takes over Sumer and
Akkad.

1720 BCE Shift of Euphrates River and collapse of life at Nippur and
some other cities of Sumer.
_________________________________________________________________

Kassite period (1,600-1,150 BCE)

Around 1600 BCE: Babylon is first sacked by the
[40]Hittites, then by the [41]Kassites, who take control over the
city.

1595 BCE Hittite raid disrupts unity of Sumer and Akkad.

Around 1350 BCE: The Assyrians become an important power in northern
Mesopotamia, and can at times threaten Babylonia. In the centuries
that followed, the Assyrian politics of deporting rebellious subjects
made races mix in Mesopotamia.
_________________________________________________________________

Post Kassite (1,150-1,000 BCE)

11th century BCE: Decline in strength and importance of Babylonia.
Political chaos would last for about 200 years.
_________________________________________________________________

Early Neo-Babylonian (1,000-625 BCE)

9th century BCE: The Chaldeans get control over Babylonia, and makes
it one of the strongest states in Mesopotamia.
_________________________________________________________________

Neo-Babylonian (625-539 BCE)

612 BCE: Assyria collapses.
_________________________________________________________________

Achaemenid (539-331 BCE)

539 BCE: Babylon is conquered by the Persians. The Persians divided
Mesopotamia into 2 satrapies; Babylon and [42]Ashur, where Babylon was
the most important in politics and administration. The following
period was one of slow economical decline for the region.

401: the battle of [43]Cunaxa
_________________________________________________________________

Seleucid (331-125 BCE)

312 BCE: Seleucus conquers Babylon, and a period of Hellenistic
culture and economical growth comes to Mesopotamia.
_________________________________________________________________

Partians (125 BCE-226 AD)

Approx. 250: Mesopotamia is conquered by the Parthians.
_________________________________________________________________

Sasanid period (226-637 AD)

226: Mesopotamia is conquered by the Sasanids. Under their rule,
prosperity continued and irrigation was improved.
_________________________________________________________________

Islamic period (637-1500 AD)

635: Mesopotamia is conquered by the Muslim Arabs.

763: Baghdad is started to be built, as part of moving the centre of
the Muslim world from Damascus to the Mesopotamian region. This
involves the start of one of the most impressive periods of the
region, where Mesopotamia in many fields is the centre of the world.

1258: Following a sack of the Mongols, many state structures of
Mesopotamia and the Muslim deteriorates. Both culture and economy
suffer.
_________________________________________________________________

Ottoman period (1500-1932 AD)

16th century: Ottoman [44]Turks and Safavid Persians start battling
over Mesopotamia.

17th century: The Ottomans get control over Mesopotamia.

1840: The first archaeological excavations start.
_________________________________________________________________

Iraq period (1932 AD-)

1932: The eastern and largest parts of Mesopotamia becomes part of
Iraq with its independence.

1945: Syria becomes independent, with a territory that covers the
western parts of Mesopotamia.

1976 : Saddam Hussein dictator of Iraq.

2003 : The American / UN period.
_________________________________________________________________

The reader can see for himself that the history of Mesopotamia was an
unexplored history until the midst of the 19th century AD.

In chapter 12 I will spread out my theory about the "real" timeline of
Mesopotamia.
_________________________________________________________________

_[45]Sign my Guest Book_
_________________________________________________________________

[46]Home [47]Up [48]Chapter 1 [49]Chapter 2 [50]Chapter 3 [51]Chapter
4 [52]Chapter 5 [53]Chapter 6 [54]Chapter 7 [55]Chapter 8 [56]Chapter
9 [57]Chapter 10 Chapter 11 [58]Chapter 12 [59]Chapter 13 

[60]Up 
_________________________________________________________________

_Send mail to [61]L.C.Geerts with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1998 / 2003 Earth-history.com
Last modified: 01/03/04_

This is copyrighted information presented under the Fair Use Doctrine
of the United States Copyright Act (section 107 of title 17) which
states: "the fair use of a copyrighted work...for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright." In practice the courts
have decided that anything which does not financially harm the
copyright holder is fair use.

This is a Non-Profit Web page, © 1998-2003 L.C.Geerts The Netherlands.

(c) 1998/99/2003 copyright L.C.Geerts all rights reserved.

_It is strictly forbidden to publish or copy anything of my book
without permission of the author, permission is granted for the
recourses, for personal use only._