63-649: The Uruk Trough is an important Sumerian sculpture found at the site of Uruk , Iraq. It has been part of the British Museum 's collection since 1928. Along with the Uruk Vase , the trough is considered to be one of the earliest surviving works of narrative relief sculpture from the Middle East , dating to 3300–3000 BC, during the Uruk period . Simple relief sculpture is known from much earlier periods, from
126-540: A "Sumerian renaissance" in the past. Already, the region was becoming more Semitic than Sumerian, with the resurgence of the Akkadian-speaking Semites in Assyria and elsewhere, and the influx of waves of Semitic Martu ( Amorites ), who founded several competing local powers in the south, including Isin , Larsa , Eshnunna and later, Babylonia. The last of these eventually came to briefly dominate
189-651: A century in the Third Dynasty of Ur at approximately 2100–2000 BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use for some time. The Sumerians were entirely unknown during the early period of modern archeology. Jules Oppert was the first scholar to publish the word Sumer in a lecture on 17 January 1869. The first major excavations of Sumerian cities were in 1877 at Girsu by the French archeologist Ernest de Sarzec , in 1889 at Nippur by John Punnett Peters from
252-407: A database of words and their translations. Later attempts utilized common phrases , which resulted in better grammatical structure and the capture of idioms, but with many words left in the original language. For translating synthetic languages , a morphosyntactic analyzer and synthesizer are required. The best systems today use a combination of the above technologies and apply algorithms to correct
315-598: A difficult environment. Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerians, from the indigenous hunter-fisherfolk traditions, associated with the bifacial assemblages found on the Arabian littoral. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians may have been the people living in the Persian Gulf region before it flooded at the end of the last Ice Age. In the early Sumerian period, the primitive pictograms suggest that There
378-473: A great deal of difference between a literal translation of a poetic work and a prose translation. A literal translation of poetry may be in prose rather than verse but also be error-free. Charles Singleton's 1975 translation of the Divine Comedy is regarded as a prose translation. The term literal translation implies that it is probably full of errors, since the translator has made no effort to (or
441-456: A literal translation in preparing his translation of Dante 's Inferno (1994), as he does not know Italian. Similarly, Richard Pevear worked from literal translations provided by his wife, Larissa Volokhonsky, in their translations of several Russian novels. Literal translation can also denote a translation that represents the precise meaning of the original text but does not attempt to convey its style, beauty, or poetry. There is, however,
504-694: A period of proto-writing c. 4000 – c. 2500 BC . The term "Sumer" ( Akkadian : 𒋗𒈨𒊒 , romanized: šumeru ) comes from the Akkadian name for the "Sumerians", the ancient non- Semitic -speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia . In their inscriptions, the Sumerians called their land "Kengir", the "Country of the noble lords" ( Sumerian : 𒆠 𒂗 𒄀 , romanized: ki-en-gi(-r) , lit. ''country" + "lords" + "noble''), and their language "Emegir" ( Sumerian : 𒅴𒂠 , romanized: eme-g̃ir or 𒅴𒄀 eme-gi 15 ). The origin of
567-548: A sa voiture et sa voiture, ses serviettes et ses serviettes, sa bibliothèque et les siennes. " That does not make sense because it does not distinguish between "his" car and "hers". Often, first-generation immigrants create something of a literal translation in how they speak their parents' native language. This results in a mix of the two languages that is something of a pidgin . Many such mixes have specific names, e.g., Spanglish or Denglisch . For example, American children of German immigrants are heard using "rockingstool" from
630-404: A serious problem for machine translation . The term "literal translation" often appeared in the titles of 19th-century English translations of the classical Bible and other texts. Word-for-word translations ("cribs", "ponies", or "trots") are sometimes prepared for writers who are translating a work written in a language they do not know. For example, Robert Pinsky is reported to have used
693-456: Is a translation of a text done by translating each word separately without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. In translation theory , another term for literal translation is metaphrase (as opposed to paraphrase for an analogous translation). It is to be distinguished from an interpretation (done, for example, by an interpreter ). Literal translation leads to mistranslation of idioms , which can be
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#1732772656891756-587: Is considerable evidence concerning Sumerian music . Lyres and flutes were played, among the best-known examples being the Lyres of Ur . Sumerian culture was male-dominated and stratified. The Code of Ur-Nammu , the oldest such codification yet discovered, dating to the Ur III, reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumerian law. Beneath the lu-gal ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The " lu " or free person, and
819-569: Is first attested in proper names of the kings of Kish c. 2800 BC , preserved in later king lists. There are texts written entirely in Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BC . Use of Old Akkadian was at its peak during the rule of Sargon the Great ( c. 2334 –2279 BC), but even then most administrative tablets continued to be written in Sumerian, the language used by
882-407: Is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semitic vs. Sumerian" conflict. It is certain that Akkadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were previously conquered, by Sargon. c. 2193–2119 BC (middle chronology) c. 2200 –2110 BC (middle chronology) Following
945-526: Is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf . The oldest evidence for occupation comes from Tell el-'Oueili , but, given that environmental conditions in southern Mesopotamia were favourable to human occupation well before the Ubaid period, it is likely that older sites exist but have not yet been found. It appears that this culture
1008-404: Is most clearly seen at Tell el-'Oueili near Larsa , excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in
1071-632: Is unable to) convey correct idioms or shades of meaning, for example, but it can also be a useful way of seeing how words are used to convey meaning in the source language. A literal English translation of the German phrase " Ich habe Hunger " would be "I have hunger" in English, but this is clearly not a phrase that would generally be used in English, even though its meaning might be clear. Literal translations in which individual components within words or compounds are translated to create new lexical items in
1134-526: The Middle East and were responsible for the spread of farming in the Middle East. However, contrary evidence strongly suggests that the first farming originated in the Fertile Crescent . Although not specifically discussing Sumerians, Lazaridis et al. 2016 have suggested a partial North African origin for some pre-Semitic cultures of the Middle East, particularly Natufians , after testing
1197-531: The University of Pennsylvania between 1889 and 1900, and in Shuruppak by German archeologist Robert Koldewey in 1902–1903. Major publications of these finds were " Decouvertes en Chaldée par Ernest de Sarzec " by Léon Heuzey in 1884, " Les Inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad " by François Thureau-Dangin in 1905, and " Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik " on Sumerian grammar by Arno Poebel in 1923. In
1260-558: The archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early Ubaid period (5300–4700 BC C-14 ) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here, farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates . Some archaeologists have speculated that the original speakers of ancient Sumerian may have been farmers, who moved down from
1323-681: The cradles of civilization , along with Egypt , the Indus Valley , the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe , and Mesoamerica . Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world's earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr , and date to between c. 3350 – c. 2500 BC , following
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#17327726568911386-415: The " Dynasty of Isin " in the Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1800 BC. Later rulers who dominated Assyria and Babylonia occasionally assumed the old Sargonic title "King of Sumer and Akkad", such as Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria after c. 1225 BC. Uruk, one of Sumer's largest cities, has been estimated to have had a population of 50,000–80,000 at its height. Given
1449-535: The "natural" sound of the translation. In the end, though, professional translation firms that employ machine translation use it as a tool to create a rough translation that is then tweaked by a human, professional translator. Douglas Hofstadter gave an example of a failure of machine translation: the English sentence "In their house, everything comes in pairs. There's his car and her car, his towels and her towels, and his library and hers." might be translated into French as " Dans leur maison, tout vient en paires. Il y
1512-435: The Akkadian and Ur III phases, there was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley , but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three-fifths. This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akkadian
1575-435: The German word Schaukelstuhl instead of "rocking chair". Literal translation of idioms is a source of translators' jokes. One such joke, often told about machine translation , translates "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (an allusion to Mark 14:38 ) into Russian and then back into English, getting "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten". This is not an actual machine-translation error, but rather
1638-528: The Sumerian king list whose name is known from any other legendary source is Etana , 13th king of the first dynasty of Kish . The earliest king authenticated through archaeological evidence is Enmebaragesi of Kish (Early Dynastic I), whose name is mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh —leading to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might have been a historical king of Uruk. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, this period
1701-421: The Sumerians is not known, but the people of Sumer referred to themselves as "Black-Headed Ones" or "Black-Headed People" ( Sumerian : 𒊕 𒈪 , romanized: sag̃-gíg , lit. ''head" + "black'', or 𒊕 𒈪 𒂵 , sag̃-gíg-ga , phonetically /saŋ ɡi ɡa/ , lit. "head" + "black" + relative marker). For example, the Sumerian king Shulgi described himself as "the king of
1764-767: The Sumerians’ sphere of influence (ordered from south to north): Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometres (205 miles) north-west of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having exercised kingship in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bābil , Diyala , Wāsit , Dhi Qar , Basra , Al-Muthannā and Al-Qādisiyyah governorates of Iraq . The Sumerian city-states rose to power during
1827-473: The Ubaid period to the Uruk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically produced on a slow wheel to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on fast wheels. The Uruk period is a continuation and an outgrowth of Ubaid with pottery being the main visible change. By the time of the Uruk period, c. 4100–2900 BC calibrated, the volume of trade goods transported along
1890-509: The Uruk period coincided with the Piora oscillation , a dry period from c. 3200–2900 BC that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum . The dynastic period begins c. 2900 BC and was associated with a shift from the temple establishment headed by council of elders led by a priestly "En" (a male figure when it
1953-422: The Uruk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king ( ensi ), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. There was little evidence of organized warfare or professional soldiers during the Uruk period, and towns were generally unwalled. During this period Uruk became
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2016-430: The canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified , temple-centered cities, with populations of over 10,000 people, where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian cities began to make use of slave labour captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in
2079-624: The deity Inanna . The circumstances of its discovery are not known. The trough was purchased by the British Museum with the support of the National Art Collections Fund in 1928, just before the German Oriental Society carried out excavations at the site. The Uruk Trough is made of gypsum , is double troughed, and is approximately 1 m (3 ft 3 in) long. A fragment of one end of
2142-718: The downfall of the Akkadian Empire at the hands of Gutians , another native Sumerian ruler, Gudea of Lagash, rose to local prominence and continued the practices of the Sargonic kings ' claims to divinity. The previous Lagash dynasty, Gudea and his descendants also promoted artistic development and left a large number of archaeological artifacts. Later, the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu and Shulgi (c. 2112–2004 BC, middle chronology), whose power extended as far as southern Assyria , has been erroneously called
2205-754: The earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey , to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as western Iran . The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists, like that found at Tell Brak , had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force. Sumerian cities during
2268-471: The first empires known to history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur , and Larsa , and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma , arch-rival of Lagash. In addition, his realm extended to parts of Elam and along the Persian Gulf . He seems to have used terror as a matter of policy. Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures depicts vultures pecking at
2331-540: The first state that successfully united larger parts of Mesopotamia in the 23rd century BC. After the Gutian period , the Ur III kingdom similarly united parts of northern and southern Mesopotamia. It ended in the face of Amorite incursions at the beginning of the second millennium BC. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin " persisted until c. 1700 BC , when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Ubaid period
2394-739: The four quarters, the pastor of the black-headed people". The Akkadians also called the Sumerians "black-headed people", or ṣalmat-qaqqadi , in the Semitic Akkadian language. The Akkadians, the East Semitic-speaking people who later conquered the Sumerian city-states , gave Sumer its main historical name, but the phonological development of the term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Šinʿar , Egyptian Sngr , and Hittite Šanhar(a) , all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of Sumer . Most historians have suggested that Sumer
2457-576: The genomes of Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture-bearers. Craniometric analysis has also suggested an affinity between Natufians and ancient North Africans. Some scholars associate the Sumerians with the Hurrians and Urartians , and suggest the Caucasus as their homeland. This is not generally accepted. Based on mentions of Dilmun as the “home city of the land of Sumer” in Sumerian legends and literature, other scholars have suggested
2520-471: The idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language; they think the Sumerian language may originally have been that of the hunting and fishing peoples who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region and were part of the Arabian bifacial culture. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia , today's Persian Gulf region, before it
2583-514: The late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states , which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor ( ensi ) or by a king ( lugal ) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites. An incomplete list of cities that may have been visited, interacted and traded with, invaded, conquered, destroyed, occupied, colonized by and/or otherwise within
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2646-489: The marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians. Reliable historical records begin with Enmebaragesi ( Early Dynastic I ). The Sumerians progressively lost control to Semitic states from the northwest. Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC ( short chronology ), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language . Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about
2709-429: The most urbanized city in the world, surpassing for the first time 50,000 inhabitants. The ancient Sumerian king list includes the early dynasties of several prominent cities from this period. The first set of names on the list is of kings said to have reigned before a major flood occurred. These early names may be fictional, and include some legendary and mythological figures, such as Alulim and Dumizid . The end of
2772-467: The north of Mesopotamia after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid period pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami transitional ware, to the pottery of the Samarra period culture ( c. 5700 –4900 BC C-14 ) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection
2835-402: The north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. During
2898-594: The object is now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin . It contains several scenes: Sumer Sumer ( / ˈ s uː m ər / ) is the earliest known civilization , located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq ), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Like nearby Elam , it is one of
2961-551: The other cities in Sumer, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumer's population might be 0.8 million to 1.5 million. The world population at this time has been estimated at 27 million. The Sumerians spoke a language isolate . A number of linguists have claimed to be able to detect a substrate language of unknown classification beneath Sumerian, because names of some of Sumer's major cities are not Sumerian, revealing influences of earlier inhabitants. However,
3024-518: The possibility that the Sumerians originated from Dilmun, which was theorized to be the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. In Sumerian mythology, Dilmun was also mentioned as the home of deities such as Enki . The status of Dilmun as the Sumerians’ ancestral homeland has not been established, but archaeologists have found evidence of civilization in Bahrain, namely the existence of Mesopotamian-style round disks. A prehistoric people who lived in
3087-469: The prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century BC and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. 23rd century BC , when the language of the written records becomes easier to decipher, which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions. The Akkadian Empire was
3150-524: The region before the Sumerians have been termed the " Proto-Euphrateans " or " Ubaidians ", and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. The Ubaidians, though never mentioned by the Sumerians themselves, are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumer. They drained the marshes for agriculture , developed trade, and established industries, including weaving , leatherwork , metalwork , masonry , and pottery . Some scholars contest
3213-433: The scribes. Gelb and Westenholz differentiate three stages of Old Akkadian: that of the pre-Sargonic era, that of the Akkadian empire, and that of the Ur III period that followed it. Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted as vernacular languages for about one thousand years, but by around 1800 BC, Sumerian was becoming more of a literary language familiar mainly only to scholars and scribes. Thorkild Jacobsen has argued that there
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#17327726568913276-665: The severed heads and other body parts of his enemies. His empire collapsed shortly after his death. Later, Lugal-zage-si , the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He was the last ethnically Sumerian king before Sargon of Akkad . The Akkadian Empire dates to c. 2234 –2154 BC ( middle chronology ), founded by Sargon of Akkad . The Eastern Semitic Akkadian language
3339-418: The site of Göbekli Tepe , dating to circa 9000 BC. It is thought to have served as some sort of cult image in the temple of the goddess Inanna . The carving depicts a procession of sheep , but the meaning of this scene is unclear. The trough was found at Uruk, an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia situated east of the Euphrates in southern Iraq . During the Uruk period (4000–3000 BC) Uruk
3402-406: The slave (male, arad ; female geme ). The son of a lu was called a dumu-nita until he married. A woman ( munus ) went from being a daughter ( dumu-mi ), to a wife ( dam ), then if she outlived her husband, a widow ( numasu ) and she could then remarry another man who was from the same tribe. Literal translation Literal translation , direct translation , or word-for-word translation
3465-691: The south of Mesopotamia as the Babylonian Empire , just as the Old Assyrian Empire had already done in the north from the late 21st century BC. The Sumerian language continued as a sacerdotal language taught in schools in Babylonia and Assyria, much as Latin was used in the Medieval period, for as long as cuneiform was used. This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward
3528-534: The target language (a process also known as "loan translation") are called calques , e.g., beer garden from German Biergarten . The literal translation of the Italian sentence, " So che questo non va bene " ("I know that this is not good"), produces "(I) know that this not (it) goes well", which has English words and Italian grammar . Early machine translations (as of 1962 at least) were notorious for this type of translation, as they simply employed
3591-610: Was a temple for a goddess, or a female figure when headed by a male god) towards a more secular Lugal (Lu = man, Gal = great) and includes such legendary patriarchal figures as Dumuzid , Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh —who reigned shortly before the historic record opens c. 2900 BC, when the now deciphered syllabic writing started to develop from the early pictograms. The center of Sumerian culture remained in southern Mesopotamia, even though rulers soon began expanding into neighboring areas, and neighboring Semitic groups adopted much of Sumerian culture for their own. The earliest dynastic king on
3654-410: Was associated with increased war. Cities became walled, and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared. Both Enmerkar and Gilgamesh are credited with having built the walls of Uruk. The dynasty of Lagash (c. 2500–2270 BC), though omitted from the king list, is well attested through several important monuments and many archaeological finds. Although short-lived, one of
3717-479: Was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia. It is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture. The story of the passing of the gifts of civilization ( me ) to Inanna , goddess of Uruk and of love and war, by Enki , god of wisdom and chief god of Eridu, may reflect the transition from Eridu to Uruk. The archaeological transition from
3780-532: Was first permanently settled between c. 5500 – c. 3300 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a non-Semitic and non- Indo-European agglutinative language isolate . Others have suggested that the Sumerians were a North African people who migrated from the Green Sahara into
3843-700: Was flooded at the end of the Ice Age . Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. The Sumerian city of Eridu , on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is considered to have been one of the oldest cities , where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in
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#17327726568913906-422: Was one of the largest cities in southern Mesopotamia , stretching over an area of 5 square kilometres (1.9 sq mi). For a long time power seems to have been concentrated in the temples or religious organisations but eventually King Gilgamesh took over, building new structures and a massive city wall. The Uruk Trough was probably a venerated object in one of the temples in the city, perhaps devoted to
3969-483: Was the major language. Henceforth, Sumerian remained only a literary and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied by Latin in medieval Europe. Following an Elamite invasion and sack of Ur during the rule of Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028–2004 BC), Sumer came under Amorite rule (taken to introduce the Middle Bronze Age ). The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries are summarized as
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