The style of thinking is verbally analytical. Interpretation of MPV factors (method of portrait elections) from the standpoint of an individual-personal approach

Around the middle of the IV millennium BC. in the Southern Mesopotamia, the first political structures appeared in the form of city-states. Uruk is an example. The public and economic center of Uruk was the temple in honor of An, and the priests of the temple performed the functions of stewards, headed by the high priest, the head of the proto-state.

In the IV millennium BC. Uruk was the largest city in the region, covering an area of ​​approximately 7.5 square kilometers. km., a third of which was under the city, a third was occupied by a palm grove, and brick quarries were located on the rest of the area. The habitable territory of Uruk was 45 hectares. There were 120 different settlements in the area of ​​the city, which testified to the rapid growth of the population.

There were several temple complexes in Uruk, and the temples themselves were of considerable size. The Sumerians were excellent builders, although they lacked stone and wood. To protect against the effects of water, they lined buildings. They made long clay cones, fired them, painted them red, white or black, and then pressed them into the clay walls, forming colorful mosaic panels with patterns imitating wickerwork. The red house of Uruk was decorated in a similar way - the place of public meetings and meetings of the council of elders.

A huge achievement of the Uruk period was the creation of a whole system of main canals, combined with well-thought-out agricultural technology, on which regular irrigation of fields was based.

In urban centers, handicraft was gaining strength, the specialization of which was rapidly developing. There were builders, metallurgists, engravers, blacksmiths. Jewelery became a special specialized production. In addition to various ornaments, cult figurines and amulets were made in the form of various animals: bulls, sheep, lions, birds. Having crossed the threshold of the Bronze Age, the Sumerians revived the production of stone vessels, which in the hands of talented anonymous craftsmen became genuine works of art.

There were no deposits of metal ores in Mesopotamia. Already in the first half of the III millennium BC. the Sumerians began to bring gold, silver, copper, lead from other areas. There was a brisk international trade in the form of barter deals or gift exchanges. In exchange for wool, textiles, grain, dates and fish, they also received wood and stone. Perhaps there was also a real trade, which was conducted by trading agents.

In addition to Uruk, the Sumerian cities of Kish, Ur, Lagash, Eredu, Larsa, Umma, Shuruppak, Issin, Nippur should be mentioned.

A city-state is a self-governing city with its surrounding area. Usually, each such city had its own temple complex in the form of a high stepped tower of a ziggurat, a ruler's palace and adobe residential buildings. Sumerian cities were built on hills and surrounded by walls. They were divided into separate settlements, from the combination of which these cities appeared. In the center of each village was the temple of the local god. The god of the main village was considered the lord of the whole city. Approximately 40-50 thousand people lived in each of these city-states.

Rice. 7 Ancient Mesopotamia

Rice. 8 Ancient Mesopotamian Temple

The early proto-states of Mesopotamia were familiar with a fairly complex irrigation economy, which was maintained in working order by the efforts of the entire population, led by priests. The temple, built of baked bricks, was not only the largest building and monumental center, but at the same time both a public warehouse and a barn, which housed all the supplies, the entire public property of the team, which already included a certain number of captive foreigners used to service current needs. temple. The temple was also a center for handicraft production, including bronze metallurgy.

About 3000 - 2900 years. BC. Temple households are becoming so complex and extensive that it took a record of their economic activities. As a result, writing was born.

At first, writing in Lower Mesopotamia arose as a system of three-dimensional chips or drawings. They painted on plastic tiles made of clay with the end of a reed stick. Each sign-drawing denoted either the depicted object itself, or any concept associated with this object. For example, the firmament, drawn by strokes, meant "night" and thus also "black", "dark", "sick", "illness", "darkness", etc. The foot sign meant "go", "walk", "stand", "bring", etc.

The grammatical forms of words were not expressed, and it was not necessary, since usually only numbers and signs of countable objects were entered in the document. True, it was more difficult to convey the names of the recipients of the items, but even here at first it was possible to get by with the names of their professions: the forge denoted a coppersmith, the mountain (as a sign of a foreign country) - a slave, terrace (?) (perhaps, a kind of tribune) - a leader- priest, etc. Soon they began to resort to the rebus. Whole words were written in a rebus way, if it was difficult to convey the corresponding concept with a drawing.

Rice. 9. Tablets from Kish (3500 BC)

Rice. 10. Tablet with ancient Sumerian cuneiform

Writing was, despite its cumbersomeness, completely identical in the south and in the north of Lower Mesopotamia. Apparently, it was created in one center, authoritative enough for the local invention to be borrowed by various nome communities of Lower Mesopotamia, although there was neither economic nor political unity between them and their main canals were separated from each other by desert strips.

Perhaps such a center was the city of Nippur, located between the south and north of the lower Euphrates plain. Here was the temple of the god Enlil, who was worshiped by all the "blackheads", although each nome had its own mythology and pantheon. Probably, there was once a ritual center of the Sumerian tribal union in the pre-state period. Nippur was never a political center, but it remained an important cult center for a long time.

It took at least 400 years until the letter from a system of purely reminder signs turned into an ordered system of information transmission in time and at a distance. This happened around 2400 BC. The first Sumerian records did not record historical events or milestones in the biographies of rulers, but simply economic reporting data. First they wrote from top to bottom, in columns, in the form of vertical columns, then in horizontal lines, which greatly accelerated the process of writing.

The cuneiform used by the Sumerians contained about 800 characters, each representing a word or syllable. It was difficult to remember them, but cuneiform was adopted by many of the Sumerians' neighbors for writing in their completely different languages. The cuneiform script created by the ancient Sumerians is called the Latin alphabet of the Ancient East.

In the first half of the III millennium BC. Several political centers developed in Sumer. For the rulers of the states of Mesopotamia, two different titles lugal and ensi are found in the inscriptions of that time. Lugal is the independent head of the city-state, a big man, as the Sumerians used to call kings. Ensi is the ruler of a city-state who has recognized the authority of some other political center over himself. Such a ruler only played the role of the high priest in his city, and political power was in the hands of the lugal, to whom the ensi was subordinate. However, not a single lugal was the king over all the other cities of Mesopotamia.

The rulers of the city-states, as in the more ancient period, waged a fierce struggle among themselves for strengthening and strengthening their power, expanding and spreading it at the expense of their neighbors. The army of the rulers of the city-states at an early stage usually consisted of a small detachment of heavily armed warriors. The auxiliary force was primitive chariots on solid wheels, harnessed, apparently, by onagers or donkeys and adapted for throwing darts.

Initially, in the XXVIII-XXVII centuries. BC, success was on the side of Kish, whose rulers were the first to take the title of lugal, thereby trying to emphasize their superiority among the rest. Then Uruk rose, the name of the ruler of which, Gilgamesh, subsequently entered the legend and turned out to be at the center of the Sumerian epic. Uruk under Gilgamesh subjugated, although still very fragile, a number of neighbors - Lagash, Nippur, etc.

In the XXV century. the rule and title of lugal was achieved by the rulers of Ur, whose royal tombs, excavated by the English archaeologist L. Woolley, were filled with rich decorations, jewelry, wagons and dozens of co-buried, called to accompany the ruler to the next world.

26th century BC. From the royal tomb at Ur.

Rice. 11. Head of a bull. Gold.

Rice. 12. Daggers and scabbards. Gold, bone

There were seals in the graves, by which it was possible to establish the names of the king and queen of Ur, whose burials were excavated by L. Woolley. The king's name was Abargi, and the queen's name was Shubad. As an example of Sumerian cylinder seals, the following image can be cited.

Rice. thirteen. Carved cylinder seal and impression from it. XXIV-XXII centuries BC e. Stone, clay, engraving

At the turn of the XXV - XXIV centuries. Lagash entered the forefront of Sumerian history. First, its ruler Eanatum annexed a number of neighboring centers - Kish, Uruk, Larsa, etc., which led to the strengthening of his military and political power. But the internal position of Lagash was not stable. More than half of all land was the property of the ruler and his family. The situation of the community members, who were in debt to the nobility, worsened. The fees associated with the growth of the state apparatus have increased.

Under Lugaland, the policy of further centralization of power and the abuses associated with it caused a sharp discontent of the population. As a result of the uprising - perhaps the first of those recorded in history - Lugaland was deposed, and Uruinimgina came to power, who carried out a series of reforms, the essence of which was to restore the violated norm, cancel or reduce taxes from the population, and increase extraditions to temple workers.

Apparently, these forced reforms contributed to the weakening of the centralized administration of Lagash, which soon led to the conquest of it by the successful ruler Umma Lugalzagesi in 2312 BC, who created a united Sumerian state, however, which lasted only 25 years. It was only a confederation of city-states (nomes), which Lugalzagesi headed as high priest.

This was followed by two attempts to create a united state of Mesopotamia under Sargon of Akkad and under the III dynasty of Ur. This process took 313 years.

The following legend is known about Sargon (Sharrum-ken), whose name is translated as "the true king". A foundling, raised in a family of a water carrier, he became the personal servant of the lugal of the city of Kish, and then exalted the unknown city of Akkad, creating his own kingdom there. Sargon the Ancient is a talented military leader and statesman.

Having united Akkad and Sumer, Sargon began to strengthen state power. Under him, the position of Ensi became hereditary, and this became the norm. A unified irrigation system was created, which was regulated on a national scale. In addition, for the first time in world history, a permanent professional army was created.

The army of the united Mesopotamia consisted of 5400 people. Professional warriors were settled around the city of Akkakda and were completely dependent on the king, obeying only him. Particularly great importance was attached to archers - a more dynamic and operational army than spearmen and shield-bearers. Relying on such an army, Sargon and his successors achieved success in foreign policy, conquering Syria and Cilicia.

Under Sargon, a despotic form of government is established. The result of the 55-year reign of Sargon (2316-2261 BC) was the unification under the rule of one ruler of all Mesopotamia and the creation of the largest power at that time in Asia Minor, centered in Akkad. The grandson of the ruler Naram-Suen (2236-2200 BC) dropped the old traditional title and began to call himself the king of the four cardinal points. It was then that the Akkadian state reached its apogee.

Naram-Suen took measures that strengthened his despotic power. Instead of the former hereditary "ensi" from among the aristocracy, he planted his sons, representatives of the tsarist bureaucracy, in a number of cities, and reduced the "ensi" to the position of officials. Reliance on the priesthood became the leading line of his domestic policy. He and his sons-deputies build temples, members of the royal family are part of the temple staff, priests are given numerous benefits. In response, the priesthood recognized Naram-Suen as the "god of Akkad."

However, dissatisfaction with the existing order grew in the united power. The mountain tribes of the Gutians defeated the Akkadian kingdom. Sumerian cities sought to regain their former independence. The Kutian invaders preferred to stay within their own country, ruling Mesopotamia with the help of governors and commanders from among the Sumerians and Akkadians.

One of these governors, who, possibly, exercised power over all of Sumer, was the “ensi” of Lagash Gudea, who ruled for about 20 years in the second half of the 22nd century. BC e. His sculptural images, building and dedicatory inscriptions, ritual hymns and songs have been preserved, from which it follows that during the time of Gudea in Lagash numerous temples were built in honor of local and general Sumerian gods, irrigation facilities were restored, while the labor of foreign slaves was often used in the construction.

Rice. fourteen. Statue of Gudea, ruler of Lagash . 21st century BC e. Diorite, cutter. Height 46 cm, width 33 cm, depth 22.5 cm. Louvre, Paris

For about a hundred years, the Gutians held political dominance over the country. It fell as a result of the resistance, which was led by Uruk with the support of Uruk, where a simple fisherman Utuhengal came to power. In 2109 BC. e. The Gutians were defeated by Utuhengal. However, he soon died, and the hegemony over the liberated Mesopotamia passed to the king of Ur - Ur-Nammu. He became the founder of the famous III dynasty of Ur, which ruled the united Sumero-Akkadian kingdom (late XXII - late XXI century BC).

The state structure of the Sumero-Akkadian kingdom in the era of the III dynasty of Ur had a complete form of ancient Eastern despotism.

At the head of the state was a king with unlimited power, who bore the title of "king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad", sometimes called "king of the four countries of the world." The power of the king was ideologically justified by religion. The head of the pantheon, the common Sumerian god Enlil, identified with the Akkadian supreme god Bel, was considered the king of the gods and the patron of the earthly king. A “Royal List” was compiled with a list of kings “before the flood” and “from the flood”, which confirmed the idea of ​​the original existence of royal power on earth. From the time of the reign of Shulgi (2093-2047 BC), divine honors were paid to the kings and their cult was established. The priesthood was subordinate to the king.

A huge bureaucratic apparatus was also subordinate to the tsar. The independence of the city-states and their rulers was ended, and the local community nobility also disappeared. The whole country was divided into governorships, which were ruled by governors appointed and replaced by the king, who only bore the former title (Sumerian - “ensi”, Akkadian - “ishshakkum”), but wholly subordinate to the king.

A royal court was organized. The duties of judges were performed by governors, officials, and priests. In the communities there were community courts, a kind of remnants of local self-government. For the needs of the judicial department, one of the oldest judicial officers in the world was created - the laws of Shulgi. Numerous scribes and officials developed further norms for labor duties and food allowances, took into account the smallest changes in economic activity and the situation of people, and compiled all kinds of reports and certificates. The spirit of bureaucracy permeated the entire system of royal despotism of the III dynasty of Ur.

Rice. fifteen. White temple and ziggurat at Ur. Reconstruction. 21st century BC e. A rock. Base 56 x 52 m, height 21 m. Ur, Iraq

However, over time, numerous problems accumulated in the state, and the discontent of the population grew. Separate cities began to fall away, for example, Issin, Eshnuny. Under such conditions, it turned out to be difficult to build a defense and repulse a new wave of Amorite nomads and the eastern state of Elam. It was the Elamites who destroyed Ur, seized the statues of the gods and took the last representative of the royal dynasty (2003 BC) into captivity. The surviving literary works, the so-called "Laments" over the death of Ur, Akkad, Nippur, sound like a requiem over the descended at the turn of the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC. from the pages of the history of the Sumero-Akkadian kingdom.

Summing up the existence of early city-states, we can note the following.

For the III millennium BC. was a significant economic upsurge. This was due to the development of agriculture based on irrigation and the wider use of metal than before. By the end of the period, an extensive irrigation network is being created throughout the entire southern part of the country.

The craft has reached a high level. In the first place is metallurgical production. The Sumerians made various tools and weapons from copper, they also learned how to get bronze. Jewelry, as well as vessels and lamps, were made of copper, gold and silver. The Sumerian society knew the method of making faience and glass. The Eredu found in the British Museum is possibly the oldest piece of glass ever found. It dates from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. e.

During this period, there was a separation of trade from crafts. Crafts and trade are concentrated in urban centers, the area of ​​cities is growing, and the number of their inhabitants is increasing. Special merchants stand out from the communities - tamkars, who are engaged in the exchange of goods and products. In this case, grain and cattle serve as a measure of value, but the metal equivalent is already used - copper and silver. Trade is developing with Syria, Transcaucasia, Iran, the islands and the coast of the Persian Gulf. Sumerian cities develop trading colonies up to the northern and eastern borders of Mesopotamia.

Considering the social structure of the society of the Sumerian city-states, the presence of slaves should be noted. The main source of slavery was war. Slaves were branded, kept in stocks, they often worked under the control of guards, and were beaten. Slaves were temple and privately owned. In the temples, slaves were used not only for hard work, but also in religious ceremonies, for example, as choristers. Temples owned a significant number of slaves (about 100-200). In private farms, their number was small (1-3), and in the ruler's farms - a few dozen.

It is assumed that in general, for example, in the Lagash state, for 80-100 thousand free people there were more than 30 thousand slaves, in Shuruppak for 30-40 thousand free - 2-3 thousand slaves. Slaves cost from 15 to 23 shekels of silver (1 shekel is about 8 g).

The hierarchy of society was manifested in the presence of other categories of the population. There were many forced laborers: community members who went bankrupt and lost their allotments, younger members of poor families, persons donated to temples by vow, newcomers from other communities, citizens who committed certain crimes. Such forced laborers worked side by side with slaves in both temple and private households, their position was close to that of a slave.

The top of the Sumerian society was made up of the tribal nobility, the high priesthood, representatives of the administration, who formed the service nobility, the importance of which was growing more and more. All of them owned large plots of land, dozens of slaves and forced laborers.

Approximately half of the population in the Sumerian city-state was made up of ordinary community members who owned small plots of communal land, united in territorial and large family communities.

The land in the Sumerian city-state was divided into two parts. One was owned by the territorial community, but was transferred to the individual ownership of large families that made up the community. This land could be sold and bought, and, consequently, large land holdings could be created by individuals. The other part was the fund of the temple land. These lands could be given for use and rent.

The political structures of the Sumerian society were represented by the elective position of "en" - the high priest (sometimes a priestess), the head of the city. In addition to priestly functions and management of the temple administrative apparatus, his duties included the management of temple and city construction, the construction of an irrigation network and other public works, the disposal of the community's property and its economic life.

Sometimes the term "lugal" was used, which could be an epithet in relation to "en" and translated as "big man, lord, king", and could also mean another person - a military leader who performed this function during hostilities. However, most often the same "en" was elected a military leader and in this capacity led the actions of military detachments - the basis of the future army.

In the future, rulers with the title of either "ensi" or "lugal" become the heads of the Sumerian city-states. The term "ensi" roughly translates to "priest-builder". The power of the "ensi" was elective, and his rule in this regard was called the "sequence".

The functions of the "lugal" basically coincided with the functions of the "ensi", but, obviously, it was a more honorary and large-scale title, usually taken by the rulers of large cities, and sometimes even their associations and associated with military powers and greater power.

Throughout the 3rd millennium, a council of elders and a people's assembly of full-fledged community warriors functioned. Their powers included the election or deposition of the ruler (from among the members of the council and a certain kind), control over his activities, acceptance as members of the community, an advisory role with the ruler, especially on the issue of war, a court based on customary law, maintaining internal order, managing community property.

However, then the role of popular assemblies falls, the position of leader becomes hereditary, and the very nature of monarchical power acquires the features of despotism. The essence of despotism was that the ruler at the head of the state had unlimited power. He was the owner of all the lands, during the war he was the supreme commander in chief, performed the functions of the high priest and judge. Taxes flowed towards him.

The stability of the despotisms was based on the belief in the divinity of the king. A despot is a god in human form. The despot exercised his power through an extensive administrative-bureaucratic system. A powerful apparatus of officials controlled and calculated, levied taxes and carried out the court, organized agricultural and handicraft work, monitored the state of the irrigation system, and recruited militia for military campaigns.

The basis of the power of the ruler is the emerging army, which has gone through a long path of development from the people's militia through aristocratic squads to the creation of a permanent army, which is on state support.

The army during this period consisted of several branches of the military. Firstly, from the detachments of charioteers (donkeys or onagers were harnessed to the chariots), armed with spears and darts. Secondly, from heavily armed infantrymen-spearmen in a kind of "shell" (leather or felt raincoats with metal plaques), protected by heavy shields in the height of a man. Thirdly, from lightly armed infantrymen with a protective baldric over their shoulders, sheathed with plaques, with light spears and battle axes. All warriors had helmets and daggers.

The army was well trained and reached several thousand people (for example, in Lagash 5-6 thousand).

City-states existed in Mesopotamia for almost the entire 3rd millennium BC. The low level of economic development, which allowed the production and exchange of products only within a small territorial association, the absence of the need for extensive economic ties, social contradictions that had not yet developed, a small number of slaves and the patriarchal method of their exploitation, which until a certain time did not require large-scale means of violence, the absence of powerful external enemies - all this contributed to the preservation of small city-states in southern Mesopotamia.

The Sumerians considered the southern city of Eredu (in translation - “Good City”) to be the most ancient city, where, according to legend, they moved from the island of Dilmun (modern Bahrain) in the Persian Gulf. Along with it, ancient documents mention Sippar in the north and Shurupak in the south.

Rice. sixteen

The city of Babylon did not play a significant role. But it was he who became the most important center of Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC, uniting the entire region under his rule.

The Sumerian civilization is considered one of the oldest in the world, but was their society so different from the modern one? Today we will talk about some details of the life of the Sumerians and what we have adopted from them.

To begin with, the time and place of origin of the Sumerian civilization is still a matter of scientific discussion, the answer to which is unlikely to be found, because the number of surviving sources is extremely limited. In addition, due to modern freedom of speech and information, the Internet is filled with many conspiracy theories, which greatly complicates the process of finding the truth by the scientific community. According to the data accepted by the majority of the scientific community, the Sumerian civilization already existed at the beginning of the 6th millennium BC in southern Mesopotamia.

The main source of information about the Sumerians are cuneiform tables, and the science that studies them is called Assyriology.

As an independent discipline, it took shape only by the middle of the 19th century on the basis of English and French excavations in Iraq. From the very beginning of Assyriology, scientists have had to fight against the ignorance and lies of both non-scientific individuals and their own colleagues. In particular, the book of the Russian ethnographer Platon Akimovich Lukashevich "Charomutie" tells that the Sumerian language originated from the common Christian language "sourced" and is the progenitor of the Russian language. We will try to get rid of annoying witnesses of alien life and will rely on the specific work of researchers Samuel Kramer, Vasily Struve and Veronika Konstantinovna Afanasyeva.

Education

Let's start with the basics of everything - education and history. Sumerian cuneiform is the largest contribution to the history of modern civilization. The interest in learning among the Sumerians appears from the 3rd millennium BC. In the second half of the III millennium BC. there is a flourishing of schools in which there are a thousand scribes. Schools, in addition to educational ones, were also literary centers. They separated from the temple and were an elite institution for boys. At the head was a teacher, or "father of the school" - ummia. Botany, zoology, mineralogy, grammar were studied, but only in the form of lists, that is, reliance was placed on cramming, and not on developing a system of thinking.

Sumerian tablet, Shuruppak city

Among the staff of the school there were some "wielding whips", apparently to motivate students who had to attend classes every day.

In addition, the teachers themselves did not disdain assault and punished for every oversight. Fortunately, it was always possible to pay off, because teachers received little and were not at all against “gifts”.

It is important to note that the teaching of medicine took place virtually without the intervention of religion. So, on the found tablet with 15 prescriptions for medicines, there was not a single magic formula or religious retreat.

Daily life and craft

If we take as a basis a number of surviving stories about the life of the Sumerians, we can conclude that labor activity was in the first place. It was believed that if you do not work, but walk in the parks, then you are not only not a man, but also not a person. That is, the idea of ​​labor as the main factor in evolution was perceived at the internal level even by the most ancient civilizations.

It was customary for the Sumerians to respect their elders and help their family in its activities, whether it was work in the field or trade. Parents had to properly raise their children so that they would take care of them in their old age. That is why the oral (through songs and legends) and written transmission of information was so valued, and with it the transfer of experience from generation to generation.

Sumerian jug

The Sumerian civilization was agrarian, which is why agriculture and irrigation developed at a relatively rapid pace. There were special "landowner's calendars" that contained advice on proper farming, plowing, and managing workers. The document itself could not have been written by a farmer, as they were illiterate, hence it was published for educational purposes. Many researchers are of the opinion that the hoe of an ordinary farmer enjoyed no less respect than the plow of wealthy townspeople.

Crafts were very popular: the Sumerians invented the technology of the potter's wheel, forged tools for agriculture, built sailing boats, mastered the art of casting and soldering metals, as well as inlaying precious stones. Women's crafts included skillfully weaving, brewing beer and gardening.

Politics

The political life of the ancient Sumerians was very active: intrigues, wars, manipulations and interventions of divine forces. A complete set for a good historical blockbuster!

Regarding foreign policy, many stories have been preserved related to wars between cities, which were the largest political unit of the Sumerian civilization. Of particular interest is the story of the conflict between the legendary ruler of the city of Uruk En-Merkhar and his opponent from Aratta. The victory in the war that never started was won with the help of a real psychological game using threats and mind manipulation. Each ruler asked the other riddles, trying to show that the gods were on his side.

Domestic politics were no less interesting. There is evidence that in 2800 B.C. The first meeting of a bicameral parliament was held, which consisted of a council of elders and a lower house of male citizens. It discussed issues of war and peace, which speaks of its key importance for the life of the city-state.

Sumerian cities

The city was ruled by either a secular or religious ruler, who, in the absence of parliamentary power, himself decided key issues: warfare, lawmaking, tax collection, and the fight against crime. However, his power was not considered sacred and could be overthrown.

The legal system, according to modern judges, including a member of the US Supreme Court, was very elaborate and fair. The Sumerians considered law and justice to be the basis of their society. It was they who were the first to replace the barbaric principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" with a fine. In addition to the ruler, the assembly of citizens of the city could judge the accused.

Philosophy and ethics

As Samuel Kramer wrote, proverbs and sayings “best of all break open the shell of the cultural and everyday layers of society.” On the example of the Sumerian counterparts, we can say that the issues that bothered them were not too different from ours: spending and saving money, excuses and looking for someone to blame, poverty and wealth, moral qualities.

As for natural philosophy, by the 3rd millennium the Sumerians developed a number of metaphysical and theological concepts that left their mark on the religion of the ancient Jews and Christians, but there were no clearly formulated principles. The main ideas concerned the questions of the universe. So, the Earth for them seemed to be a flat disk, and the sky - an empty space. The world originated from the ocean. The Sumerians had sufficient intelligence, but they lacked scientific data and critical thinking, so they perceived their view of the world as correct, without questioning it.

The Sumerians recognized the creative power of the divine word. The sources about the pantheon of gods are characterized by a colorful, but illogical manner of narration. The Sumerian gods themselves are anthropomorphic. It was believed that man was created by the gods from clay to satisfy their needs.

Divine forces were recognized as ideal and virtuous. The evil caused by people seemed inevitable.

After their death, they fell into the other world, in Sumerian it was called Kur, to which they were ferried by the “man of the boat”. The close connection with Greek mythology is immediately visible.

In the works of the Sumerians, one can catch echoes of biblical motifs. One of these is the idea of ​​a heavenly paradise. The Sumerians called paradise Dilmun. Of particular interest is the connection with the biblical creation of Eve from Adam's rib. There was the goddess Ning-Ti, which can be translated as "the goddess of the rib" and as "the goddess who gives life." Although researchers believe that it was precisely because of the similarity of motives that the name of the goddess was initially translated incorrectly, since “Ti” means both “rib” and “life-giving” at the same time. Also in the Sumerian legends there was a great flood and the mortal man Ziusudra, who built a huge ship at the direction of the gods.

Some scholars see in the Sumerian plot of the killing of the dragon a connection with St. George, piercing the snake.

The ruins of the ancient Sumerian city of Kish

The Invisible Contribution of the Sumerians

What conclusion can be drawn about the life of the ancient Sumerians? Not only did they make an invaluable contribution to the further development of civilization, but in some aspects of their lives they are quite understandable to modern man: they had an idea of ​​morality, respect, love and friendship, they had a good and fair judicial system, and every day they encountered things quite familiar to us.

Today, the approach to Sumerian culture as a multifaceted and unique phenomenon, which involves a thorough analysis of connections and continuity, makes it possible to take a different look at modern phenomena known to us, to realize their significance and deep, fascinating history.

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The birth of the first civilizations. Who are the Sumerians?

Where did the first civilization originate? Some consider the land of Shinar (Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia) to be such, which is located in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The ancient inhabitants called this land the "House of Two Rivers" - Bit-Nakhrein, the Greeks - Mesopotamia, other peoples - Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia. The Tigris River originates in the mountains of Armenia, south of Lake Van, the sources of the Euphrates lie east of Erzurum, at an altitude of 2 thousand meters above sea level. The Tigris and Euphrates connected Mesopotamia with Urartu (Armenia), Iran, Asia Minor, and Syria. The inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia called themselves "the people of Sumer." It has been established that Sumer was located in the south of Mesopotamia (south of present-day Baghdad), Akkad occupied the middle part of the country. The border between Sumer and Akkad ran just above the city of Nippur. According to climatic conditions, Akkad is closer to Assyria. The climate here was more severe (it often snowed in winter). The time of the appearance of the Sumerians in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates is about the 4th millennium BC. e. Who they are and where they came from, despite many years of persistent research, it is difficult to say for sure. “The Sumerians considered the country of Dilmun, corresponding to the modern islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, to be the place of the appearance of mankind,” writes I. Kaneva. “Archaeological data allow us to trace the connection of the Sumerians with the territory of ancient Elam, as well as with the cultures of the northern Mesopotamia.”

G. Dore. global flood

Ancient authors very often talk about Egypt, but there is no information about Sumer and the Sumerians. The Sumerian language is original and absolutely unlike the Semitic languages, which at the time of its appearance did not exist at all. It is also far from the developed Indo-European languages. The Sumerians are not Semites. Their writing and language (the name of the type of writing in 1700 was given by Oxford University professor T. Hyde) are not related to the Semitic-Hamitic ethno-linguistic group. After the decipherment of the Sumerian language at the end of the 19th century, the country of Sumer was traditionally associated with the name of this country found in the Bible - Sin,ar.

It is still unclear what caused the Sumerians to appear in those places - the Flood or something else ... Science admits that the Sumerians most likely were not the first settlers of the Central and Southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerians appeared on the territory of the Southern Mesopotamia no later than the 4th millennium BC. e. But where they came from is still unknown. There are a number of hypotheses regarding the place where they came from. Some believe that it could be the Iranian Plateau, the distant mountains of Central Asia (Tibet) or India. Others recognize the Caucasian people in the Sumerians (Sh. Otten). Still others consider them to be the original inhabitants of Mesopotamia (G. Frankfort). The fourth speak of two waves of Sumerian migration from Central Asia or from the Middle East through Central Asia (B. Grozny). The patriarch of modern "world history" W. McNeil believed that the Sumerian written tradition is consistent with the idea that the founders of this civilization came from the south by sea. They conquered the native population, the "black-headed people" who formerly lived in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. They learned how to drain the swamps and irrigate the land, because the words of L. Woolley that the Mesopotamia had previously lived in a golden age are hardly accurate: “It was a blessed alluring land. She called, and many responded to her call.

Although according to legend, Eden was once here. In the Book of Genesis 2, 8-14 its location is indicated. Other scholars argue that the Gardens of Eden may have been in Egypt. In Mesopotamian literature there is no indication of traces of an earthly paradise. Others saw him at the source of four rivers (Tigris and Euphrates, Pison and Geon). The Antiochians believed that paradise was somewhere in the east, perhaps somewhere where the earth meets the sky. According to Ephraim the Syrian, paradise was supposed to be located on an island - in the Ocean. The ancient Greeks imagined the location of "paradise", that is, the posthumous abode of the righteous, on islands in the ocean (the so-called islands of the Blessed). Plutarch described them in his biography of Sertorius: "They are separated from one another by a very narrow strait, located ten thousand stadia from the African coast." There is a favorable climate due to the temperature and the absence of sudden changes in all seasons. Paradise was a land covered with an evergreen garden. This is how the image of the promised land was seen, where people are full and happy, eat fruits in the shade of gardens and cool streams.

The idea of ​​a paradise earth (according to A. Kircher)

The imagination of people supplemented these fabulous features of well-being with new and new colors. In "The Life of St. Brendan ”(XI century), the picture of the paradise island is drawn as follows:“ Many herbs and fruits grew there ... We went around it for fifteen days, but could not find its limit. And we did not see a single grass that would not bloom, and not a single tree that would not bear fruit. The stones there are only precious ... "

Bahrain map

Research scientists have given food for new conjectures and hypotheses. In the 50s of the 20th century, a Danish expedition led by J. Bibby discovered on the island of Bahrain traces of what others immediately called the ancestral home of the Sumerian civilization. Many believed that the legendary Dilmun was located here. Indeed, after all, such ancient sources as the poem about the adventures of the gods (the mother earth Ninhursag and Enki, the patron god of the most ancient of the cities of Mesopotamia - Eridu), rewritten in the 4th millennium BC. e. from an even more ancient source, already mentions a certain Arabian country Dilmun. The poem begins with the lines of glorification of this country:

Give the holy cities to Enki,

the sacred land of Dilmun,

Holy Sumer grant him.

Holy land of Dilmun,

The immaculate country of Dilmun,

The pure country of Dilmun...

This "sacred and immaculate country" seems to have once been located on the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, as well as on the nearby lands of the Arabian coast. There is no doubt that she was famous for her wealth, developed trade, and the luxury of her palaces. In the Sumerian poem "Enki and the Universe" it is also noted as a well-known fact that the ships of Dilmun carried timber, gold and silver from Melluh (India). It also speaks of the mysterious country of Magan. The Dilmuns traded in copper, iron, bronze, silver and gold, ivory, pearls, etc. Truly it was a paradise for the rich. For example, in the II century BC. e. a Greek traveler described Bahrain as a country where "doors, walls and roofs of houses were inlaid with ivory, gold, silver and precious stones." The memory of the wonderful world of Arabia was preserved for a very long time.

Oannes the fish man

Apparently, this circumstance caused the expedition of J. Bibby, who described his odyssey in the book "In Search of Dilmun". On the site of the Portuguese fortress (Portugal took possession of these places and stayed here from 1521 to 1602), he discovered the remains of ancient buildings. Nearby they found a sacred well in which stood the mysterious "throne of God." Then the memory of the Holy Throne of Dilmun passed from people to people and from era to era, being reflected in the Bible: “And the Lord God planted paradise in Eden in the east; and placed there the man whom he had created. This is how a fairy tale-tale arose about this magical country, from where the expulsion of a person was so painful, if it took place, of course.

C. Crivelli. Riches of the Land of Dilmun

The symbols of paradise are similar everywhere: the presence of the characteristic features of a "paradise civilization": an abundance of products, fertile natural conditions, luxury items. Among the peoples of Mesopotamia, the magical kingdom of Siduri is presented as a place where plants from precious stones grow, which bring people "beautiful in appearance and great in taste" juicy fruits. It is also interesting that all these legends were also known in Russia. In the message of the Novgorod Archbishop Vasily Kaliki to the Bishop of Tver Theodore the Good (compiled around 1347), it is reported that the Novgorod travelers also reached an alleged island where paradise was located. They arrived there on three boats, one of which was lost. This place is located near high mountains; Everything around is illuminated with a wondrous light that cannot be expressed in words, and exclamations of jubilation are heard from those mountains. In 1489, the traveler John de José also described a similar island near India, on which Mount Eden was located. The ancient Greeks identified the islands of the Blessed with the real-life islands of the Atlantic Ocean (Azores or Canaries). It is worth remembering Plato's famous story about Atlantis.

Thus, we see that each nation represented its own land as a heavenly abode. Paradise was transferred from the south to the Far East, then to the North Pole, to America, even beyond the boundaries of the earth. John the Theologian gave a description of the heavenly Jerusalem, the walls of which are lined with precious stones. The Egyptians in "The Tale of the Shipwrecked" describe a journey through the Red Sea. It speaks of a ghost island, the island of the Spirit, inhabited by certain ghosts. Heaven and hell are most likely ghosts with which people brighten up the dullness of their being.

Looking at the lifeless and dead space of Mesopotamia, where sandstorms rage, the bright sun mercilessly burns, it is somehow difficult to correlate this with paradise, which should please the eyes of people. Indeed, as M. Nikolsky wrote, it is not easy to find a more inhospitable country (although the climate could have been different before). For the Russian and European eyes accustomed to greenery, there is nothing to keep an eye on here - only deserts, hills, dunes and swamps. Rain is rare. In spring and summer, the view of Lower Mesopotamia is especially sad and gloomy, for here everyone is languishing from the heat. Both in autumn and winter, this region is a sandy desert, but in spring and summer it turns into a water desert. In early March, the Tigris floods, and in mid-March, the Euphrates begins to flood. The waters of the overflowing rivers unite, and the country in a significant part turns into one continuous lake. The myths of Sumer and Babylonia reflected this eternal struggle of the elements. In the creation poem (Enuma Elish) we read:

When the sky is not named above,

And the land below was nameless,

Apsu, the firstborn, the all-creator,

Foremother Tiamat, who gave birth to everything,

Their waters interfered together ...

The nature of Mesopotamia was described by many ancient authors, and it is quite severe. Among the sources, we will name the most famous: Herodotus' History, Ctesias of Cnidus's Persian History, Diodorus' Historical Library, Xenophon's Cyropaedia, Cyrus' Cylinder, Strabo's Geography, Josephus's Jewish Wars. In these writings, it was extremely sparingly spoken about the life of the people, because these writers did not know the language of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Of interest was the book of the Babylonian priest Beross, who lived 100-150 years after Herodotus. He wrote in Greek a large work on Babylon, using the authentic records of the priests, the scientists of Babylon. Unfortunately, this work is almost completely lost. Only fragments have been preserved, as cited by the church writer Eusebius of Caesarea.

G. Dore. The death of all living things

Centuries and centuries will pass until, finally, thanks to the excavations of Layard, Woolley, Gilbrecht, Fresnel, Opper, Grotefend, Rawlinson, and others, these cuneiform texts have been deciphered. But at first, readers were forced to form an impression of life in Mesopotamia from biblical texts. As N. Nikolsky wrote, “the Assyrians seemed to be cruel, bloodthirsty conquerors, drinking human blood, almost cannibals; the Babylonian kings and Babylonians were depicted as vicious, pampered people, accustomed to luxury and sensual pleasures. There was no thought that these scourges of ancient Israel and Judah could be highly cultured peoples, even teachers of the Greeks and Romans. For a long time, all the stories about the populous cities and powerful rulers of Assyria and Babylonia seemed to be an exaggeration, and the Bible was the main source of information. But from the middle of the 19th century, and especially intensively in the 20th century, more or less regular excavations of the lands of ancient Babylon and Nineveh began.

Portrait of an ancient Sumerian

Mesopotamia was a type of agricultural civilization based on irrigation. If in Egypt the role of the king of agriculture was performed by the Nile, then here - the Tigris and the Euphrates. The drainage of swamps made it possible to obtain quite stable crops, and as a result of this, the first settlements and cities began to appear here. The occupation of navigation allowed the inhabitants of these places to bring the necessary building materials, tools and raw materials from other regions, often hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away from them. At the same time, the inhabitants of Egypt and the Indus Valley built their own civilizations, thanks in part to borrowed experience and the ideas they acquired through their contacts with Mesopotamia. Two main reasons lay at the basis of the decisive historical advances - these are the migrations of tribes and peoples that change the picture of the world, and certain changes in natural and climatic conditions. This is a kind of milestones of historical evolution.

It would be natural to assume (if McNeil was right in saying that skirmishes with foreigners are the engine of social change) that the earliest complex societies arose in the river valleys of Mesopotamia, Egypt, northwestern India, adjacent to the land bridge to the Old World, where the the largest land masses on the planet. "Continental grouping and climatic conditions made this region the main node of land and sea communications in the Old World, and it can be assumed that it was for this reason that civilization first arose here."

English archaeologist L. Woolley

Many believed that the Sumerian culture was a derivative culture. The Englishman L. Woolley, a researcher of the royal burials in Ur (by the way, Ur-Nammu is considered the creator of the city of Ur and the ziggurat temple), for example, made the following guess: “There is no doubt that the Sumerian civilization arose from elements of three cultures: El Obeida, Uruk and Jemdet-Nasr, and finally took shape only after their merger. Only from that moment on, the inhabitants of Lower Mesopotamia can be called Sumerians. Therefore, I believe, - writes L. Woolley, - that by the name "Sumerians" we should mean a people whose ancestors, each in their own way, created Sumer with scattered efforts, but by the beginning of the dynastic period, individual features merged into one civilization.

Euphrates River

Although the origin of the Sumerians (“blackheads”) remains a mystery to this day, it is known that in the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. settlements arose - the city-principalities of Eredu, Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Nippur, Eshnunna, Nineveh, Babylon, Ur. As for the ethnic roots of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, we can only say about the presence here at different times of different peoples and languages. Thus, the well-known researcher of the East L. Oppenheim believes that from the beginning of the invasion of nomads from the plateaus and deserts and until the final Arab conquest, the Semites most likely constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of this region.

Clay figurine of the Mother Goddess. Uruk. 4000 BC e.

Tribal groups in search of new pastures, hordes of warriors striving for the riches of "Gardariki" ("Lands of cities", as the Normans have long called Russia), they all moved in a continuous stream, mainly from Upper Syria, using permanent routes leading south, or across the Tigris, to the east. These groups of Semites differed markedly not only in languages, but also in their attitude to urban culture, which was a feature of social and political life in Mesopotamia. Some of them were inclined to settle in cities, and thus made a rather significant contribution to urbanization; others preferred to roam freely, not settling down, not engaging in productive labor - "roaming without loving anyone."

The freemen evaded military and labor service, from paying taxes, and in general were unstable, eternally dissatisfied or rebellious material. The Amorites had a particularly noticeable influence on the nature of political processes in the region. Oppenheim believes that they are associated with the transition from the concept of city-states to the idea of ​​territorial states, the growth of trade relations through private initiative, the expansion of the horizons of international politics, and within states - a rapid change in power and orientation among rulers. Then (probably around the 12th century BC) Aramaic-speaking tribes came here and settled in Upper Syria and along the Euphrates. The Arameans sided with Babylonia against Assyria. At the same time, Aramaic alphabetic writing slowly but inevitably began to supplant the cuneiform tradition of writing. We can also talk about the influence of the Elamites and other peoples. At least there is no doubt that for almost three millennia Mesopotamia was in constant contact and conflict with its neighbors, which is confirmed by numerous written documents. The region with which the inhabitants had contacts - direct or through various intermediaries - stretched from the Indus Valley through Iraq (sometimes even significantly beyond its borders), up to Armenia and Anatolia, to the Mediterranean coast and further, all the way to Egypt. .

"Standart from Ur": scenes of peace and scenes of war. Sumer. OK. 2500 BC e.

Others consider the Sumerians a side branch of the ethnic tree of the Slavs, or rather, the superethnos of the Rus in the Middle East. “Apparently, the Sumerians became the first Russ to lose their main subspecies trait, and the second ethnic group that emerged from the superethnos of the Rus,” writes Yu. Petukhov, who studied the genesis of the Indo-Europeans, Russian, and other Slavic peoples. What is put forward by him as a justification and confirmation of such a point of view? According to his version, the bulk of the Protorians could have settled in the Middle East and Asia Minor 40-30 thousand years ago. Although they did not yet have a written language, they already had a fairly developed culture. It is clear that the “brilliant and written Sumer” did not immediately appear in Mesopotamia. He was preceded by allegedly many agricultural and pastoral villages of these very "Indo-European Russ".

Figurine of Ibi-il from Mari

The clans, settlements of the Russ of the mountainous regions and the Russ of Palestine-Suriya-Rusiya moved along the riverbeds to the south for hundreds of years, reaching by the middle of the VI millennium BC. e. the southernmost points of Mesopotamia, that is, precisely the places where the Euphrates flows into the Bitter River, into a narrow branch of the Persian Gulf. The Sumerians were not outsiders in the Middle East. They were, in his opinion, a commonality of the clans of the Near Eastern Rus with minor infusions of the Rus of the Indus Valley and the Rus of Central Asia. The aforementioned culture was the successor of the cultures of the Khalaf and Samarra Rus and the forerunner of the famous Sumerian culture. More than 40 settlements of the Ubeids have already been found in the Ur region. There are 23 settlements in the Uruk region, each with an area of ​​over 10 hectares. These ancient cities, and this is significant, have non-Sumerian names. It was here that the Rus from the Armenian Highlands rushed, and then the Rus from Central Asia and the Indus valleys.

Ziggurat at Agar Kufa. III millennium BC e. Modern look

The Sumerians managed to create a vast state with the capital in Ur (2112-2015 BC). The kings of the third dynasty did everything possible to appease the gods. The founder of the dynasty, Urnammu, took part in the creation of the first codes of the Ancient Mesopotamia. No wonder S. Kramer called him the first "Moses". He became famous as a magnificent builder, erecting a number of temples and ziggurats. "To the glory of his mistress Ningal Urnammu, a mighty man, king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad, erected this magnificent Gipar." The tower was completed by the sons. The capital had a sacred quarter, which was dedicated to the moon god Nanna and his wife Ningal. The ancient city, of course, did not resemble modern cities in any way.

Ur was an irregular oval, only about a kilometer long and up to 700 meters wide. It was surrounded by a wall with a slope of raw brick (something like a medieval castle), which was surrounded by water on three sides. Inside this space, a ziggurat, a tower with a temple, was erected. It was called "Heavenly Hill" or "Mountain of God". The height of the "Mountain of God", on top of which stood the temple of Nanna, was 53 meters. By the way, the ziggurat in Babylon (“Tower of Babel”) is a copy of the ziggurat in Ur. Probably, of all such ziggurats in Iraq, the one in Ur was in the best condition. (The Tower of Babel was destroyed by the soldiers of Alexander the Great.) The ziggurat of Ur was an observatory temple. It took 30 million bricks to make it. Little has survived from ancient Ur, the tombs and temples of Ashur, Assyrian palaces. The fragility of the structures was explained by the fact that they were created from clay (in Babylon, two buildings were built from stone). The Sumerians are skilled builders. Their architects invented the arch. The Sumerians imported material from other countries - cedars were delivered from Aman, stones for statues from Arabia. They created their own letter, an agricultural calendar, the world's first fish hatchery, the first forest plantations, a library catalog, the first medical prescriptions. Others believe that their oldest treatises were used by the compilers of the Bible when writing texts.

Outwardly, the Sumerians differed from the Semitic peoples: they were beardless and beardless, and the Semites wore long curly beards and shoulder-length hair. Anthropologically, the Sumerians belong to a large Caucasian race with elements of a small Mediterranean race. Some of them came from Scythia (according to Rawlinson), from the Hindustan peninsula (according to I. Dyakonov, etc.), while some came from the island of Dilmun, present-day Bahrain, the Caucasus, etc. It is also argued that, since the Sumerian legend tells of a mixture languages ​​and that “in the good old days they were all one people and spoke the same language”, it is likely that all peoples came from one first people (superethnos). Yu. Petukhov believes that these first people of Sumer were the Rus, the first farmers of Sumer. Further, the common and similar names of the gods are emphasized (the Sumerian "air god" En-Lil and the god of the Slavs Lel, whose name is preserved in our ritual poetry). Common were, he believes, heroes of thunder, defeating the snake-dragon. It passes among the Rus (or their filial ethnic groups) through centuries and millennia: Nin-Khirsa-Gor-Khors-George the Victorious ... "Who could give both Sumer and Egypt one deity of Horus-Khoros-Khirsu?" - our researcher asks a question and answers it himself: “Only one ethnic group. The very one that became the basis of both the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations is the superethnos of the Rus. All "mysterious" peoples are unraveled, all "dark ages" are highlighted if we study history from a scientific point of view, and not from a political one, in which the mention of the Rus earlier than the 9th century. n. e. the strictest taboo.

Sumerian beauty

The appearance of documents (c. 2800 BC) was preceded by a long period, a thousand years or more. None of the countries of the Ancient East has such an abundance of documents as in Mesopotamia. For that time, this is a high level of civilization. In the III millennium BC. e. a significant proportion of men in this country could read and write. The ruins and inscriptions of Mesopotamia told a lot. As A. Oppenheim wrote, thanks to these documents, we learned hundreds of names of kings and other prominent people, starting with the rulers of Lagash who lived in the III millennium and up to the kings and scientists of the Seleucid era. There was also an opportunity to observe the rise and fall of cities, to assess the political and economic situation, to trace the fate of entire dynasties. The documents were written not by professional scribes, but by ordinary people, which indicates a high level of literacy among the population. Although a lot of texts perished (the cities of Mesopotamia were destroyed during the wars, some of them were destroyed by water or covered with sand), but what has come down and comes to researchers (and these are hundreds of thousands of texts) is an invaluable material. Fortunately, the clay tablets on which the texts were written were used as building material in the construction of walls. Therefore, the earth, having absorbed them over time, has preserved entire archives.

Reconstruction of the temple in Tepe-Gavra near the city of Mosul. Iraq. IV millennium BC e.

A huge success for science was the discovery of the ancient economic archives of Uruk and Jemdet-Nasr (tables with records of receipts and distribution of products, the number of workers, slaves). Moreover, many more documents came from the II and I millennia BC. e. First of all, these are temple and royal archives, business papers of merchants, receipts, court records. Tens of thousands of "books" written in cuneiform have been found. Therefore, one can hardly agree with the opinion of the respected R. J. Collingwood, who believes that the Sumerians “did not and do not have a real history”: “The ancient Sumerians did not leave behind anything at all that we could call history.” He believes that these texts, at best, fit the definition as a historical ersatz, a document, a fragment of a historical canvas. The author also denies the Sumerians the existence of historical consciousness: “If they had something like historical consciousness, then nothing has been preserved that would testify to its existence. We could argue that they would certainly have had it; for us, historical consciousness is such a real and all-pervading property of our being that we do not understand how it could be absent from anyone. However, among the Sumerians, if one sticks to the facts, Collingwood continues, such consciousness nevertheless appeared in the form of a "hidden essence." I believe that as this “hidden essence” is discovered and deciphered, our understanding of the nature of the history of the Sumerian civilization itself may change.

Stone statue of Gudea - ruler of Lagash

And now in the museums of Europe, Asia, America, Russia there are already about a quarter of a million Sumerian tablets and fragments. The oldest place (or "city") where the Sumerians settled (if we accept the migration version) was Eredu (the modern name is Abu Shahrayon). The King's List says: "After royalty descended from heaven, Eredu became the seat of royalty." Perhaps the lines gave rise to an extravagant point of view. Others read the word "Sumer" as "man from above" ("shu" - from above and "mer" - man): supposedly the Americans, using the latest computers, deciphered and "found out": the Sumerians are from another planet, from a twin of the Earth, not discovered astronomers. In confirmation of this, lines from the legend of Gilgamesh were even cited, where the hero calls himself a superman. In Eredu, according to the myth, there was supposedly the palace of the god Enki, erected at the bottom of the ocean. Eredu became the place of worship of the god Enki (Eya) among the Sumerians.

Stone figurine of a pilgrim from Lagash

Gradually, the Sumerians began to move north. So they captured and began to develop Uruk, the biblical Erech (now Varka). The temple of the god An (“White Sanctuary”), a section of the pavement made of raw limestone blocks, was also discovered right there - the oldest stone structure in Mesopotamia. Impressive dimensions (80 by 30 m), perfection of architectural form, vaulted niches framing the courtyard with a sacrificial table, walls oriented to the four cardinal directions, stairs leading to the altar - all this made the temple a real miracle of architectural art, even in the eyes of a very experienced archaeologists. In the Sumerian temples, writes M. Belitsky, there were dozens of rooms where princes-priests, ensi, rulers, officials and priests, who held supreme secular and spiritual power, lived with their families. In the cultural layers of Uruk, the first tablets with pictographic writing were found, one of which is kept in the Hermitage (2900 BC). Later, the pictograms were replaced by ideograms. There were about 2000 such icons. Their meaning is extremely difficult to unravel. Perhaps for this reason, despite the huge number of tablets, history is still silent. Traces of the influence of Uruk culture on the culture of the Mediterranean countries - Syria, Anatolia, etc.

Sumerian board game

In Egypt (the era of Nagada II, corresponding to the culture of Uruk IV), luxury items brought from Sumer, vessels with handles, etc. were found. On the slate tiles of the ancient ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, the legendary Menes, there is a typical Sumerian motif dating back to the Uruk era - fantastic-looking animals with long necks. On the hilt of a dagger found at Jebel el-Arak, near Abydos, in Upper Egypt, there is an extremely curious motif - scenes of battles on land and sea. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the handle, dating back to the era of Jemdet-Nasr (2800 BC), depicts a battle that took place between the Sumerians, who arrived from the Red Sea, and the local population. All this means that even in such a distant time, the Sumerians not only could already reach Egypt, but also had a certain impact on the formation of Egyptian culture. The hypothesis that not only hieroglyphic writing arose thanks to the Sumerians, but the very idea of ​​creating written characters was born in Egypt under their influence, already has a considerable number of supporters. In a word, a talented people of builders, artists, organizers, warriors, and scientists appeared before us.

White Temple in Uruk. Reconstruction

So how was life in the city-state of the Sumerians? Let's take as an example Uruk, which was located in the south of Mesopotamia. In the middle of the III millennium BC. e. This city occupied an area of ​​over 400 hectares. It was surrounded by double walls of adobe bricks, 10 kilometers long. The city had over 800 watchtowers and a population of 80,000 to 120,000 people. One of its rulers, who was called "en" or "ensi", apparently, was the legendary Gilgamesh. The German scientist H. Schmekel in the book "Ur, Assyria and Babylon" reconstructed the life of the city. On city streets, in residential areas, traffic, noise, bustle. The sultry, stuffy day is over. The long-awaited evening chill has arrived. Blacksmiths and potters, gunsmiths and sculptors, masons and carvers walk along the blank clay walls, the monotony of which is broken by small openings leading inside the houses. Women are seen with jugs of water. They rush home to quickly prepare dinner for their husbands and children. In the crowd of passers-by, there are also quite a few warriors... Slowly, as if afraid to lose dignity, important priests, palace officials, and scribes are walking along the street. Elegant fashionable skirts make them more noticeable. After all, in the social hierarchy they are higher than artisans, workers, farmers, shepherds. Noisy, mischievous boys, after a long day of exhausting study at the school of scribes, have abandoned the signs and, with a carefree laugh, see off the caravan of donkeys. They are loaded with baskets of goods from ships unloaded at the pier. Suddenly, a cry is heard from somewhere far away, then another, then a third. The screams are getting closer and louder.

A goat eating the leaves of a tree. Ornament from Ur

Street in a Sumerian city

The crowd on the street parted, forming a wide corridor and humbly bowing their heads: an ensi was riding towards the temple. Together with his family and courtiers, he worked all day on the construction of a new irrigation canal and now, after a hard day, he returns to the palace, which is located next to the temple. Erected on a high platform, surrounded by wide stairs leading to the very top, this temple is the pride of the inhabitants of Uruk. Eleven halls stretched along its courtyard, 60 meters long and 12 meters wide. In the utility rooms there are pantries, barns, warehouses. Here the priests put the tablets in order: on them are the sacrificial offerings made in the morning in the temple, all the income of the past day received by the treasury, which will further increase the wealth of the god - the lord and ruler of the city. And the ensi, the prince-priest, the ruler of Uruk, is only a servant of the god, in whose care are the lands belonging to the god, wealth and people. This is how the life of the city is reconstructed.

Head of the statue of Gudea from Lagash

Statue of Gudea (Ensi)

In the III-II millennium BC. e. the main ways of economic development of the region were determined. The upper stratum of state people (officials, the highest ranks of the army, priests, a number of artisans) acted as the owner of communal lands, had slaves and female slaves, exploiting their labor. The Sumerian civilization (sometimes considered the beginning of Western civilization) developed, having two sectors: one sector we will conditionally call "state", the other - "private property". The first sector included mainly large farms (they were owned by temples and the elite of the nobility), the other - the lands of large family communities (led by their patriarchs). The farms of the first sector later became the property of the state, the latter became the property of territorial communities. People on public sector lands had the right to own land. It was a kind of payment for the state service. The resulting crop was used to feed the families. However, the land could have been taken away, and many public sector workers did not have it at all. It seems to us symptomatic and important the fact of peaceful coexistence at the dawn of history of two economic sectors - the state and the community-private (with a noticeable predominance of the first). The tenants of the land paid off the owners. They also paid tax to the state on the basis of income tax. Their land was cultivated by hired workers (for shelter, bread, clothing).

Courtyard of a wealthy inhabitant of Ur in the II millennium BC. e.

With the spread of irrigated agriculture and technology (potter's wheel, loom, copper, iron, water-lifting machines, tools), labor productivity also grew. As in Egypt, there are many channels. Herodotus also pointed out serious differences between the northern Mesopotamia - Assyria, and the southern - Babylonia: “The land of the Assyrians is irrigated with little rain; rainwater is only sufficient to feed the roots of cereal plants: crops grow and bread ripens with the help of irrigation from the river; this river does not overflow, however, over the fields, as in Egypt; irrigated here by hand and with the help of pumps. Babylonia is all, like Egypt, cut up by canals; the largest of them, navigable, stretches from the Euphrates south to another river, the Tigris. Creating such channels, of course, required a lot of effort.

Carriage of the winged bull

The inhabitants also faced another dilemma: crops would be flooded with too much water, or they would die from its lack and drought (Strabo). As you can see, everything or almost everything in Mesopotamia depended only on whether or not it was possible to maintain the system of agriculture and irrigation in a working and good condition. Water is life. And it is no coincidence that King Hammurabi, in his introduction to the code of famous laws, emphasized the special importance of the fact that he "gave Uruk life" - "delivered water in abundance to people." The system worked under the vigilant control of the "supervisor of the canals." The dug channels could simultaneously serve as a transport route, reaching a width of 10–20 m. This allowed ships of a rather large tonnage to pass. The banks of the canals were framed with brickwork or wicker mats. At high places, water was poured from well to well with the help of water-drawing structures. People cultivated this land with the help of ordinary hoes (the hoe was often depicted as an emblem of the god of the earth Marduk) or a wooden plow.

A married couple from Nippur. III millennium BC e.

Enlil - the "greatest god" of Sumer, the son of Heaven and Earth

The work required huge labor costs on the part of the masses of people. Without irrigation and agriculture, life here would be completely impossible. The ancients understood this very well, paying tribute to the farmer's calendar, toilers, hoe and plow. In the work “The Dispute Between the Hoe and the Plow”, it is especially emphasized that the hoe is “the child of the poor”. With the help of a hoe, a huge amount of work is done - digging the earth, creating houses, canals, erecting roofs and laying streets. The days of labor of a hoe, that is, a digger or builder, are "twelve months." If the plow is often idle, then the worker of the hoe knows neither an hour nor a day of rest. He builds "city with palaces" and "gardens for kings." He is also obliged to unquestioningly carry out all the work on the orders of the king or his dignitaries, in particular, he has to build fortifications or transport the figures of the gods to the right place.

The population of Mesopotamia and Babylonia consisted of free farmers and slaves. Theoretically, the land in Babylonia belonged to the gods, but in practice - to the kings, temples and large landowners who rented it out. N. M. Nikolsky noted that throughout the entire ancient history of Mesopotamia, “an individual person becomes the owner of the land temporarily and conditionally, as a member of the collective, and never the private owner of the land.” Sometimes, the kings placed soldiers on the land, distributed it to officials, etc. All of them had to pay taxes to the state (a tenth of the income). The bulk of the slaves then were of local origin. The slave was not a full citizen, being the full property of the owner. He could be sold, pledged, or even killed. The source of replenishment of slaves is debt slavery, captives and children of slaves. As in Egypt, abandoned children could be turned into slaves. This practice was widespread in antiquity.

Such orders existed in Babylonia, Egypt, in ancient Greece. Prisoners of war captured during wars from other countries were turned into slaves. The thieves themselves were made slaves of those who suffered from theft. The same fate awaited the killer's family. It is curious that the laws of Hammurabi allowed a husband to sell a prostitute or spendthrift wife. Slaves are slaves. Their life was hard. They were starving, dying of hunger and cold. Therefore, in order to make them work, they were shackled, often imprisoned.

In a number of cases, poor married couples, unable to feed their young children, threw them into a pit or in a basket into a river, or threw them on the street. Anyone could pick up a foundling and raise it, and then do with it as they wish (adopt, adopt or include in a dowry, sell into slavery). The custom to doom a child or save an infant from inevitable death was called “throw a child into the mouth of a dog” (or “tear it out of its mouth”). Oppenheim cites a document that says how one woman, in the presence of witnesses, held her son in front of the dog's mouth, and a certain Nur-Shamash managed to snatch him out of there. Anyone could pick him up and raise him, make him a slave, adopt him or adopt him. Although the adoption of girls, apparently, was resorted to relatively rarely. There was a firm rule: adopted children were obliged to supply the former owners with food and clothing for the rest of their lives. The fate of adopted children was different. Some of them became full members of the family and even became heirs, others faced an unenviable fate. Laws somehow regulated this process.

Goddess of death, mistress of the "Land of no return" - Ereshkigal

The work of a farmer, a digger or a builder was undoubtedly hard... Echoes of this can be found in the “Tale of Atrahasis”, which has come down to us from the Old Babylonian period (1646–1626 BC). It speaks in poetic form of the time when the gods ("Igigi") were forced to work, like mere mortals. “When the gods, like people, carried the burden, dragged the baskets, the baskets of the gods were huge, the work was hard, the hardships were great.” The gods themselves dug rivers, dug canals, deepened the bed of the Tigris and Euphrates, worked in the water depths, built a dwelling for Enki, etc., etc. So they worked for years and years, day and night, “two and a half thousand years". Immensely tired of such backbreaking work, they began to fill with anger and shout at each other. After long and heated debates, they decided to go to the main one, Enlil, to complain about their bitter fate. They "burned their guns", "burned their shovels, set their baskets on fire" and, holding hands, moved "to the holy gates of the warrior Enlil." In the end, there they arranged a council of the higher gods, where they reported to Enlil that such an unbearable burden was killing the Igigi.

Victory Stele of King Naramsin

They conferred for a long time, until they unanimously decided to create a human race and place a heavy and hard labor burden on it. "Let a man bear the yoke of God!" So they did… Since then, man dutifully began to do the work of the gods. He builds, digs, cleans, earning food for himself and the gods. In less than twelve hundred years, the country has grown, people have bred in it. And the gods began to be disturbed by a mass of people: "Their hubbub worries us."

And then they sent wind upon the earth to dry it up, and downpours to wash away the crops. The gods declared: “People will be destroyed by deprivation and hunger. May the womb of the earth rise upon them! Grasses will not grow, cereals will not sprout! Let pestilence be sent down to people! The uterus will shrink, babies will not be born! Why do people need such gods?! The most complete list of the Assyrian era mentions over 150 names of various deities. Moreover, at least 40-50 of them had their own temples and cult in the Assyrian era. Approximately in the III millennium BC. e. the college of priests came to an agreement and created a myth about the triad of great gods: Anu, Enlil and Ea. The sky went to Anu, the earth to Enlil, the sea to Ea. Then the old gods handed the fate of the world into the hands of their young son, Marduk. Thus a revolution took place in the realm of the gods. Remaking the Sumerian myths, the Babylonian priests put Marduk in the place of Enlil. Obviously, this divine hierarchy had to correspond to the earthly hierarchy of kings and their environment. This purpose was served by the cult of the first kings of Ur. The legendary king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, who was declared the son of Anu, was also deified. Many rulers were deified. The king of Akkad, Naramsin, called himself the god of Akkad. The king of Isin and the king of Larsa, the kings of Ur of the third dynasty (Shulgi, Bursin, Gimilsin) called themselves the same way. In the era of the first Babylonian dynasty, Hammurabi equated himself with the gods and began to be called the "god of kings."

The legendary ruler of Uruk, Enmerkar, can also be attributed to this category. He, having become king and reigned for 420 years, actually created the city of Uruk. I must say that the emergence, existence of these city-states, as well as in ancient Greece (at a later time), will take place in constant rivalry with nearby settlements and formations. Therefore, it is not surprising that ancient history is filled with incessant wars. At that time, among the rulers, all were aggressors and there were no (almost no) peace lovers.

In the epic poem, conditionally called by S. N. Kramer "Enmerkar and the ruler of Arrata", it is said about the most acute political conflict that arose in ancient times between Iraq and Iran. The poem tells how in ancient times the city-state of Uruk, located in southern Mesopotamia, was ruled by the glorious Sumerian hero Enmerkar. And far north of Uruk, in Iran, there was another city-state called Aratta. It was separated from Uruk by seven mountain ranges and stood so high that it was almost impossible to reach it. Aratta was famous for its riches - all kinds of metals and building stone, that is, exactly what the city of Uruk, located on a flat treeless plain of Mesopotamia, lacked so much. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that Enmerkar looked with lust at Aratta and its treasures. He decided at all costs to subjugate the people of Aratta and its ruler. To this end, he began a kind of "war of nerves" against them. He managed to intimidate the lord of Aratta and its inhabitants so much that they obeyed Uruk. The king of Uruk threatened to destroy all cities, devastate the earth, so that all Aratta would be covered with dust, like a city cursed by the god Enki, and turn into "nothing." Perhaps it was these old, almost forgotten feelings, reinforced by religion and geopolitics, that forced the ruler of Iraq to attack Iran in modern times.

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Having settled in the mouths of the rivers, the Sumerians captured the city of Eredu. This was their first city. Later they began to consider it the cradle of their statehood. After a number of years, the Sumerians moved deep into the Mesopotamian plain, building or conquering new cities. For the most distant times, the Sumerian tradition is so legendary that it has almost no historical significance. It was already known from the data of Berossus that the Babylonian priests divided the history of their country into two periods: “before the flood” and “after the flood”. Berossus, in his historical work, notes 10 kings who ruled "before the flood" and gives fantastic figures for their reign. The same data is given by the Sumerian text of the 21st century BC. e., the so-called "Royal List". In addition to Eredu, the "Royal List" names Bad-Tibira, Larak (subsequently insignificant settlements), as well as Sippar in the north and Shuruppak in the center as "before the flood" centers of the Sumerians. This newcomer people subjugated the country, not displacing - this the Sumerians simply could not - the local population, but on the contrary, they adopted many achievements of the local culture. The identity of material culture, religious beliefs, socio-political organization of various Sumerian city states does not at all prove their political community. On the contrary, it can rather be assumed that from the very beginning of the Sumerian expansion into the depths of Mesopotamia, rivalry arose between individual cities, both newly founded and conquered.

Stage I of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2750-2615 BC)

At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia there were about a dozen city-states. Surrounding, small villages were subordinate to the center, headed by the ruler, who was sometimes both a commander and a high priest. These small states are now commonly referred to by the Greek term "nomes". The following nomes are known that existed by the beginning of the Early Dynastic period:

Ancient Mesopotamia

• 1. Eshnunna. Eshnunna was located in the valley of the Diyala River.
• 2. Sippar. It is located above the bifurcation of the Euphrates into the Euphrates proper and Irnina.
• 3. Nameless nome on the Irnin Canal, later centered in the city of Kutu. The original centers of the nome were the cities located under the modern settlements of Dzhedet-Nasr and Tell-Uqair. These cities ceased to exist by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e.
• 4. Kish. It is located on the Euphrates, above its connection with Irnina.
• 5. Cash. Located on the Euphrates, below its junction with Irnina.
• 6. Nippur. The nome is located on the Euphrates, below the separation of Inturungal from it.
• 7. Shuruppak. Located on the Euphrates, below Nippur. Shuruppak, apparently, always depended on neighboring nomes.
• 8. Uruk. Located on the Euphrates, below Shuruppak.
• 9. Lv. Located at the mouth of the Euphrates.
• 10. Adab. Located on the upper segment of the Inturungal.
• 11. Ummah. It is located on Inturungal, at the point of separation of the I-nina-gene canal from it.
• 12. Larak. It is located on the canal bed, between the Tigris proper and the I-nin-gena canal.
• 13. Lagash. Nome Lagash included a number of cities and settlements located on the I-nin-gena canal and adjacent canals.
• 14. Akshak. The location of this nome is not entirely clear. It is usually identified with the later Opis and placed on the Tigris, opposite the confluence of the Diyala River.

Of the cities of the Sumerian-East Semitic culture outside Lower Mesopotamia, it is important to note Mari on the Middle Euphrates, Ashur on the Middle Tigris and Der, located east of the Tigris, on the road to Elam.

The cult center of the Sumerian-East Semitic cities was Nippur. It is possible that originally it was Mr. Nippur who was called Sumer. In Nippur there was E-kur - the temple of the common Sumerian god Enlil. Enlil was revered as the supreme god for thousands of years by all the Sumerians and Eastern Semites (Akkadians), although Nippur never represented a political center either in historical or, judging by Sumerian myths and legends, in prehistoric times.

Analysis of both the "King's List" and archaeological data show that the two main centers of Lower Mesopotamia from the beginning of the Early Dynastic period were: in the north - Kish, dominating the canal network of the Euphrates-Irnina group, in the south - alternately Ur and Uruk. Eshnunna and other cities of the Diyala river valley, on the one hand, and Lagash nome on the I-nina-gena channel, on the other, were usually outside the influence of both the northern and southern centers.

II Stage of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2615-2500 BC)

In the south, parallel to the Avan dynasty, the I dynasty of Uruk continued to exercise hegemony, the ruler of which Gilgamesh and his successors managed, as documents from the archive of the city of Shuruppak testify, to rally a number of city-states around themselves into a military alliance. This union united the states located in the southern part of Lower Mesopotamia, along the Euphrates below Nippur, along Iturungal and I-nina-gene: Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Shuruppak, Umma, etc. If we take into account the territories covered by this union, it is possible, probably , to attribute the time of its existence to the reign of Mesalim, since it is known that under Meselim the Iturungal and I-nina-gena channels were already under his hegemony. It was precisely a military alliance of small states, and not a united state, because in the documents of the archive there is no data on the intervention of the rulers of Uruk in the Shuruppak case or on the payment of tribute to them.

The rulers of the “nome” states included in the military alliance, unlike the rulers of Uruk, did not wear the title “en” (the cult head of the nome), but usually called themselves ensi or ensia[k] (Akkad. ishshiakkum, ishshakkum). This term seems to mean "lord (or priest) laying structures". In reality, however, the ensi had both cult and even military functions, as he led a squad of temple people. Some rulers of the nomes sought to appropriate the title of military leader - lugal. Often this reflected the ruler's claim to independence. However, not every title "lugal" testified to hegemony over the country. The military leader-hegemon called himself not just “lugal of his nome”, but either “lugal of Kish” if he claimed hegemony in the northern nomes, or “lugal of the country” (lugal of Kalama), in order to obtain such a title, it was necessary to recognize the military supremacy of this ruler in Nippur as the center of the Sumerian cult union. The rest of the lugals practically did not differ from the ensi in their functions. In some nomes there were only ensi (for example, in Nippur, Shuruppak, Kisur), in others only lugals (for example, in Ur), in others, both at different periods (for example, in Kish) or even, maybe simultaneously in some cases ( in Uruk, in Lagash) the ruler temporarily received the title of lugal along with special powers - military or otherwise.

Stage III of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2500-2315 BC)

The III stage of the Early Dynastic period is characterized by the rapid growth of wealth and property stratification, the aggravation of social contradictions and the relentless war of all the nomes of Mesopotamia and Elam against each other with an attempt by the rulers of each of them to seize hegemony over all the others.

During this period, the irrigation network expanded. From the Euphrates in a southwestern direction, new canals Arakhtu, Apkallatu and Me-Enlil were dug, some of which reached the strip of western swamps, and some completely gave their water to irrigation. In the southeast direction from the Euphrates, parallel to the Irnina, the Zubi canal was dug, which originated from the Euphrates above the Irnina and thereby weakened the significance of the Kish and Kutu nomes. New nomes were formed on these channels:

• Babylon (now a number of ancient settlements near the city of Hilla) on the Arakhtu canal. The communal god of Babylon was Amarutu (Marduk).
• Dilbat (now Deylem settlement) on the Apkallatu canal. Community god Urash.
• Marad (now the settlement of Vanna va-as-Sa'dun) on the Me-Enlil canal. Community god Lugal-Marada and nome
• Casallu (exact location unknown). Community god Nimushda.
• Push on the Zubi channel, in its lower part.

New canals were diverted from Iturungal, as well as dug inside the Lagash nome. Accordingly, new cities arose. On the Euphrates below Nippur, probably based on dug canals, cities also grew up claiming an independent existence and fighting for water sources. It is possible to note such a city as Kisura (in Sumerian “border”, most likely the border of the zones of northern and southern hegemony, now the settlement of Abu-Khatab), some nomes and cities mentioned in inscriptions from the 3rd stage of the Early Dynastic period cannot be localized.

By the time of the 3rd stage of the Early Dynastic period, there is a raid on the southern regions of Mesopotamia undertaken from the city of Mari. The raid from Mari roughly coincided with the end of the hegemony of the Elamite Avan in the north of Lower Mesopotamia and the 1st dynasty of Uruk in the south of the country. Whether there was a causal relationship is difficult to say. After that, two local dynasties began to compete in the north of the country, as can be seen on the Euphrates, the other on the Tigris and Irnina. These were the II dynasty of Kish and the dynasty of Akshak. Half of the names of the Lugals who ruled there, preserved by the "Royal List", are East Semitic (Akkadian). Probably both dynasties were Akkadian in language, and the fact that some of the kings bore Sumerian names is explained by the strength of cultural tradition. Steppe nomads - Akkadians, who apparently came from Arabia, settled in Mesopotamia almost simultaneously with the Sumerians. They penetrated into the central part of the Tigris and Euphrates, where they soon settled and switched to agriculture. Approximately from the middle of the 3rd millennium, the Akkadians established themselves in two large centers of northern Sumer - the cities of Kish and Aksha. But both of these dynasties were of little importance compared to the new hegemon of the south - the lugals of Ur.

culture

cuneiform tablet

Sumer is one of the oldest known civilizations. Many inventions are attributed to the Sumerians, such as the wheel, writing, the irrigation system, agricultural implements, the potter's wheel, and even brewing.

Architecture

There are few trees and stone in Mesopotamia, so the first building material was raw bricks made from a mixture of clay, sand and straw. The architecture of Mesopotamia is based on secular (palaces) and religious (ziggurats) monumental structures and buildings. The first of the temples of Mesopotamia that have come down to us date back to the 4th-3rd millennia BC. e. These powerful cult towers, called ziggurats (ziggurat - holy mountain), were square and resembled a stepped pyramid. The steps were connected by stairs, along the edge of the wall there was a ramp leading to the temple. The walls were painted black (asphalt), white (lime) and red (brick). A constructive feature of monumental architecture was going from the 4th millennium BC. e. the use of artificially erected platforms, which is explained, perhaps, by the need to isolate the building from the dampness of the soil, moistened by spills, and at the same time, probably, by the desire to make the building visible from all sides. Another characteristic, based on an equally ancient tradition, was the broken line of the wall, formed by ledges. Windows, when they were made, were placed at the top of the wall and looked like narrow slits. Buildings were also illuminated through a doorway and a hole in the roof. The coverings were mostly flat, but the vault was also known. Residential buildings discovered by excavations in the south of Sumer had an open courtyard around which covered premises were grouped. This layout, which corresponded to the climatic conditions of the country, formed the basis for the palace buildings of the southern Mesopotamia. In the northern part of Sumer, houses were found that had a central room with a ceiling instead of an open courtyard.