Sumerian culture. What was the history of Sumer? The culture of the ancient Sumerian briefly The architecture of Ur of the III dynasty

The Sumerian civilization is the most ancient on our planet. In the second half of the 4th millennium it appeared as if out of nowhere. According to customs and language, this people was alien to the Semitic tribes, who settled Northern Mesopotamia a little later. The racial affiliation of the ancient Sumerian has not yet been determined. The history of the Sumerians is mysterious and amazing. Sumerian culture gave humanity writing, the ability to process metals, the wheel and the potter's wheel. Inexplicably, these people possessed knowledge that had only recently become known to science. They left behind so many mysteries and secrets that they rightfully occupy perhaps the first place among all the amazing events in our lives.

The origins of Mesopotamian culture go back to the 4th millennium BC. e., when cities began to emerge. The initial stages of Mesopotamian culture were marked by the invention of a kind of writing, which somewhat later turned into cuneiform. When cuneiform was completely forgotten, Mesopotamian culture died along with it. However, its most important values ​​were adopted by the Persians, Arameans, Greeks and other peoples and, as a result of a complex and not yet fully understood chain of transmissions, entered the treasury of modern world culture.

Writing. At first, Sumerian writing was pictographic, that is, individual objects were depicted in the form of drawings. The oldest texts written in this script date back to approximately 3200 BC. e. However, only the simplest facts of economic life could be marked with pictography. However, it was impossible to record with such a letter proper names or convey abstract concepts (e.g. thunder, flood) or human emotions (joy, grief, etc.). Therefore, strictly speaking, pictography was not yet a real letter, since it did not convey coherent speech, but only recorded fragmentary information or helped to remember this information.

Gradually, in the process of long and extremely complex development, pictography turned into verbal syllabic writing. One of the ways in which pictography transitioned into writing was due to the associations of pictures with words.

the letter began to lose its pictorial character. Instead of a drawing to designate this or that object, they began to depict some of its characteristic details (for example, instead of a bird, its wing), and then only schematically. Since they wrote with a reed stick on soft clay, it was inconvenient to draw on it. In addition, when writing from left to right, the drawings had to be rotated 90 degrees, as a result of which they lost any resemblance to the objects depicted and gradually took the form of horizontal, vertical and angular wedges. So, as a result of centuries-old development, picture writing turned into cuneiform. However, neither the Sumerians nor other peoples who borrowed their writing developed it into an alphabet, that is, a sound writing, where each sign conveys only one consonant or vowel sound. Sumerian writing contains logograms (or ideograms), which are read as whole words, signs to indicate vowels, as well as consonants together with vowels (but not consonants alone). In the XXIV century. BC e. the first extensive texts known to us written in the Sumerian language appear.

The Akkadian language is attested in southern Mesopotamia from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. e, when the speakers of this language borrowed cuneiform from the Sumerians and began to widely use it in their Everyday life. From this same time, intensive processes of interpenetration of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages ​​began, as a result of which they learned many words from each other. But the predominant source of such borrowings was the Sumerian language. In the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. e. The oldest bilingual (Sumero-Akkadian) dictionaries were compiled.

At the end of the 25th century. BC e. Sumerian cuneiform began to be used in Ebla, the oldest state in Syria, where a library and archive consisting of many thousands of tablets were found,

Sumerian writing was borrowed by many other peoples (Elamites, Hurrians, Hittites, and later Urartians), who adapted it to their languages, and gradually by the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. all of Western Asia began to use the Sumerian-Akkadian script.

Natural conditions were of particular importance for Mesopotamian civilization. Unlike other centers of ancient cultures, Mesopotamia had no stone, let alone papyrus, on which to write. But there was as much clay as you wanted, which provided unlimited possibilities for writing, requiring essentially no expense. At the same time, clay was a durable material. Clay tablets were not destroyed by fire, but, on the contrary, acquired even greater strength. Therefore, the main material for writing in Mesopotamia was clay. In the 1st millennium BC. e. The Babylonians and Assyrians also began to use leather and imported papyrus for writing. At the same time, in Mesopotamia they began to use long narrow wooden tablets, covered with a thin layer of wax, on which cuneiform signs were applied.

Libraries. One of the greatest achievements of Babylonian and Assyrian culture was the creation of libraries. In Ur, Nippur and other cities, starting from the 2nd millennium BC. BC, for many centuries scribes collected literary and scientific texts, and thus extensive private libraries arose.

Among all the libraries in the Ancient East, the most famous was the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-c. 635 BC), carefully and with great skill collected in his palace in Nineveh. For her, throughout Mesopotamia, scribes made copies of books from official and private collections or collected the books themselves.

Archives. Ancient Mesopotamia was a land of archives. The earliest archives date back to the first quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. e. During this period, the rooms in which archives were kept were in most cases no different from ordinary rooms. Later, the tablets began to be stored in boxes and baskets covered with bitumen to protect them from dampness. Labels were attached to the baskets indicating the contents of the documents and the period to which they belong.

Schools. Most scribes received their education at school, although scribal knowledge was often passed on within the family, from father to son. The Sumerian school, like the later Babylonian, mainly trained scribes for state and temple administration. The school became a center of education and culture. The curriculum was so secular that religious education was not included in the school curriculum at all. The main subject of study was the Sumerian language and literature. High school students, depending on the narrower specialization expected in the future, received grammatical, mathematical and astronomical knowledge. Those who were going to devote their lives to science studied law, astronomy, medicine and mathematics for a long time.

Literature. A significant number of poems, lyric works, myths, hymns, legends, epic tales and collections of proverbs that once made up the rich Sumerian literature have survived. The most famous monument of Sumerian literature is the cycle of epic tales about the legendary hero Gilgamesh. This cycle was preserved in its most complete form in a later Akkadian revision found in the library of Ashurbanipal.

Religion. In the ideological life of Ancient Mesopotamia, the dominant role belonged to religion. Even at the turn of the IV-III millennia BC. e. A thoroughly developed theological system arose in Sumer, which was later largely borrowed and further developed by the Babylonians. Each Sumerian city revered its patron god. In addition, there were gods who were worshiped throughout Sumer, although each of them had their own special places of worship, usually where their cult arose. These were the god of the sky Anu, the god of the earth Enlil, the Akkadians also called him Belomili Ea. The deities personified the elemental forces of nature and were often identified with cosmic bodies. Each deity was assigned special functions. Enlil, whose center was the ancient holy city of Nippur, was the god of fate, the creator of cities, and the inventor of the hoe and the plough. The sun god Utu (in Akkadian mythology he is named Shamash), the moon god Nannar (in Akkadian Sin), who was considered the son of Enlil, the "goddess of love and fertility Inanna (in the Basilonian and Assyrian pantheon - Lshtar) and the god forever" were very popular. living nature Du-muzi (Babylonian Tammuz), personifying dying and resurrecting vegetation. The god of war, disease and death Nergal was identified with the planet Mars, the supreme Babylonian god Marduk - with the planet Jupiter, Nabu (son of Marduk), considered the god of wisdom, writing and calculation , - with the planet Mercury. The supreme god of Assyria was the tribal god of this country Ashur.

In the beginning, Marduk was one of the most insignificant gods. But his role began to grow along with the political rise of Babylon, of which he was considered the patron.

In addition to deities, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia also revered numerous demons of good and sought to appease the demons of evil, who were considered the cause of various diseases and death. They also tried to save themselves against evil spirits with the help of spells and special amulets.

The Sumerians and Akkadians believed in the afterlife. According to their ideas, this was a kingdom of shadows, where the dead always suffered from hunger and thirst and were forced to eat clay and dust. Therefore, the children of the dead were obliged to make sacrifices to them.

Scientific knowledge. The peoples of Mesopotamia achieved certain successes in the scientific knowledge of the world. The achievements of Babylonian mathematics, which initially arose from the practical needs of measuring fields, constructing canals and various buildings, were especially great. Since ancient times, the Babylonians erected multi-story (usually seven-story) ziggurat towers. WITH upper floors From the ziggurats, scientists observed the movements of celestial bodies from year to year. In this way, the Babylonians collected and recorded empirical observations of the Sun, Moon, and the locations of various planets and constellations. In particular, astronomers noted the position of the Moon in relation to the planets and gradually established the periodicity of the movements of celestial bodies visible to the naked eye. In the process of such centuries-old observations, Babylonian mathematical astronomy arose.

A large number of Babylonian medical texts survive. It is clear from them that the doctors of Ancient Mesopotamia knew how to treat dislocations and fractures of limbs well. However, the Babylonians had very little understanding of the structure of the human body and they failed to achieve noticeable success in the treatment of internal diseases.

Back in the 3rd millennium BC. e. the inhabitants of Mesopotamia knew the way to India, and in the 1st millennium BC. e. - also to Ethiopia and Spain. The maps that have survived to this day reflect the attempts of the Babylonians to systematize and generalize their rather extensive geographical knowledge. In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Guides to Mesopotamia and adjacent countries were compiled, intended for merchants engaged in domestic and international trade. Maps covering the territory from Urartu to Egypt were found in the library of Ashurbanapal. Some maps show Babylonia and neighboring countries. These cards also contain text with the necessary comments.

Art. In the formation and subsequent development of the art of Ancient Mesopotamia, the artistic traditions of the Sumerians were of decisive importance. In the IV millennium BC. e., that is, even before the emergence of the first state formations, the leading place in Sumerian art was occupied by painted ceramics with its characteristic geometric patterns. From the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. Stone carving acquired a major role, which soon led to the rapid development of glyptics, which continued until the disappearance of the cuneiform culture at the turn of the 1st century. n. e. The cylinder seals depicted mythological, religious, everyday and hunting scenes.

In the XXIV-XXII centuries. BC BC, when Mesopotamia became a unified power, sculptors began to create idealized portraits of Sargon, the founder of the Akkad dynasty.

The population of Ancient Mesopotamia achieved impressive success in the construction of palace and temple buildings. They, like the houses of private individuals, were built from mud brick, but unlike the latter, they were erected on high platforms. A typical building of this kind was the famous palace of the kings of Mari, built at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e.

The development of technology, crafts and commodity-money relations led in the 1st millennium BC. e. to the emergence of large cities in Mesopotamia, which were the administrative, craft and cultural centers of the country, and to the improvement of living conditions. The largest city in Mesopotamia by area was Nineveh, built on the banks of the Tigris mainly under Sennacherib (705-681 BC) as the capital of Assyria.

Glass production began early in Mesopotamia: the first recipes for its manufacture date back to the 18th century. BC e.

However, the Iron Age in this country came relatively late - in the 11th century. BC e., the widespread use of iron for the production of tools and weapons began only a few centuries later.

Concluding the description of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, it should be noted that the achievements of the inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates valley in architecture, art, writing and literature, in the field scientific knowledge in many ways played the role of a standard for the entire Middle East in ancient times.

Back in the 4th millennium BC. e. in the southern part of Mesopotamia on the territory of modern Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a high culture of the Sumerians (the self-name of the Saggig people - black-headed) was formed, which was then inherited by the Babylonians and Assyrians. At the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e. Sumer declines, and over time the Sumerian language was forgotten by the population; only the Babylonian priests knew it; it was the language of sacred texts. At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. primacy in Mesopotamia passes to Babylon.

Introduction

In the south of Mesopotamia, where agriculture was widespread, the ancient city-states of Ur, Uruk, Kish, Umma, Lagash, Nippur, and Akkad developed. The youngest of these cities was Babylon, built on the banks of the Euphrates. Most of the cities were founded by the Sumerians, so the ancient culture of Mesopotamia is usually called Sumerian. Now they are called the “progenitor of modern civilization.” The rise of city-states is called the golden age of the ancient state of the Sumerians. This is true both in the literal and figurative meaning of the word: objects for a wide variety of household purposes and weapons were made from gold here. The Sumerian culture had a great influence on the subsequent progress not only of Mesopotamia, but of all mankind.

This culture was ahead of the development of other great cultures. Nomads and trading caravans spread news of it throughout.

Writing

The Sumerians' cultural contributions were not limited to discovering metalworking techniques, making wheeled carts and the potter's wheel. They became the inventors of the first form of recording human speech.

At the first stage, it was pictography (picture writing), that is, a letter consisting of drawings and, less often, symbols denoting one word or concept. The combination of these drawings conveyed certain information in written form. However, Sumerian legends say that even before the advent of pictorial writing, there existed an even more ancient way of fixing thoughts - tying knots on a rope and making notches in trees. At subsequent stages, the drawings were stylized (from a complete, fairly detailed and thorough depiction of objects, the Sumerians gradually moved to their incomplete, schematic or symbolic depiction), which accelerated the writing process. This is a step forward, but the possibilities of such writing were still limited. Thanks to simplifications, individual characters could be used multiple times. Yes, for many complex concepts there were no signs at all, and even in order to designate such a familiar phenomenon as rain, the scribe had to combine the symbol of the sky - a star and the symbol of water - ripples. This type of writing is called ideographic rebus.

Historians believe that it was the formation of the management system that led to the appearance of writing in temples and royal palaces. This brilliant invention should, apparently, be considered the merit of the Sumerian temple officials, who improved pictography to simplify the registration of economic events and trade transactions. Records were made on clay tiles or tablets: the soft clay was pressed with the corner of a rectangular stick, and the lines on the tablets had the characteristic appearance of wedge-shaped indentations. In general, the entire inscription was a mass of wedge-shaped dashes and therefore Sumerian writing is usually called cuneiform. The oldest tablets with cuneiform writing, which made up entire archives, contain information about the temple economy: lease agreements, documents on control of work performed and registration of incoming goods. These are the oldest written monuments in the world.

Subsequently, the principle of picture writing began to be replaced by the principle of transmitting the sound side of the word. Hundreds of signs indicating syllables and several alphabetic signs corresponding to the main letters appeared. They were used mainly to denote function words and particles. Writing was a great achievement of Sumerian-Akkadian culture. It was borrowed and developed by the Babylonians and spread widely throughout Western Asia: cuneiform was used in Syria, ancient Persia, and other states. In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Cuneiform became an international writing system: even the Egyptian pharaohs knew and used it. In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. Cuneiform becomes an alphabetic script.

Language

For a long time, scientists believed that the Sumerian language was not similar to any living or dead language known to mankind, so the question of the origin of this people remained a mystery. To date, the genetic connections of the Sumerian language have not yet been established, but most scientists suggest that this language, like the language of the ancient Egyptians and the inhabitants of Akkad, belongs to the Semitic-Hamitic language group.

Around 2 thousand BC, the Sumerian language was replaced by the Akkadian language from spoken language, but continued to be used as a sacred, liturgical and scientific language until the beginning of AD e.

Culture and religion

In ancient Sumer, the origins of religion had purely materialistic, rather than “ethical” roots. Early Sumerian deities 4-3 thousand BC. acted primarily as givers of life's blessings and abundance. The cult of the gods was not aimed at “purification and holiness” but was intended to ensure a good harvest, military success, etc. - this is precisely why mere mortals revered them, built temples for them, and made sacrifices. The Sumerians argued that everything in the world belonged to the gods - temples were not the place of residence of the gods, who were obliged to take care of people, but the granaries of the gods - barns. Most of the early Sumerian deities were formed by local gods, whose power did not extend beyond a very small territory. The second group of gods were the patrons of large cities - they were more powerful than the local gods, but they were revered only in their cities. Finally the gods who were known and worshiped in all Sumerian cities.

In Sumer, the gods were like people. In their relationships there are matchmaking and wars, anger and vindictiveness, deception and anger. Quarrels and intrigues were common among the gods; the gods knew love and hate. Like people, they did business during the day - they decided the fate of the world, and at night they retired.

Sumerian hell - Kur - gloomy dark underworld, on the way where there were three servants - “door man”, “underground river man”, “carrier”. Reminiscent of the ancient Greek Hades and Sheol of the ancient Jews. There a man went through trial, and a gloomy, dreary existence awaited him. A person comes into this world for a short time, and then disappears into the dark mouth of Kur. In the Sumerian culture, for the first time in history, man made an attempt to morally overcome death, to understand it as a moment of transition to eternity. All the thoughts of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia were turned to the living: the living wished for well-being and health every day, multiplication of the family and a happy marriage for their daughters, a successful career for their sons, and that in the house “beer, wine and all sorts of goods would never run out.” The posthumous fate of a person interested them less and seemed to them rather sad and uncertain: the food of the dead is dust and clay, they “do not see the light” and “dwell in darkness.”

In Sumerian mythology there are also myths about the golden age of humanity and heavenly life, which over time became part of the religious ideas of the peoples of Western Asia, and later - into biblical stories.

The only thing that can brighten up a person’s existence in the dungeon is the memory of those living on earth. The people of Mesopotamia were raised in the deep belief that they needed to leave a memory of themselves on earth. Memory lasts longest in erected cultural monuments. It was they, created by the hands, thought and spirit of man, that constituted the spiritual values ​​of this people, this country and truly left behind a powerful historical memory. In general, the views of the Sumerians were reflected in many later religions.

The most powerful gods

An (in Akkadian transcription Annu) God of the sky and the father of other gods, who, like people, asked him for help if necessary. Known for his disdainful attitude towards them and evil antics.

Patron of the city of Uruk.

Enlil, the God of wind, air and all space from earth to sky, also treated people and lower deities with disdain, but he invented the hoe and gave it to humanity and was revered as the patron of the earth and fertility. His main temple was in the city of Nippur.

Enki (in Akkadian transcription Ea) Protector of the city of Eredu, was recognized as the god of the ocean and fresh underground waters.

Other important deities

Nanna (Akkadian Sin) God of the moon, patron of the city of Ur

Utu (Akkadian Shamash) Son of Nanna, patron of the cities of Sippar and Larsa. He personified the ruthless power of the drying heat of the sun and at the same time the warmth of the sun, without which life is impossible.

Inanna (Akkadian Ishtar) Goddess of fertility and carnal love, she granted military victories. Goddess of the city of Uruk.

Dumuzi (Akkadian Tammuz) Husband of Inanna, son of the god Enki, god of water and vegetation, which annually died and was resurrected.

Nergal Lord of the kingdom of the dead and god of plague.

Ninurt Patron of valiant warriors. Son of Enlil, who did not have his own city.

Ishkur (Akkadian Adad) God of thunder and storms.

The goddesses of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon usually acted as wives of powerful gods or as deities personifying death and the underworld.

In Sumerian religion, the most important gods, in whose honor ziggurats were built, were represented in human form as the lords of the sky, sun, earth, water and storm. In each city, the Sumerians worshiped their own god.

Priests acted as mediators between people and gods. With the help of fortune telling, spells and magical formulas, they tried to comprehend the will of the celestials and convey it to the common people.

Throughout 3 thousand BC. attitudes towards the gods gradually changed: new qualities began to be attributed to them.

The strengthening of statehood in Mesopotamia was also reflected in the religious beliefs of the residents. The deities who personified cosmic and natural forces began to be perceived as great “heavenly leaders” and only then as a natural element and “giver of blessings.” In the pantheon of gods there appeared a god-secretary, a god-bearer of the ruler's throne, and gods-gatekeepers. Important deities have been associated with various planets and constellations:

Utu is with the Sun, Nergal is with Mars, Inanna is with Venus. Therefore, all townspeople were interested in the position of the luminaries in the sky, their relative positions, and especially the place of “their” star: this promised inevitable changes in the life of the city-state and its population, be it prosperity or misfortune. Thus, the cult of heavenly bodies gradually formed, and astronomical thought and astrology began to develop. Astrology was born among the first civilization of mankind - Sumerian civilization. This was approximately 6 thousand years ago. At first, the Sumerians deified the 7 planets closest to Earth. Their influence on the Earth was considered as the will of the Divine living on this planet. The Sumerians first noticed that changes in the position of celestial bodies in the sky cause changes in earthly life. Observing the constantly changing dynamics of the starry sky, Sumerian clergy constantly studied and explored the influence of the movement of celestial bodies on earthly life. That is, they correlated earthly life with the movement of celestial bodies. There in the sky there was a sense of order, harmony, consistency, and legality. They did the following logical conclusion: if earthly life is consistent with the will of the Gods living on the planets, then a similar order and harmony will arise on Earth. Predictions of the future were based on studying the position of stars and constellations in the sky, the flights of birds, and the entrails of animals sacrificed to the gods. People believed in predestination human destiny, under human control higher powers; believed that supernatural forces are always invisibly present in the real world and manifest themselves in mysterious ways.

Architecture and construction

The Sumerians knew how to build multi-story buildings and wonderful temples.

Sumer was a country of city-states. The largest of them had their own ruler, who was also the high priest. The cities themselves were built up without any plan and were surrounded by an outer wall that reached considerable thickness. Residential houses of the townspeople were rectangular, two-story with a mandatory courtyard, sometimes with hanging gardens. Many houses had sewerage.

The center of the city was a temple complex. It included the temple of the main god - the patron of the city, the king's palace and the temple estate.

The palaces of the rulers of Sumer combined a secular building and a fortress. The palace was surrounded by a wall. To supply water to the palaces, aqueducts were built - water was supplied through pipes hermetically sealed with bitumen and stone. The facades of the majestic palaces were decorated with bright reliefs, usually depicting hunting scenes, historical battles with the enemy, as well as animals most revered for their strength and power.

Early temples were small rectangular buildings on a low platform. As the cities grew richer and more prosperous, the temples became more impressive and majestic. New temples were usually erected on the site of old ones. Therefore, temple platforms increased in volume over time; a certain type of structure arose - a ziggurat (see figure) - a three- and seven-step pyramid with a small temple at the top. All steps were painted in different colors - black, white, red, blue. The construction of the temple on a platform protected it from floods and river overflows. A wide staircase led to the upper tower, sometimes several staircases on different sides. The tower could be topped with a golden dome, and its walls were lined with glazed bricks.

The lower powerful walls were alternating ledges and projections, which created a play of light and shadow and visually increased the volume of the building. In the sanctuary - the main room of the temple complex - there was a statue of the deity - the heavenly patron of the city. Only priests could enter here, and access to the people was strictly prohibited. There were small windows under the ceiling, and the main decoration of the interior were mother-of-pearl friezes and a mosaic of red, black and white clay nail heads driven into the brick walls. Trees and shrubs were planted on stepped terraces.

The temple of the god Marduk in Babylon is considered the most famous ziggurat in history - the famous Tower of Babel, the construction of which is mentioned in the Bible.

Wealthy townspeople lived in two-story houses with a very complex interior. The bedrooms were located on the second floor, with lounge rooms and a kitchen downstairs. All windows and doors opened onto the courtyard, and only blank walls faced the street.

In the architecture of Mesopotamia, columns have been found since ancient times, which, however, did not play a big role, as well as vaults. Quite early on, the technique of dividing walls using projections and niches, as well as decorating walls with friezes made using the mosaic technique, appeared.

The Sumerians first encountered the arch. This design was invented in Mesopotamia. There was no forest here, and the builders came up with the idea of ​​installing an arched or vaulted ceiling instead of a beam. Arches and vaults were also used in Egypt (this is not surprising, since Egypt and Mesopotamia had contacts), but in Mesopotamia they arose earlier, were used more often, and from there they spread throughout the world.

The Sumerians established the length of the solar year, which allowed them to accurately orient their buildings to the four cardinal directions.

Mesopotamia was poor in stone, and the main building material there was raw brick, dried in the sun. Time has not been kind to brick buildings. In addition, cities were often subjected to enemy invasions, during which homes were destroyed to the ground. ordinary people, palaces and temples.

The science

The Sumerians created astrology and substantiated the influence of stars on people's destinies and their health. Medicine was mainly homeopathic. Numerous clay tablets have been found containing recipes and magical formulas against the demons of disease.

Priests and magicians used knowledge about the movement of the stars, the Moon, the Sun, the behavior of animals for fortune telling, and foresight of events in the state. The Sumerians knew how to predict solar and lunar eclipses and created a solar-lunar calendar.

They discovered the Zodiac belt - 12 constellations that form a large circle along which the Sun makes its way throughout the year. Scholarly priests compiled calendars and calculated dates lunar eclipses. In Sumer, the beginning of one of the most ancient sciences, astronomy, was laid.

In mathematics, the Sumerians knew how to count in tens. But the numbers 12 (a dozen) and 60 (five dozen) were especially revered. We still use the Sumerian heritage when we divide an hour into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds, a year into 12 months, and a circle into 360 degrees.

The earliest extant mathematical texts, written down by the Sumerians in the 22nd century BC, show high computational skill. They contain multiplication tables that combine a well-developed sexagesimal system with the earlier decimal system. A penchant for mysticism was revealed in the fact that numbers were divided into lucky and unlucky - even the invented sexagesimal system of numbers was a relic of magical ideas: the number six was considered lucky. The Sumerians created a positional notation system in which a number would take on a different meaning depending on the place it occupied in a multi-digit number.

The first schools were created in the cities of Ancient Sumer. Rich Sumerians sent their sons there. The classes lasted all day. It was not easy to learn to write in cuneiform, count, and tell stories about gods and heroes. Boys were subjected to corporal punishment for failure to complete their homework. Anyone who successfully completed school could get a job as a scribe, official, or become a priest. This made it possible to live without knowing poverty.

A person was considered educated: one who was fully proficient in writing, who could sing, who owned musical instruments, and who was able to make reasonable and legal decisions.

Literature

Their cultural achievements are great and indisputable: the Sumerians created the first human history poem “The Golden Age”, the first elegies were written, and the world’s first library catalog was compiled. The Sumerians are the authors of the world's first and oldest medical books - collections of recipes. They were the first to develop and record the farmer's calendar and left the first information about protective plantings.

A large number of monuments of Sumerian literature have reached us, mainly in copies rewritten after the fall III dynasty Ur and kept in the temple library in the city of Nippur. Unfortunately, partly due to the difficulty of the Sumerian literary language, partly due to the poor condition of the texts (some tablets were found broken into dozens of pieces, now stored in museums in various countries), these works have only recently been read.

Mostly these are religious hymns to the gods, prayers, myths, legends about the origin of the world, human civilization and agriculture. In addition, lists of royal dynasties have long been kept in churches. The oldest lists are those written in Sumerian by the priests of the city of Ur. Particularly interesting are several small poems containing legends about the emergence of agriculture and civilization, the creation of which is attributed to the gods. These poems also raise the question of the comparative value for humans of agriculture and cattle breeding, which probably reflects the fact of the relatively recent transition of the Sumerian tribes to an agricultural way of life.

The myth of the goddess Inanna, imprisoned in the underground kingdom of death and freed from there, is distinguished by extremely archaic features; along with her return to the earth, life that had been frozen returns. This myth reflected the change in the growing season and the “dead” period in the life of nature.

There were also hymns addressed to various deities, historical poems(for example, a poem about the victory of the Uruk king over the Guteans). The largest work of Sumerian religious literature is a poem, written in deliberately intricate language, about the construction of the temple of the god Ningirsu by the ruler of Lagash, Gudea. This poem was written on two clay cylinders, each about a meter high. A number of poems of a moral and instructive nature have been preserved.

Literary monuments folk art little has reached us. Such folk works as fairy tales have perished for us. Only a few fables and proverbs have survived.

The most important monument of Sumerian literature is the cycle of epic tales about the hero Gilgamesh, the legendary king of the city of Uruk, who, as follows from dynastic lists, ruled in the 28th century BC. In these tales, the hero Gilgamesh is presented as the son of a mere mortal and the goddess Ninsun. Gilgamesh's wanderings around the world in search of the secret of immortality and his friendship with the wild man Enkidu are described in detail. In its most complete form the text is large epic poem about Gilgamesh is preserved written down in the Akkadian language. But the records of primary individual epics about Gilgamesh that have reached us irrefutably testify to the Sumerian origin of the epic.

The cycle of tales of Gilgamesh had a great influence on the surrounding peoples. It was adopted by the Akkadian Semites, and from them it spread to Northern Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. There were also cycles of epic songs dedicated to various other heroes.

An important place in the literature and worldview of the Sumerians was occupied by legends about the flood, with which the gods supposedly destroyed all living things, and only the pious hero Ziusudra was saved in a ship built on the advice of the god Enki. Flood legends that served as the basis for the corresponding biblical legend, took shape under the undoubted influence of memories of catastrophic floods that occurred in the 4th millennium BC. e. Many Sumerian settlements were destroyed more than once.

Art

A special place in the Sumerian cultural heritage belongs to glyptics - carving on precious or semi-precious stone. Many Sumerian carved seals in the shape of a cylinder have survived. The seal was rolled over a clay surface and an impression was obtained - a miniature relief with a large number of characters and a clear, carefully constructed composition. For the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, a seal was not just a sign of ownership, but an object that had magical powers. The seals were kept as talismans, given to temples, and placed in burial places. In Sumerian engravings, the most common motifs were ritual feasts with figures seated eating and drinking. Other motifs included the legendary heroes Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu fighting monsters, as well as anthropomorphic figures of a man-bull. Over time, this style gave way to a continuous frieze depicting fighting animals, plants or flowers.

There was no monumental sculpture in Sumer. Small cult figurines are more common. They depict people in a position of prayer. All sculptures have emphasized large eyes, as they were supposed to resemble an all-seeing eye. Large ears emphasized and symbolized wisdom; it is no coincidence that “wisdom” and “ear” are referred to as one word in the Sumerian language.

Sumerian art was developed in numerous bas-reliefs, the main theme being the theme of hunting and battles. The faces in them were depicted in front, and the eyes in profile, the shoulders in a three-quarter spread, and the legs in profile. The proportions of human figures were not respected. But in the compositions of bas-reliefs, the artists sought to convey movement.

The art of music certainly found its development in Sumer. Over more than three millennia, the Sumerians composed their spell songs, legends, laments, wedding songs, etc. The first stringed musical instruments - the lyre and the harp - also appeared among the Sumerians. They also had double oboes and big drums.

End of Sumer

After one and a half thousand years, the Sumerian culture was replaced by the Akkadian one. At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Mesopotamia was invaded by hordes of Semitic tribes. The conquerors adopted a higher local culture, but did not give up theirs. Moreover, they turned Akkadian into the official state language, and left Sumerian the role of the language of religious worship and science. The ethnic type gradually disappears: the Sumerians dissolve into more numerous Semitic tribes. Their cultural conquests were continued by their successors: the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Chaldeans.

After the emergence of the Akkadian Semitic kingdom, religious ideas also changed: there was a mixture of Semitic and Sumerian deities. Literary texts and school exercises preserved on clay tablets indicate an increasing level of literacy among the Akkadians. During the reign of the dynasty from Akkad (about 2300 BC), the rigor and schematic nature of the Sumerian style was replaced by greater freedom of composition, three-dimensionality of figures and portraiture of features, primarily in sculpture and reliefs.

In a single cultural complex called the Sumerian-Akkadian culture, the Sumerians played a leading role. They, according to modern orientalists, are the founders of the famous Babylonian culture.

Two and a half thousand years have passed since the decline of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, and until recently they knew about it only from the stories of ancient Greek writers and from biblical legends. But in the last century, archaeological excavations discovered monuments of material and written culture Sumer, Assyria and Babylon, and this era appeared before us in all its barbaric splendor and gloomy grandeur. There is still much that remains unsolved in the spiritual culture of the Sumerians.

List of used literature

1. Kravchenko A.I. Culturology: Study. manual for universities. - M.: Academic project, 2001.
2. Emelyanov V.V. Ancient Sumer: Essays on Culture. St. Petersburg, 2001
3. History of the Ancient World Ukolova V.I., Marinovich L.P. (Online edition)
4. Culturology edited by Professor A. N. Markova, Moscow, 2000, Unity
5. Culturology History of world culture, edited by N. O. Voskresenskaya, Moscow, 2003, Unity
6. History of world culture, E.P. Borzova, St. Petersburg, 2001
7. Culturology, history of world culture, edited by Professor A.N. Markova, Moscow, 1998, Unity

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Habitat and features of Sumerian culture

Every culture exists in space and time. The original space of a culture is the place of its origin. Here are all the starting points for the development of culture, which include geographical position, features of relief and climate, the presence of water sources, soil conditions, minerals, composition of flora and fauna. From these foundations, over the course of centuries and millennia, the form of a given culture is formed, that is, the specific location and relationship of its components. We can say that every nation takes the form of the area in which it lives for a long time.

Human society of archaic antiquity can use in its activities only those objects that are within sight and easily accessible. Constant contact with the same objects subsequently determines the skills of handling them, and through these skills - both the emotional attitude towards these objects and their value properties. Consequently, through material-objective operations with the primary elements of the landscape, the basic features of social psychology are formed. In turn, social psychology formed on the basis of operations with primary elements becomes the basis of the ethnocultural picture of the world. The landscape space of culture is the source of ideas about sacred space with its vertical and horizontal orientation. In this sacred space the pantheon is located and the laws of the universe are established. This means that the form of culture will inevitably consist of both the parameters of objective geographical space and those ideas about space that appear in the process of development of social psychology. Basic ideas about the form of culture can be obtained by studying the formal features of monuments of architecture, sculpture and literature.

As for the existence of culture in time, two types of relationships can also be distinguished. First of all, this is historical (or external) time. Any culture arises at a certain stage of socio-economic, political and intellectual development humanity. It fits into all the main parameters of this stage and, in addition, carries information about the time preceding its formation. Stage-typological features associated with the nature of the main cultural processes, when combined with a chronological scheme, can give quite accurate picture cultural evolution. However, along with historical time, it is necessary to take into account sacred (or internal) time, revealed in the calendar and various rituals. This internal time is very closely related to recurring natural and cosmic phenomena, such as: the change of day and night, the change of seasons, the timing of sowing and ripening cereal crops, the time of mating relationships in animals, various phenomena of the starry sky. All these phenomena not only provoke a person to relate to them, but, being primary in comparison with his life, require imitation and assimilation to himself. Developing in historical time, man tries to consolidate his existence as much as possible in a series of natural cycles and integrate into their rhythms. From here arises the content of culture, deduced from the main features of the religious-ideological worldview.

Mesopotamian culture arose among the desert and marshy lakes, on an endless flat plain, monotonous and completely gray in appearance. In the south the plain ends with the salty Persian Gulf, in the north it turns into a desert. This dull relief encourages a person either to escape or to actively engage in the fight against nature. On the plain, all large objects look the same, they stretch in an even line towards the horizon, resembling a mass of people moving in an organized manner towards a single goal. The monotony of the flat terrain greatly contributes to the emergence of tense emotional states that oppose the image of the surrounding space. According to ethnopsychologists, the people living on the plain are distinguished by great cohesion and a desire for unity, perseverance, hard work and patience, but at the same time they are prone to unmotivated depressive states and outbursts of aggression.

There are two deep rivers in Mesopotamia - the Tigris and the Euphrates. They overflow in the spring, in March - April, when the snow begins to melt in the mountains of Armenia. During floods, rivers carry a lot of silt, which serves as an excellent fertilizer for the soil. But the flood is destructive for the human community: it demolishes homes and exterminates people. In addition to the spring flood, people are often harmed by the rainy season (November - February), during which winds blow from the bay and the canals overflow. In order to survive, you need to build houses on high platforms. In the summer, Mesopotamia experiences terrible heat and drought: from the end of June to September not a single drop of rain falls, and the air temperature does not fall below 30 degrees, and there is no shade anywhere. A person who constantly lives in anticipation of a threat from mysterious external forces seeks to understand the laws of their action in order to save himself and his family from death. Therefore, most of all he is focused not on issues of self-knowledge, but on the search for the permanent foundations of external existence. He sees such foundations in the strict movements of objects in the starry sky and it is there, upward, that he turns all questions to the world.

Lower Mesopotamia has a lot of clay and almost no stone. People learned to use clay not only to make ceramics, but also for writing and sculpture. In the culture of Mesopotamia, modeling prevails over carving on solid material, and this fact says a lot about the peculiarities of the worldview of its inhabitants. For the master potter and sculptor, the forms of the world exist as if ready-made; they only need to be able to extract them from the formless mass. Projection occurs during operation ideal model(or stencil), formed in the master’s head, onto the source material. As a result, the illusion of the presence of a certain embryo (or essence) of this form in the objective world arises. This kind of sensation develops a passive attitude towards reality, a desire not to impose one’s own constructions on it, but to correspond to the imaginary ideal prototypes of existence.

Lower Mesopotamia is not rich in vegetation. There is practically no good construction timber here (for it you need to go east, to the Zagros Mountains), but there is a lot of reed, tamarisk and date palms. Reeds grow along the shores of swampy lakes. Bundles of reeds were often used in dwellings as a seat; both the dwellings themselves and pens for livestock were built from reeds. Tamarisk tolerates heat and drought well, so it grows in large quantities in these places. Tamarisk was used to make handles for various tools, most often for hoes. The date palm was a real source of abundance for palm plantation owners. Several dozen dishes were prepared from its fruits, including flat cakes, porridge, and delicious beer. Various household utensils were made from palm tree trunks and leaves. Reeds, tamarisk, and the date palm were sacred trees in Mesopotamia, they were sung in spells, hymns to the gods and literary dialogues. Such a meager set of vegetation stimulated the ingenuity of the human collective, the art of achieving great goals with small means.

There are almost no mineral resources in Lower Mesopotamia. Silver had to be delivered from Asia Minor, gold and carnelian - from the Hindustan Peninsula, lapis lazuli - from the regions of what is now Afghanistan. Paradoxically, this sad fact played a very positive role in the history of culture: the inhabitants of Mesopotamia were constantly in contact with neighboring peoples, without experiencing periods of cultural isolation and preventing the development of xenophobia. The culture of Mesopotamia in all centuries of its existence was receptive to the achievements of others, and this gave it a constant incentive to improve.

Another feature of the local landscape is the abundance of deadly fauna. In Mesopotamia there are about 50 species of poisonous snakes, many scorpions and mosquitoes. It is not surprising that one of characteristic features This culture is the development of herbal and charm medicine. A large number of spells against snakes and scorpions have come down to us, sometimes accompanied by recipes for magical actions or herbal medicine. And in the temple decor, the snake is the most powerful amulet, which all demons and evil spirits had to fear.

The founders of Mesopotamian culture belonged to different ethnic groups and spoke unrelated languages, but had a single economic way of life. They were mainly engaged in settled cattle breeding and irrigated farming, as well as fishing and hunting. Cattle breeding played a prominent role in Mesopotamian culture, influencing images state ideology. The sheep and cow are most revered here. Sheep's wool was used to make excellent warm clothes, which was considered a symbol of wealth. The poor were called "having no wool" (nu-siki). They tried to find out the fate of the state from the liver of the sacrificial lamb. Moreover, permanent epithet The king's epithet was "righteous shepherd of sheep" (sipa-zide). It arose from the observation of a flock of sheep, which can only be organized with skillful direction on the part of the shepherd. The cow, which provided milk and dairy products, was no less valued. They plowed with oxen in Mesopotamia, and the productive power of the bull was admired. It is no coincidence that the deities of these places wore a horned tiara on their heads - a symbol of power, fertility and constancy of life.

Agriculture in Lower Mesopotamia could only exist thanks to artificial irrigation. Water and silt were diverted into specially built canals to be supplied to the fields if necessary. Work on the construction of canals required large quantity people and their emotional unity. Therefore, people here have learned to live in an organized way and, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves without complaint. Each city arose and developed near its canal, which created the preconditions for independent political development. Until the end of the 3rd millennium, it was not possible to form a national ideology, since each city was a separate state with its own cosmogony, calendar and characteristics of the pantheon. The unification occurred only during severe disasters or to solve important political problems, when it was necessary to elect a military leader and representatives of various cities gathered in the cult center of Mesopotamia - the city of Nippur.

The consciousness of a person living by agriculture and cattle breeding was oriented pragmatically and magically. All intellectual efforts were directed toward accounting for property, finding ways to increase this property, and improving tools and skills for working with them. The world of human feelings of that time was much richer: a person felt his connection with surrounding nature, with the world of celestial phenomena, with deceased ancestors and relatives. However, all these feelings were subordinated to his daily life and work. And nature, and heaven, and ancestors were supposed to help a person get a high harvest, produce as many children as possible, graze livestock and stimulate their fertility, and move up the social ladder. To do this, it was necessary to share grain and livestock with them, praise them in hymns and influence them through various magical actions.

All objects and phenomena of the surrounding world were either understandable or incomprehensible to man. There is no need to be afraid of what is understandable; it must be taken into account and its properties studied. The incomprehensible does not fit into the consciousness entirely, since the brain cannot correctly respond to it. According to one of the principles of physiology - the principle of the “Sherrington funnel” - the number of signals entering the brain always exceeds the number of reflex responses to these signals. Everything incomprehensible through metaphorical transfers turns into images of mythology. With these images and associations ancient man thought the world without realizing the importance of logical connections, without distinguishing causation from associative-analog. Therefore, at the stage of early civilizations it was impossible to separate logical motivations for thinking from magical-pragmatic ones.