Issue Number 32: First quarter for 2003
- An Introduction to the SUMERIANS
- (with references)
- by Frank E. Smitha, John C. Sanders and Derek Cline.
- Prologue: Before the Kingdom of Sumer
- An Introduction to Sumerians: Who Were They?
- Epilogue: Modern Developments
- Works cited
- Map 1: Fertile Crescent
- Map 2: Mesopotamia
- Map 3: Iran & Iraq
An Introduction to the SUMERIANS: Modern developments: Civilization existed even before Sumerians?a by Frank E. Smitha
There is new evidence to dispute the standard view that civilization first arose in southern Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq.
By 4000 BCE in Syria, was a society with regional centers and a complex government. Here, as with the Ubaidians, were huge ovens for baking bread for numerous people, and people manufactured fine pottery. In the year 2000 of modern times, at Tell Hamoukar, archaeologists have discovered a protective city wall, and they describe the place of their digging as more than a town -- they describe it as a city. They have also found what they call primitive hieroglyphics: markings for record keeping of trade transactions.
After three seasons of
excavation in north eastern Syria, archaeologists say they are more sure
than ever that they have broadened the geography of early civilization.
The ruins at a site known as Tell Hamoukar, in the northern fringes of the
Tigris and Euphrates Valleys, have revealed that people were apparently
undergoing profound changes in the way they lived, worked and organized
themselves politically in the early fourth millennium BCE. That development
seemed to occur about the same time and independently of the more prominent
cultures of southern Mesopotamia, traditionally viewed as the sole
birthplace of cities and civilization.
Archaeologists said the findingsb disputed
the standard view that civilization first arose in southern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. The new evidence also suggested that changes in social and
political structure associated with early civilization did not necessarily
hinge on the development of cities and writing, as often thought.
"Hamoukar has the appearance of a critical step in the history of
civilization," said Dr. McGuire Gibson, an archaeologist at the Oriental
Institute in Chicago and the co-director of the Hamoukar Expedition, a
venture of the university and the Syrian governmentc.
Other archaeologists agreed that the Hamoukar evidence offered important
support for the emerging view that socially complex societies developed at
many northern settlements before the southern cultures could have strongly
influenced them.
Frank E Smitha was born in Los Angeles, December 1933. He has a B.A in History. You can find his contribution to this exclusive article for Bilgelik on his website also.
Footnotes
a. Wilford, John Noble Civilization's Cradle Grows Larger The New York Times, May 28, 2002, Social Science. Back to text
b. ibid. As of Jan 2003 they are still to be offcially announced. Back to text
c. ibid. Back to text
