Nothing
was known about the Sumerians until 150 years ago when archeologists
spurred by the seventeenth cent6writings of Italian traveller Pietro
della Valle began to dig into strange mounds that dotted the countryside
southern Irak
In 1843 the Frenchman Paul Emile Botta discovered Saragon II Palace near modern day Khorsabad, not soon after archaeologists found broken palaces, buried cities, artifacts and thousands of clay tablets detailing every faceted of Sumerian life. By the late 1800 Sumerian was considered the original language and was translated.
Despite the today's knowledge the.general public still has been thought little about this first great human civilization which suddenly materialized in Mesopotamia.
Before it strangely vanished it had greatly influenced life as far as the Indus River and as far as Palestine and Egypt.
In fact it appear that civilizations such as Akkadians, Phoenicians, Minoans, Assyrians Babylonians and even Egyptians were merely devolved versions ancient Summer.
Despite our superficial knowledge of the Sumerians.we have already been able to credit them with many of the world's first.
Samuel Noah Kramer author of History Begins at Summer and The Sumerians noted that these peoples developed the wheel, schools, medical science, the first written proverbs, history, the first bicameral congress, taxation, laws, social reforms, the first cosmogony and cosmology, and the first money a weighed silver shekel as well as the first writing system, cuneiform.
The papyrus of elder empires were destroyed by fires or disintegrated but cuneiform was erected onto wet lay tablets with a wedge shaped stylus. These tablets were the dryer, baked, and kept in large libraries. About five hundred thousands of them have been now fund providing invaluable knowledge of Ancient Sumer which not to be confused with Biblical Samaria the name if mountain city north of Jerusalem.
The Summerian tablets went undetected until 1802 when a German high school teacher named Georg Grotefend began systematically translating the tri-lingual Persian inscription of Darius the Great on the Behistun Rock which included a version of Babylonian cuneiform.
Today 80% of cuneiform tablets are not translated in English because of the sheer quantity and the world's handful of translators.
The Sumerian alpha6was essentially shorthand for a much older original language made up of logo grams symbols representing concepts rather than words similar with antique Chinese characters.
In 1843 the Frenchman Paul Emile Botta discovered Saragon II Palace near modern day Khorsabad, not soon after archaeologists found broken palaces, buried cities, artifacts and thousands of clay tablets detailing every faceted of Sumerian life. By the late 1800 Sumerian was considered the original language and was translated.
Despite the today's knowledge the.general public still has been thought little about this first great human civilization which suddenly materialized in Mesopotamia.
Before it strangely vanished it had greatly influenced life as far as the Indus River and as far as Palestine and Egypt.
In fact it appear that civilizations such as Akkadians, Phoenicians, Minoans, Assyrians Babylonians and even Egyptians were merely devolved versions ancient Summer.
Despite our superficial knowledge of the Sumerians.we have already been able to credit them with many of the world's first.
Samuel Noah Kramer author of History Begins at Summer and The Sumerians noted that these peoples developed the wheel, schools, medical science, the first written proverbs, history, the first bicameral congress, taxation, laws, social reforms, the first cosmogony and cosmology, and the first money a weighed silver shekel as well as the first writing system, cuneiform.
The papyrus of elder empires were destroyed by fires or disintegrated but cuneiform was erected onto wet lay tablets with a wedge shaped stylus. These tablets were the dryer, baked, and kept in large libraries. About five hundred thousands of them have been now fund providing invaluable knowledge of Ancient Sumer which not to be confused with Biblical Samaria the name if mountain city north of Jerusalem.
The Summerian tablets went undetected until 1802 when a German high school teacher named Georg Grotefend began systematically translating the tri-lingual Persian inscription of Darius the Great on the Behistun Rock which included a version of Babylonian cuneiform.
Today 80% of cuneiform tablets are not translated in English because of the sheer quantity and the world's handful of translators.
The Sumerian alpha6was essentially shorthand for a much older original language made up of logo grams symbols representing concepts rather than words similar with antique Chinese characters.
