Sumerian civilization, or Sensational artifacts - against outdated historical data. Sumerian artifacts Lizard-like figurines Ubaid, Iraq

The Sumerians, their first civilization, arose in a mind-boggling time: no less than 445 thousand years ago. Many scientists have struggled and are struggling to resolve the mystery of the most ancient people on the planet, but mysteries still remain.

More than 6 thousand years ago, in the region of Mesopotamia, a unique Sumerian civilization appeared out of nowhere, having all the signs of a highly developed one. It is enough to mention that the Sumerians used the ternary counting system and knew Fibonacci numbers. Sumerian texts contain information about the origin, development and structure of the solar system.

Their depiction of the solar system, in the Middle East section of the State Museum in Berlin, has the Sun at the center of the system, surrounded by all the planets known today. However, there are differences in their depiction of the solar system, the main one of which is that the Sumerians place an unknown large planet between Mars and Jupiter - the 12th planet in the Sumerian system! The Sumerians called this mysterious planet Nibiru, which means “crossing planet.” The orbit of this planet is a highly elongated ellipse, crossing the solar system once every 3600 years.

Niberu's next passage through the solar system is expected between 2100 and 2158. According to the Sumerians, the planet Niberu was inhabited by conscious beings - the Anunaki. Their lifespan was 360,000 Earth years. They were real giants: women were from 3 to 3.7 meters tall, and men from 4 to 5 meters.

It is worth noting here that, for example, the ancient ruler of Egypt Akhenaten was 4.5 meters tall, and the legendary beauty Nefertiti was about 3.5 meters tall. Already in our time, two unusual coffins were discovered in Akhenaten’s city of Tel el-Amarna. In one of them, directly above the head of the mummy, an image of the Flower of Life was engraved. And in the second coffin, the bones of a seven-year-old boy, whose height was about 2.5 meters, were found. Now this coffin with the remains is on display in the Cairo Museum.

In Sumerian cosmogony, the main event is called the “celestial battle,” a catastrophe that occurred 4 billion years ago and changed the appearance of the solar system. Modern astronomy confirms the data on this catastrophe!

A sensational discovery by astronomers in recent years has been the discovery of a set of fragments of some celestial body that have a common orbit corresponding to the orbit of the unknown planet Nibiru.

The Sumerian manuscripts contain information that can be interpreted as information about the origin of intelligent life on Earth. According to these data, the genus Homo sapiens was created artificially as a result of genetic engineering about 300 thousand years ago. Thus, perhaps humanity is a civilization of biorobots. I’ll immediately make a reservation that there are some temporary inconsistencies in the article. This is due to the fact that many deadlines are set only with a certain degree of accuracy.

Six thousand years ago... Civilizations ahead of their time, or the mystery of the climate optimum.

The deciphering of Sumerian manuscripts shocked researchers. Let us give a short and incomplete list of the achievements of this unique civilization, which existed at the dawn of the development of Egyptian civilization, long before the Roman Empire, and even more so Ancient Greece. We are talking about a time about 6 thousand years ago.

After deciphering the Sumerian tables, it became clear that the Sumerian civilization had a number of modern knowledge from the field of chemistry, herbal medicine, cosmogony, astronomy, modern mathematics (for example, it used the golden ratio, the ternary number system, used after the Sumerians only when creating modern computers, used Fibonacci numbers! ), had knowledge of genetic engineering (this interpretation of the texts was given by a number of scientists in the order of the version of the deciphering of the manuscripts), had a modern government system - a jury trial and elected bodies of people's (in modern terminology) deputies, and so on...

Where could such knowledge come from at that time? Let's try to figure it out, but let's look at some facts about that era - 6 thousand years ago. This time is significant because the average temperature on the planet was then several degrees higher than it is now. The effect is called the temperature optimum.

The approach of the double system of Sirius (Sirius-A and Sirius-B) to the Solar system dates back to the same period. At the same time, for several centuries of the 4th millennium BC, instead of one Moon, two were visible in the sky - the second celestial body, comparable in size to the Moon at that time, was the approaching Sirius, an explosion in the system of which occurred again in the same period - 6 thousand years ago!

At the same time, absolutely independent of the development of the Sumerian civilization in central Africa, there was a Dogon tribe, leading a rather isolated way of life from other tribes and nationalities, however, as it became known in our time, the Dogon knew the details of not only the structure of the Sirius star system, but also owned other information from the field of cosmogony.

These are the parallels. But if the Dogon legends contain people from Sirius, whom this African tribe perceived as gods who descended from the sky and flew to Earth due to a catastrophe on one of the inhabited planets of the Sirius system associated with an explosion on the star Sirius, then if you believe the Sumerian According to texts, the Sumerian civilization was associated with settlers from the lost 12th planet of the solar system, the planet Nibiru.

According to Sumerian cosmogony, the planet Nibiru, not without reason called “crossing”, has a very elongated and inclined elliptical orbit and passes between Mars and Jupiter once every 3600 years. For many years, information from the Sumerians about the lost 12th planet of the solar system was classified as legend.

However, one of the most amazing discoveries of the last two years was the discovery of a collection of fragments of a previously unknown celestial body, moving along a common orbit in a way that only fragments of a once single celestial body can do. The orbit of this aggregate crosses the solar system once every 3600 years precisely between Mars and Jupiter and exactly corresponds to the data from the Sumerian manuscripts. Where could the ancient civilization of Earth have such information 6 thousand years ago?

The planet Nibiru plays a special role in the formation of the mysterious Sumerian civilization. So, the Sumerians claim that they had contact with the inhabitants of the planet Nibiru! It was from this planet, according to Sumerian texts, that the Anunaki came to Earth, “descending from heaven to Earth.”

The Bible also testifies in favor of this statement. In the sixth chapter of Genesis there is a mention of them, where they are called nifilim, “descended from heaven.” The Anunaki, according to Sumerian and other sources (where they were called "nifilim"), often mistaken for "gods", "took earthly women as wives."

Here we are dealing with evidence of the possible assimilation of settlers from Nibiru. By the way, if you believe these legends, of which there are many in various cultures, then humanoids not only belonged to the protein form of life, but were also so compatible with earthlings that they were able to have common offspring. Biblical sources also testify to such assimilation. Let us add that in most religions, the gods met with earthly women. Doesn't what has been said indicate the reality of paleocontacts, that is, contacts with representatives of other inhabited celestial bodies that occurred from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years ago?

How incredible is it that creatures close to human nature exist outside of Earth? Among the supporters of the plurality of intelligent life in the Universe there were many great scientists, among whom it is enough to mention Tsiolkovsky, Vernadsky and Chizhevsky.

However, the Sumerians report much more than the biblical books. According to Sumerian manuscripts, the Anunaki first arrived on Earth approximately 445 thousand years ago, that is, long before the emergence of the Sumerian civilization.

Let's try to find an answer in the Sumerian manuscripts to the question: why did the inhabitants of the planet Nibiru fly to Earth 445 thousand years ago? It turns out that they were interested in minerals, primarily gold. Why?

If we take as a basis the version of an environmental disaster on the 12th planet of the solar system, then we could talk about creating a protective gold-containing screen for the planet. Note that technology similar to the proposed one is now used in space projects.

At first, the Anunaki unsuccessfully tried to extract gold from the waters of the Persian Gulf, and then took up mining in Southeast Africa. Every 3600 years, when the planet Niberu appeared near the earth, gold reserves were sent to it.

According to the chronicles, the Anunaki were mining gold for quite a long time: from 100 to 150 thousand years. And then, as expected, an uprising broke out. The long-lived Anunnaki were tired of working in the mines for hundreds of thousands of years. And then the leaders made a unique decision: to create “primitive workers” to work in the mines.

And the entire process of the creation of man or the process of mixing divine and earthly components - the process of in vitro fertilization - is painted in detail on clay tablets and depicted on the cylinder seals of the Sumerian chronicles. This information literally shocked modern geneticists.

The ancient Hebrew Bible, the Torah, which was born in the ruins of Sumer, attributed the act of creating man to Elohim. This word is given in the plural and should be translated as gods. Well, the purpose of the creation of man is defined very precisely: “... and there was no man to cultivate the land.” The ruler of Niberu Anu and the chief scientist of the Anunaki Enki decided to create “Adamu”. This word comes from "Adamah" (earth) and means "Earthling".

Enki decided to use straight walking anthropomorphic creatures that already lived on earth, and improve them so much that they understood orders and could use tools. They understood that earthly hominids had not yet undergone evolution and decided to speed up this process.

Viewing the universe as a single living and intelligent being, self-organizing on an infinite number of levels, whereby mind and intelligence are permanent cosmic factors, he believed that life on earth originated from the same cosmic seed of life as on his home planet.

In the Torah, Enki is called Nahash, which translated means “snake, serpent” or “one who knows secrets, secrets.” And the emblem of the cult center of Enki were two intertwined snakes. In this symbol you can see a model of the structure of DNA, which Enki was able to unravel as a result of genetic research.

Enki's plans included using primate DNA and Anunaki DNA to create a new race. Enki attracted a young beautiful girl, whose name was Ninti - “the lady who gives life,” as an assistant. Subsequently, this name was replaced by the pseudonym Mami, a prototype of the universal word mom.

The chronicles record the instructions that Enki gave to Ninti. First of all, all procedures must be performed under completely sterile conditions. Sumerian texts repeatedly mention that before working with “clay,” Ninti first washed her hands. As is clear from the text, Enki used in his work the egg of an African female monkey that lived north of Zimbabwe.

The instructions read: “Mix clay (egg) from the base of the earth, which is slightly up (to the north) from Abzu, to the “essence”, and fit it into a mold with the “essence.” I imagine a good, knowledgeable, young Anunaki who will bring the clay (egg) to the desired state... you will pronounce the fate of the newborn... Ninti will embody in him the image of the gods, and what it will become will be a Man.”

The divine element, which in the Sumerian chronicles is called "TE-E-MA" and is translated as "essence" or "that which binds memory", and in our understanding it is DNA, was obtained from the blood of a specially selected Anunaki (or Anunaki) and subjected to processing in a “cleansing bath”. Shiru – sperm – was also taken from the young man.

The word "clay" comes from "TI-IT", translated as "that which accompanies life." A derivative of this word is “egg”. In addition, the texts note that what is called napishtu (the parallel biblical term Naphsh, which is usually not accurately translated as “soul”) was obtained from the blood of one of the gods.

Sumerian texts say that luck did not immediately favor the scientists, and as a result of experiments, ugly hybrids initially appeared. Finally they came to success. The successfully formed egg was then placed in the body of the goddess, whom Ninti agreed to become. As a result of a long pregnancy and caesarean section, the first man, Adam, was born.

Since a lot of industrial workers were needed for the mines, Eve was created to reproduce her own kind by cloning. Unfortunately, this can only be assumed; no descriptions of the details of cloning have yet been found in the Sumerian chronicles. But having passed on to us their image and abilities for intellectual development, the Anunnaki did not give us longevity. The Torah says about this: “Elohim said the phrase: “Adam became like one of us... And now, lest he stretch out his hand and take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” And Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden!

Relatively recently, as a result of thorough DNA research, Wesley Brown made an interesting discovery “about the mitochondrial Eve, common to all people on Earth,” who lived in Africa approximately 250,000 years ago. And it turned out that the first human being came from the very valley where, according to the Sumerians, we mined gold!

Later, when the women of the Earth acquired an attractive appearance, the Anunnaki began to take them as wives, which also contributed to the development of the intellect of the next generations of people. The Bible of Moses says the following about this: “Then the sons of God saw the daughters of men, and they began to give birth to them. These are strong people who have been famous since ancient times.”

The New Explanatory Bible says the following about this: “This is one of the most difficult passages of the Bible to interpret; The main difficulty lies in determining who can be understood here as “sons of God.” And since the Bible of Moses does not directly say anything about the Anunnaki, the interpreters decided to consider the “sons of God” the descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, who “were exponents of all that is good, sublime and good” - “Giants of the Spirit.” Well! If you don’t know about the content of the Sumerian chronicles, then this is still some kind of explanation.

Questions and answers.

1. Who could conduct mine development during the Stone Age?!

Archaeological research confirms that mining was carried out in South Africa during the Stone Age(!). Back in 1970, archaeologists discovered extensive gold mines in Swaziland, up to 20 meters deep. In 1988, an international group of physicists determined the age of the mines - from 80 to 100 thousand years.

2. How do wild tribes know about “artificial people”?

Zulu legends say that these mines were manned by flesh-and-blood slaves artificially created by the “first men.”

3. The second discovery of astronomers testifies - there was a planet Nibiru!

In addition to the above-mentioned discovery of a group of fragments moving along the desired trajectory, corresponding to the ideas of the Sumerians, the recent subsequent discovery of astronomers was no less surprising. Modern astronomical laws confirm that between Mars and Jupiter there must have been planets twice as large as the Earth! This planet was either destroyed as a result of a major catastrophe, or was not formed at all due to the gravitational influence of Jupiter.

4. The Sumerians’ claim about the “heavenly battle” 4 billion years ago is also most likely confirmed by science!

After the discovery of the fact that Uranus, Neptune and Pluto “lie on their sides”, and their satellites lie in a completely different plane, it became clear that collisions of celestial bodies changed the face of the solar system. This means that they could not have been satellites of these planets before the disaster. Where did they come from? Scientists believe that they were formed from the ejection of material from the planet Uranus during the collision.

It is clear that some destructive force of the object collided with these planets, so much so that it was able to rotate their axes. According to modern scientists, this catastrophe, which the Sumerians dubbed the “heavenly battle,” occurred 4 billion years ago. Note that the “heavenly battle” according to the Sumerians does not at all mean the notorious “star wars”. We are talking about a collision of celestial bodies of enormous mass or another similar cataclysm.

Note that the Sumerians quite accurately not only describe the appearance of the solar system before the “heavenly battle” (that is, 4 billion years ago), but also indicate the reasons for that dramatic period! True, it’s a small matter – deciphering figurative phrases and allegories! One thing is clear: the description of the solar system before the catastrophe, when it was still “young”, is information transmitted by someone! By whom?

Thus, the version that the Sumerian texts contain a description of the history of 4 billion years ago has a right to exist!

The world is full of strange and mysterious artifacts. Some are almost certainly hoaxes, while others have real stories behind them. Our review contains 10 real-life artifacts, the origin of which scientists cannot explain even today.

1. Sumerian king list

During excavations in Iraq on the territory of ancient Sumer, it was found manuscript, which lists all the kings of this state. Researchers initially thought that this was an ordinary historical document, but then it was discovered that many of the kings were mythological characters. Some rulers who should have been included in the list were not included. Others had incredibly long reigns or mythical events associated with them, such as the Sumerian version of the Great Flood and the exploits of Gilgamesh.

2. Codex Gigas (or "The Devil's Bible")

The most famous ancient manuscript is the Codex Gigas, better known as " Devil's Bible". Only 2 people can lift this book, made of 160 skins. Legend has it that the Codex Gigas was written by a monk who, after being sentenced to death, according to which the monk had to be walled up alive in a wall, made a deal with the devil. With the help The monk wrote the book of the devil in one night (moreover, the devil painted a self-portrait).

Oddly enough, the handwriting in the book is amazingly clear and uniform, as if it was actually written over a short period of time. However, scientists believe that such work would take from 5 years (if writing without interruption) to 30 years. The manuscript contains seemingly incongruous texts: the complete Latin Vulgate Bible, the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, a collection of medical works by Hippocrates and Theophilus, the Chronicles of Bohemia by Cosmas of Prague, the Etymological Encyclopedia by Isidore of Seville, exorcism rites, magical formulas and illustrations of the celestial cities.

3. Easter Island writing

Almost everyone knows about the famous Easter Island statues, but there are other artifacts associated with this place, the mystery of which has not been solved until now. 24 wooden carved tablets were found that contain a system of symbols. These symbols are called " rongorongo", and they are considered an ancient proto-writing form. To date, they have never been deciphered.

Typically, archaeologists argue that religion, the building of temples and the development of complex rituals, are by-products of human settlement. This belief was shaken by a discovery on the Urfa Plain in southeastern Turkey. Gobekli Tepe Temple. Its ruins may be the oldest organized place of worship known to man. The ruins of Göbekli Tepe date back to 9500 BC, meaning the temple was built 5000 years before Stonehenge.

In regions that were once under the influence of the Roman Empire, from Wales to the Mediterranean Sea, small strange objects have been found that have been called " dodecahedrons"They are hollow stone or bronze objects, 4-12 centimeters in diameter with 12 flat pentagonal faces and holes of various sizes on each side. Small handles protrude from each corner. 27 theories have been put forward as to what they are, but none none of them could be proven.

Around 6,000 mysterious artefacts have been found in rivers and marshes across Ireland and have become known as the Fulachtai Fia. In the UK, where they are also found, they are called " Burnt mounds". Fulacht fiadh is a horseshoe-shaped mound of soil and stone, in the center of which a trench filled with water is dug. Fulachtai Fia, as a rule, are found singly, but sometimes in groups of 2-6. In this case, there is always a source of water nearby. Why they were built remains a mystery.

7. Big Zayatsky labyrinth, Russia

Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, which is part of the Solovetsky archipelago in northern Russia, hides another mystery. Back in 3000 BC. not only villages and places of worship were built here, but also irrigation systems. But the most mysterious objects on the island are spiral labyrinths, the largest of which has a diameter of 24 meters. The structures are built from two rows of boulders covered with vegetation. What they were used for is unknown.

8. Witch bottles, Europe and USA

In 2014, archaeologists excavating the site of an ancient battle in Nottinghamshire made a strange discovery: they found a 15-centimeter " witch bottle"Similar vessels were used in Europe and America for black witchcraft in the 1600s and 1700s. They were usually made of ceramics or glass.

In total, about 200 such objects were found, and they often contained remains of needles, nails, fingernails, hair and even urine. It is believed that witch bottles were used to protect the owner from evil spells and the harmful influence of witches.

9. Lizard-like figurines of Ubaid, Iraq

Strange things are found in Iraq Ubaid figurines. They depict lizard-like and snake-like people in various poses. All figurines have abnormally elongated heads and almond-shaped eyes. Many of these figurines are found in human burials, so they are believed to mark some form of status.

10. Rat King

Several museums around the world contain strange, once-living exhibits of a legendary beast from the Middle Ages called " Rat King"A rat king is formed when several rats intertwine or grow together with their tails. The result is a kind of “nest” of rats, whose muzzles are directed outward, and in the center there is a knot of tails. The largest of such artifacts contains 32 rats. Today such mummified objects are found, but not a single living anomaly of this kind was discovered.

Scientists sometimes work for decades to solve many global problems of humanity. We have collected 10 unusual ways that scientists offer to solve problems in a variety of areas– from medicine to space. Perhaps these solutions will become the technologies of the future.

Among the huge number of ancient artifacts there are special ones -.

The Sumerians are the first civilization on earth.

The Sumerians are an ancient people who once inhabited the territory of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the south of the modern state of Iraq (Southern Mesopotamia or Southern Mesopotamia). In the south, the border of their habitat reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, in the north - to the latitude of modern Baghdad.

For a millennium, the Sumerians were the main protagonists in the ancient Near East.
Sumerian astronomy and mathematics were the most accurate in the entire Middle East. We still divide the year into four seasons, twelve months and twelve signs of the zodiac, measure angles, minutes and seconds in sixties - just as the Sumerians first began to do.
When going to see a doctor, we all... receive prescriptions for drugs or advice from a psychotherapist, without thinking at all that both herbal medicine and psychotherapy first developed and reached a high level precisely among the Sumerians. Receiving a subpoena and counting on the justice of the judges, we also know nothing about the founders of legal proceedings - the Sumerians, whose first legislative acts contributed to the development of legal relations in all parts of the Ancient World. Finally, thinking about the vicissitudes of fate, complaining that we were deprived at birth, we repeat the same words that the philosophizing Sumerian scribes first put into clay - but we hardly even know about it.

Sumerians are "black-headed". This people, who appeared in the south of Mesopotamia in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC from nowhere, are now called the “progenitor of modern civilization,” but until the mid-19th century no one even suspected about them. Time has erased Sumer from the annals of history and, if not for linguists, perhaps we would never have known about Sumer.
But I will probably start from 1778, when the Dane Carsten Niebuhr, who led the expedition to Mesopotamia in 1761, published copies of the cuneiform royal inscription from Persepolis. He was the first to suggest that the 3 columns in the inscription are three different types of cuneiform writing, containing the same text.

In 1798, another Dane, Friedrich Christian Munter, hypothesized that 1st class writing is an alphabetic Old Persian script (42 characters), 2nd class - syllabic writing, 3rd class - ideographic characters. But the first to read the text was not a Dane, but a German, a Latin teacher in Göttingen, Grotenfend. A group of seven cuneiform characters caught his attention. Grotenfend suggested that this is the word King, and the remaining signs were selected based on historical and linguistic analogies. Eventually Grotenfend produced the following translation:
Xerxes, the great king, king of kings
Darius, king, son, Achaemenid
However, only 30 years later, the Frenchman Eugene Burnouf and the Norwegian Christiann Lassen found the correct equivalents for almost all cuneiform characters of the 1st group. In 1835, a second multilingual inscription was found on a rock in Behistun, and in 1855, Edwin Norris managed to decipher the 2nd type of writing, which consisted of hundreds of syllabic characters. The inscription turned out to be in the Elamite language (nomadic tribes called Amorites or Amorites in the Bible).

With type 3 it turned out to be even more difficult. It was a completely forgotten language. One sign there could represent both a syllable and a whole word. Consonants appeared only as part of a syllable, while vowels could also appear as separate characters. For example, the sound "r" could be represented by six different characters, depending on the context. On January 17, 1869, linguist Jules Oppert stated that the language of the 3rd group is... Sumerian... Which means the Sumerian people must also exist... But there was also a theory that this is only an artificial - “sacred language "Priests of Babylon. In 1871, Archibald Says published the first Sumerian text, the royal inscription of Shulgi. But it was not until 1889 that the definition of Sumerian was universally accepted.
SUMMARY: What we now call the Sumerian language is actually an artificial construction, built on analogies with the inscriptions of the peoples who adopted the Sumerian cuneiform - Elamite, Akkadian and Old Persian texts. Now remember how the ancient Greeks distorted foreign names and evaluate the possible authenticity of the sound of the “restored Sumerian”. Strangely, the Sumerian language has neither ancestors nor descendants. Sometimes Sumerian is called “the Latin of ancient Babylon” - but we must be aware that Sumerian did not become the progenitor of a powerful language group; only the roots of several dozen words remained from it.
The emergence of the Sumerians.

It must be said that southern Mesopotamia is not the best place in the world. Complete absence of forests and minerals. Swampiness, frequent floods accompanied by changes in the course of the Euphrates due to low banks and, as a consequence, a complete absence of roads. The only thing there was in abundance there was reed, clay and water. However, in combination with fertile soil fertilized by floods, this was enough for the first city-states of ancient Sumer to flourish there at the very end of the 3rd millennium BC.

We don't know where the Sumerians came from, but when they appeared in Mesopotamia, people were already living there. The tribes that inhabited Mesopotamia in ancient times lived on islands rising among the swamps. They built their settlements on artificial earthen embankments. By draining the surrounding swamps, they created an ancient artificial irrigation system. As the finds at Kish indicate, they used microlithic tools.
An impression of a Sumerian cylinder seal depicting a plow. The earliest settlement discovered in southern Mesopotamia was near El Obeid (near Ur), on a river island that rose above a marshy plain. The population living here was engaged in hunting and fishing, but was already moving on to more progressive types of economy: cattle breeding and agriculture
The El Obeid culture existed for a very long time. Its roots go back to the ancient local cultures of Upper Mesopotamia. However, the first elements of Sumerian culture are already appearing.

Based on the skulls from the burials, it was determined that the Sumerians were not a monoracial ethnic group: brachycephals (“round-headed”) and dolichocephalic (“long-headed”) are found. However, this could also be the result of mixing with the local population. So we cannot even attribute them to a specific ethnic group with complete confidence. At present, we can only say with some certainty that the Semites of Akkad and the Sumerians of Southern Mesopotamia differed sharply from each other both in their appearance and in language.
In the oldest communities of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. e. Almost all products produced here were consumed locally and subsistence farming reigned. Clay and reed were widely used. In ancient times, vessels were sculpted from clay - first by hand, and later on a special potter's wheel. Finally, clay was used in large quantities to make the most important building material - brick, which was prepared with an admixture of reeds and straw. This brick was sometimes dried in the sun, and sometimes fired in a special kiln. By the beginning of the third millennium BC. e., are the oldest buildings built from peculiar large bricks, one side of which forms a flat surface, and the other a convex surface. A major revolution in technology was made by the discovery of metals. One of the first metals known to the peoples of southern Mesopotamia was copper, the name of which appears in both the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. Somewhat later, bronze appeared, which was made from an alloy of copper and lead, and later - with tin. Recent archaeological discoveries indicate that already in the middle of the third millennium BC. e. In Mesopotamia, iron was known, apparently from meteorites.

The next period of the Sumerian archaic is called the Uruk period after the site of the most important excavations. This era is characterized by a new type of ceramics. Clay vessels, equipped with high handles and a long spout, may reproduce an ancient metal prototype. The vessels are made on a potter's wheel; however, in their ornamentation they are much more modest than the painted ceramics of the El Obeid period. However, economic life and culture received their further development in this era. There is a need to prepare documents. In this regard, a primitive picture (pictographic) writing emerged, traces of which were preserved on cylinder seals of that time. The inscriptions number a total of up to 1,500 pictorial signs, from which the ancient Sumerian writing gradually grew.
After the Sumerians, a huge number of clay cuneiform tablets remained. It may have been the world's first bureaucracy. The earliest inscriptions date back to 2900 BC. and contain business records. Researchers complain that the Sumerians left behind a huge number of "economic" records and "lists of gods" but never bothered to write down the "philosophical basis" of their belief system. Therefore, our knowledge is only an interpretation of “cuneiform” sources, most of them translated and rewritten by priests of later cultures, for example, the Epic of Gilgamesh or the poem “Enuma Elish” dating back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. So, perhaps we are reading a kind of digest, similar to an adaptive version of the Bible for modern children. Especially considering that most of the texts are compiled from several separate sources (due to poor preservation).
The property stratification that occurred within rural communities led to the gradual disintegration of the communal system. The growth of productive forces, the development of trade and slavery, and finally, predatory wars contributed to the separation of a small group of slave-owning aristocracy from the entire mass of community members. The aristocrats who owned slaves and partly land are called “big people” (lugal), who are opposed by “little people”, that is, free poor members of rural communities.
The oldest indications of the existence of slave states in Mesopotamia date back to the beginning of the third millennium BC. e. Judging by the documents of this era, these were very small states, or rather, primary state formations, headed by kings. The principalities that lost their independence were ruled by the highest representatives of the slave-owning aristocracy, who bore the ancient semi-priestly title “tsatesi” (epsi). The economic basis of these ancient slave states was the country's land fund, centralized in the hands of the state. Communal lands, cultivated by free peasants, were considered the property of the state, and their population was obliged to bear all kinds of duties in favor of the latter.
The disunity of city-states created a problem with the exact dating of events in Ancient Sumer. The fact is that each city-state had its own chronicles. And the lists of kings that have come down to us were mostly written no earlier than the Akkadian period and are a mixture of scraps of various “temple lists”, which led to confusion and errors. But in general it looks like this:
2900 - 2316 BC - the heyday of the Sumerian city-states
2316 - 2200 BC - unification of Sumer under the rule of the Akkadian dynasty (Semitic tribes of the northern part of Southern Mesopotamia who adopted Sumerian culture)
2200 - 2112 BC - Interregnum. The period of fragmentation and invasions of the nomadic Kutians
2112 - 2003 BC - Sumerian Renaissance, the heyday of culture
2003 BC - the fall of Sumer and Akkad under the onslaught of the Amorites (Elamites). Anarchy
1792 - rise of Babylon under Hammurabi (Old Babylonian Kingdom)

After their fall, the Sumerians left something that was picked up by many other peoples who came to this land - Religion.
Religion of Ancient Sumer.
Let's touch on the Sumerian Religion. It seems that in Sumer the origins of religion had purely materialistic, rather than “ethical” roots. The cult of the Gods was not aimed at “purification and holiness” but was intended to ensure a good harvest, military successes, etc.... The most ancient of the Sumerian Gods, mentioned in the oldest tablets “with lists of gods” (mid-3rd millennium BC .e.), personified the forces of nature - the sky, sea, sun, moon, wind, etc., then gods appeared - patrons of cities, farmers, shepherds, etc. 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.
The main deities of the Sumerian Pantheon were AN (sky - masculine) and KI (earth - feminine). Both of these principles arose from the primordial ocean, which gave birth to the mountain, from the firmly connected sky and earth.
On the mountain of heaven and earth An conceived the Anunnaki [gods]. From this union, the god of air was born - Enlil, who divided heaven and earth.

There is a hypothesis that in the beginning maintaining order in the world was the function of Enki, the god of wisdom and the sea. But then, with the rise of the city-state of Nippur, whose god Enlil was considered, it was he who took a leading place among the gods.
Unfortunately, not a single Sumerian myth about the creation of the world has reached us. The course of events presented in the Akkadian myth "Enuma Elish", according to researchers, does not correspond to the concept of the Sumerians, despite the fact that most of the gods and plots in it are borrowed from Sumerian beliefs. At first life was hard for the gods, they had to do everything themselves, there was no one to serve them. Then they created people to serve themselves. It would seem that An, like other creator gods, should have had a leading role in Sumerian mythology. And, indeed, he was revered, although most likely symbolically. His temple at Ur was called E.ANNA - "House of AN". The first kingdom was called the "Kingdom of Anu". However, according to the Sumerians, An practically does not interfere in the affairs of people and therefore the main role in “everyday life” passed to other gods, led by Enlil. However, Enlil was not omnipotent, because supreme power belonged to a council of fifty main gods, among which the seven main gods “who decide fate” stood out.

It is believed that the structure of the council of gods repeated the “earthly hierarchy” - where the rulers, ensi, ruled together with the “council of elders”, in which a group of the most worthy was highlighted..
One of the foundations of Sumerian mythology, the exact meaning of which has not been established, is “ME”, which played a huge role in the religious and ethical system of the Sumerians. In one of the myths, more than a hundred “MEs” are named, of which less than half were read and deciphered. Here such concepts as justice, kindness, peace, victory, lies, fear, crafts, etc. , everything is somehow connected with social life. Some researchers believe that “me” are prototypes of all living things, emitted by gods and temples, “Divine rules”.
In general, in Sumer the Gods were like People. Their relationships include matchmaking and war, rape and love, deception and anger. There is even a myth about a man who possessed the goddess Inanna in a dream. It is noteworthy that the whole myth is imbued with sympathy for man.
It is interesting that the Sumerian paradise is not intended for people - it is the abode of the gods, where sadness, old age, illness and death are unknown, and the only problem that worries the gods is the problem of fresh water. By the way, in Ancient Egypt there was no concept of heaven at all. Sumerian hell - Kur - a gloomy dark underground world, where on the way there stood three servants - “door man”, “underground river man”, “carrier”. Reminiscent of the ancient Greek Hades and Sheol of the ancient Jews. This empty space separating the earth from the primordial ocean is filled with the shadows of the dead, wandering without hope of return, and demons.
In general, the views of the Sumerians were reflected in many later religions, but now we are much more interested in their contribution to the technical side of the development of modern civilization.

The story begins in Sumer.

One of the leading experts on Sumer, Professor Samuel Noah Kramer, in his book History Begins in Sumer, listed 39 subjects in which the Sumerians were pioneers. In addition to the first writing system, which we have already talked about, he included in this list the wheel, the first schools, the first bicameral parliament, the first historians, the first “farmer's almanac”; in Sumer, cosmogony and cosmology arose for the first time, the first collection of proverbs and aphorisms appeared, and literary debates were held for the first time; the image of “Noah” was created for the first time; here the first book catalog appeared, the first money began to circulate (silver shekels in the form of “weight bars”), taxes began to be introduced for the first time, the first laws were adopted and social reforms were carried out, medicine appeared, and for the first time attempts were made to achieve peace and harmony in society.
In the field of medicine, the Sumerians had very high standards from the very beginning. The library of Ashurbanipal, found by Layard in Nineveh, had a clear order, it had a large medical department, which contained thousands of clay tablets. All medical terms were based on words borrowed from the Sumerian language. Medical procedures were described in special reference books, which contained information about hygiene rules, operations, for example, cataract removal, and the use of alcohol for disinfection during surgical operations. Sumerian medicine was distinguished by a scientific approach to making a diagnosis and prescribing a course of treatment, both therapeutic and surgical.
The Sumerians were excellent travelers and explorers - they are also credited with inventing the world's first ships. One Akkadian dictionary of Sumerian words contained no less than 105 designations for various types of ships - according to their size, purpose and type of cargo. One inscription excavated at Lagash talks about ship repair capabilities and lists the types of materials that the local ruler Gudea brought to build a temple to his god Ninurta around 2200 BC. The breadth of the range of these goods is amazing - from gold, silver, copper - to diorite, carnelian and cedar. In some cases, these materials were transported over thousands of miles.
The first brick kiln was also built in Sumer. The use of such a large furnace made it possible to fire clay products, which gave them special strength due to internal tension, without poisoning the air with dust and ash. The same technology was used to smelt metals from ores, such as copper, by heating the ore to temperatures above 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit in a closed furnace with little oxygen supply. This process, called smelting, became necessary early on, as soon as the supply of natural native copper was exhausted. Researchers of ancient metallurgy were extremely surprised by how quickly the Sumerians learned the methods of ore beneficiation, metal smelting and casting. These advanced technologies were mastered by them only a few centuries after the emergence of the Sumerian civilization.

Even more amazingly, the Sumerians had mastered alloying, a process by which different metals were chemically combined when heated in a furnace. The Sumerians learned to produce bronze, a hard but easily workable metal that changed the entire course of human history. The ability to alloy copper with tin was a great achievement for three reasons. First, it was necessary to select a very precise ratio of copper and tin (analysis of Sumerian bronze showed the optimal ratio - 85% copper to 15% tin). Secondly, there was no tin at all in Mesopotamia. (Unlike, for example, Tiwanaku) Thirdly, tin does not occur in nature in its natural form at all. To extract it from the ore - tin stone - a rather complex process is required. This is not a business that can be opened by chance. The Sumerians had about thirty words for different types of copper of varying quality, but for tin they used the word AN.NA, which literally means "Sky Stone" - which many see as evidence that Sumerian technology was a gift of the gods.

Thousands of clay tablets were found containing hundreds of astronomical terms. Some of these tablets contained mathematical formulas and astronomical tables with which the Sumerians could predict solar eclipses, various phases of the moon, and the trajectories of the planets. The study of ancient astronomy has revealed the remarkable accuracy of these tables (known as ephemeris). Nobody knows how they were calculated, but we can ask the question - why was this necessary?
"The Sumerians measured the rising and setting of visible planets and stars relative to the earth's horizon, using the same heliocentric system that is used now. We also adopted from them the division of the celestial sphere into three segments - northern, central and southern (accordingly, the ancient Sumerians - "the path of Enlil ", "path of Anu" and "path of Ea"). In essence, all modern concepts of spherical astronomy, including a complete spherical circle of 360 degrees, zenith, horizon, axes of the celestial sphere, poles, ecliptic, equinox, etc. - all this is suddenly originated in Sumer.

All the knowledge of the Sumerians regarding the movement of the Sun and the Earth was combined in the world's first calendar, created in the city of Nippur, the solar-lunar calendar, which began in 3760 BC. The Sumerians counted 12 lunar months, which were approximately 354 days, and then they added 11 additional days to get a full solar year. This procedure, called intercalation, was done annually until, after 19 years, the solar and lunar calendars were aligned. The Sumerian calendar was compiled very precisely so that key days (for example, the New Year always fell on the day of the vernal equinox). The surprising thing is that such a developed astronomical science was not at all necessary for this newly emerging society.
In general, the mathematics of the Sumerians had “geometric” roots and was very unusual. Personally, I don’t understand at all how such a number system could have originated among primitive peoples. But it’s better to judge this for yourself...
Mathematics of the Sumerians.

The Sumerians used a sexagesimal number system. Only two signs were used to represent numbers: “wedge” meant 1; 60; 3600 and further degrees from 60; "hook" - 10; 60 x 10; 3600 x 10, etc. The digital recording was based on the positional principle, but if, based on the basis of notation, you think that numbers in Sumer were displayed as powers of 60, then you are mistaken.
In the Sumerian system, the base is not 10, but 60, but then this base is strangely replaced by the number 10, then 6, and then again by 10, etc. And thus, the positional numbers are arranged in the following row:
1, 10, 60, 600, 3600, 36 000, 216 000, 2 160 000, 12 960 000.
This cumbersome sexagesimal system allowed the Sumerians to calculate fractions and multiply numbers up to millions, extract roots and raise to powers. In many ways this system is even superior to the decimal system we currently use. Firstly, the number 60 has ten prime factors, while 100 has only 7. Secondly, it is the only system ideal for geometric calculations, and this is why it continues to be used in modern times from here, for example, dividing a circle into 360 degrees.

We rarely realize that we owe not only our geometry, but also our modern way of calculating time, to the Sumerian sexagesimal number system. The division of the hour into 60 seconds was not at all arbitrary - it is based on the sexagesimal system. Echoes of the Sumerian number system were preserved in the division of the day into 24 hours, the year into 12 months, the foot into 12 inches, and in the existence of the dozen as a measure of quantity. They are also found in the modern counting system, in which numbers from 1 to 12 are distinguished separately, followed by numbers like 10+3, 10+4, etc.
It should no longer surprise us that the zodiac was also another invention of the Sumerians, an invention that was later adopted by other civilizations. But the Sumerians did not use zodiac signs, tying them to each month, as we do now in horoscopes. They used them in a purely astronomical sense - in the sense of the deviation of the earth's axis, the movement of which divides the full cycle of precession of 25,920 years into 12 periods of 2160 years. During the twelve-month movement of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, the picture of the starry sky, forming a large sphere of 360 degrees, changes. The concept of the zodiac arose by dividing this circle into 12 equal segments (zodiac spheres) of 30 degrees each. Then the stars in each group were united into constellations, and each of them received its own name, corresponding to their modern names. Thus, there is no doubt that the concept of the zodiac was first used in Sumer. The outlines of the zodiac signs (representing imaginary pictures of the starry sky), as well as their arbitrary division into 12 spheres, prove that the corresponding zodiac signs used in other, later cultures could not appear as a result of independent development.

Studies of Sumerian mathematics, much to the surprise of scientists, have shown that their number system is closely related to the precessional cycle. The unusual moving principle of the Sumerian sexagesimal number system emphasizes the number 12,960,000, which is exactly equal to 500 great precessional cycles, occurring in 25,920 years. The absence of any other than astronomical possible applications for the products of the numbers 25,920 and 2160 can only mean one thing - this system was developed specifically for astronomical purposes.
It seems that scientists are avoiding answering an inconvenient question, which is this: how could the Sumerians, whose civilization lasted only 2 thousand years, be able to notice and record a cycle of celestial movements that lasted 25,920 years? And why does the beginning of their civilization date back to the middle of the period between the zodiac changes? Doesn't this indicate that they inherited astronomy from the gods?