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The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their Culture Author(S): S Egypt Exploration Society The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their Culture Author(s): S. Langdon Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 7, No. 3/4 (Oct., 1921), pp. 133-153 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3853561 . Accessed: 09/10/2013 13:06 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Egypt Exploration Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 35.8.11.2 on Wed, 9 Oct 2013 13:06:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 133 THE EARLY CHRONOLOGY OF SUMER AND EGYPT AND THE SIMILARITIES IN THEIR CULTURE BY PROFESSORS. LANGDON, M.A. WE now possess, in almost complete form, trustworthy material for reconstructing the chronology of the early history of Mesopotamian civilization. Hitherto the earliest date established with reasonable certainty by dead reckoning and astronomy was 2474 B.C.,that being the date of the founding of the Sumerian empire of Ur by Ur-Engur. This date is still disputed by some Assyriologists, notably by Weidner, who reduces it by about a century and a half; but, so far as the present state of our knowledge permits us to judge, its accuracy seems indisputable, for it is controlled by several statements of dead reckoning in the inscriptions, as well as by Berossus. Before 2474, the date when the last great Sumerian dynasty was founded, we have now dynastic lists, or summaries of them, for no less than eighteen dynasties. The most important early dynastic tables have been found at Nippur, and one was purchased from a dealer in Paris'. These tablets purport to contain the names of all the kings who ruled over the united lands of Sumer and Accad from the Flood to the age in which they were written. The chronologists of the temple school at Nippur wrote toward the end of the period when Isin was the reigning city, that is during the twenty-third century B.C. They compiled the entire chronology, in some redactions upon one huge tablet having six columns on either side and each column containing about 45 lines. At the end of these great tablets we are told that eleven different cities had served as dynastic capitals, and three of these cities had been the capital more than once. It is evident that from the period of the earliest traditions the Sumerians had been pressed southwards and confined in the area between th head of the Persian Gulf and a point not far south of Babylon. For the Sumerian scholars themselves, even for those of the ancient seat of learning at Nippur, the Semite had always been in the land. The age when the Sumerian enjoyed unchallenged occupation of the whole of Mesopotamia, as he surely once did, was so remote that there is not even a tradition of a Sumerian occupation of the northern cities. The history of early Babylonia is thus truly the history of the two kingdoms of the south and north, or rather of two peoples, the Sumerians in the south and the Semites in the north. It must, moreover, be emphasized that when the Semite arrived in Mesopotamia he occupied Sumerian cities that were already of some antiquity. The most ancient centre of Semitic influence was at Kish in Accad, and the most ancient capital of Sumer was Erech. But at no period in our records were the kingdoms of the south and north divided, as they were in Egypt2. Undoubtedly Erech and Kish correspond in a 1 The latter tablet,generally known as the ("Scheil dynastictablet," differs in form fromthe Nippur dynastic lists in that it bears only a single column and enumerates the names of the kings only of the dynasties of Aksak, Kish (Fourth Dynasty), Erech (Third Dynasty), and Agade. It probably belonged to a seriesof tabletswhich contained the lists fromthe earliesttimes to the periodof Hammurabi. 2 Such is the statement to be inferred from the dynastic tablets, but I regard the first two kingdoms as contemporary. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.2 on Wed, 9 Oct 2013 13:06:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 134 S. LANGDON measure to Buto and Nekhen in Egypt, but political power had been consolidated at a period before 4000-so early in fact, that there is no clear tradition of a divided empire. By means of numerous duplicates of the dynastic lists the first real historic dynasty can be placed by dead reckoning at about 4200 B.C. In that age king Mesannipadda of Ur is said to have secured control of the two lands and reigned 80 years. Before 4200 the dynastic lists place two long semi-mythical dynasties, which correspond in a measure to the demigods and the age of the Horus-worshippers in Egypt. Of these two long dynasties belonging to the age before 4200, the first is attributed to the Semitic northern capital of Kish, about twenty-one kings, of whom the names of nine are known; fabulous lengths are assigned to their reigns, 1200, 900, 840, 780 years, etc. The next kingdom of prehistoric times ruled at the southern capital of ErehErech, ati,about 11 kings, of whom the names of five are known; fabulous reigns are likewise attributed to them, 1200, 420, 325, 126, 100 years. This long prehistoric period, to which over 26,700 years are assigned, contains the names of several kings who became gods or demigods in later mythology. The lists actually place the determinative for god before the names of Lugalbanda, Tammuz and Gilgamish of the first kingdom of Erech. Among the kings of the first dynasty of Kish, Etana the shepherd became in later legend a demigod: he is said to have ruled all lands and to have ascended to heaven on the back of an eagle in order to obtain the plant of renewed birth, or the plant of life. Three kings of the prehistoric Sumerian dynasty of the south became demigods in later legend. Tammuz, who corresponds to Osiris of the Egyptian religion, was identified with the older Abu of Sumerian mythology and became the dying god, incarnation of perishing vegetation, who descended yearly into the plains of death. There is a striking resemblance between these prehistoric kings of Sumer and Accad and the semi-divine kings of Egypt who ruled, according to Manetho, before Menes. Manetho calls them "the Dead Kings," and the Turin Papyrus " The Spirits, the Horus-servers," who ruled Egypt for 13,420 years. They are identified with the rulers of the old kingdoms of Buto and Nekhen, before the union of the two lands under Menes. It is extremely probable that the two semi-historic dynasties of Kish and Erech were likewise contemporary rulers of the north and south in Mesopotamia and are erroneously placed in consecutive order by the chronologists of Nippur. This extraordinary similarity in the historical traditions of prehistoric Egypt and Sumer cannot, of course, be used to show actual contact between them. But both traditions seem to indicate that in both lands there was a long political history of divided kingdoms before real history began. Certainly 500 or 1000 years can be attributed to the demigods of Sumer and Accad before 4200 B.C. Thus 5000 B.C. seems a conservative date for the origin of Sumerian and Semitic history. But there are such striking similarities between the important religious beliefs of Sumer and Egypt that it seems necessary to assume relations of some kind here. Tammuz is always associated with the virgin-mother goddess Innini, who is his sister in the old Sumerian mythology. This is also the Egyptian view of the relation between Isis and Osiris, and the mystic rituals of both cults are similar. The theory of the emanation of all things divine and earthly from the god of heaven and the earth-goddess in Sumer is similar, except that the genders are reversed, to the belief in the union of the Egyptian Nut and Geb. The daily voyage of the sun across the heavens and through the nether sea in a bark is characteristic of both peoples. There is the remarkable connection between Tammuz and Innini, with their ophidian worship, and the same ophidian aspects of Osiris and Isis. In both lands we have primitive figures of the mother and child. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.2 on Wed, 9 Oct 2013 13:06:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE EARLY CHRONOLOGY OF SUMER AND EGYPT 135 The theology and complex pantheon of Babylonia is almost entirely Sumerian; so are the great mythological legends and the names of the gods. The Semite exerted very little influence in any department of these origins, and my impression is that this was also true of the origins of Egyptian religion. The mentality of the prehistoric Egyptian and Sumerian is so similar, their remarkable logic in reducing the spiritual phenomena of man to a complex theological system is so closely parallel, that an explanation is urgently called for.
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