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Ancient Society and Economy L /. Gelb oi.uchicago.edu Ancient Society and Economy L /. Gelb s I glance through my reports for tion to the "Pan-Sumerianism" of the Athe past seven years, I notice that times. In an article published in Swit­ all of them deal with two topics: the zerland in 1960 I stressed, on the basis work on my project on the "Earliest of very early and largely neglected Land Tenure Systems in the Near sources, the important role of the city East" (ancient kudurru's) and the pre­ and the state of Kish and of the paration of this huge manuscript for Semitic people living in northern Baby­ publication; and the work on the lonia. The sources utilized in the "Source Book for the Social and reconstruction of the "Kish Tradition" Economic History of the Ancient Near are of three kinds: the allusions to the East." With the first one safely in the mysterious "King of Kish" who inter­ hands of the Editorial Department and vened in the border disputes among the the work on the second continuing Sumerians; votive offerings to gods by slowly it has occurred to me that I officials who wrote in Akkadian or a should explain to the enlightened Semitic language related to Akkadian; reader what I mean by "The Concept and, above all, the ancient kudurrus of of the Kish Civilization," a topic very northern Babylonia, dated to the Pre- dear to my heart and on which I have Sargonic and early Old Akkadian peri­ often written in obscure learned ods and written in "Akkadian" by journals. large land owners who bore "Akka­ Before 1960, the picture of most dian" names and worshipped "Akka­ ancient Babylonia, and the Near East dian" gods. in general, was simple and consistent: The great discoveries at Ebla in Since the Sumerian sources are the old­ Syria from 1974 on have enabled us to est, the Sumerian civilization is the old­ view what I had once called the "Kish est and everything everywhere was Tradition" in a much clearer light and, borrowed from Sumer. The conse­ at the same time, to extend its horizons quence of this was that the Sumerians, considerably in space from Kish and surrounded on all sides by the nomadic other sites in northern Babylonia via Semites, were seen to have culturally Mari and Terqa on the Euphrates to dominated Babylonia as well as a vast Ebla in northern Syria. This involved a area extending from the Persian/Arabic change from the narrow and rather Gulf in the east to the Mediterranean misty confines of the Kish Tradition to Sea in the west. This viewpoint was the broad and concrete concept of the the basis for the well-known book His­ Kish Civilization. tory Begins at Sumer. Ebla created a revolution in our The concept of what I had dubbed thinking. It added immeasurably to "The Kish Tradition" arose in a reac­ our knowledge of the most ancient 39 oi.uchicago.edu Near East, as the written sources the superiority of the North versus the recovered at Ebla completely over­ South or of the Semites over the shadow in number and quality those Sumerians. It simply asks for recogni­ available to us in Babylonia; and, tion of the fact that there was a full­ above all, it has shown that the Semitic blown Semitic cultural entity in the (and non-Sumerian) features derived vast area between Kish and Ebla, from Kish were also at home at Ebla. which was different from that of the Contrary to the earlier highly exag­ Sumerians in southern Babylonia, and gerated notions of the Sumerian cul­ which gave as much to the Sumerians tural superiority, there was a highly as it borrowed. developed cultural entity in the vast area encompassed under the concept of Bibliography the Kish Civilization—with its own I.J. Gelb, "Sumerians and Akkadians cities, language or languages, writing in their Ethno-Linguistic Relation­ conventions, religious beliefs and ships," Genava 8 (1960), pp. 258-71. deities, cultural traditions, monthly idem, "Thoughts about Ebla: A calendar and year dates, and systems Preliminary Evaluation", of measures. Contrary to the earlier Syro-Mesopotamian Studies common beliefs, the names that the 1 (1977), pp. 3-30. people bore, the gods they worshipped, idem, "Ebla and the Kish Civiliza­ the cities they founded, and the month tion", La Lingua di Ebla, names they used in their calendar were Luigi Cagni, editor (Napoli, all Semitic, not Sumerian. 1981), pp. 9-73. This is all "The Concept of the Kish Civilization" says. It does not claim 40 .
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