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History Begins at Sumer Thirty­Nine Firsts in Recorded History

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History Begins at Sumer Thirty­Nine Firsts in Recorded History History Begins at Sumer Thirty­Nine Firsts in Recorded History Samuel Noah Kramer University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia Page iv Copyright © 1956 Samuel Noah Kramer Third revised edition copyright © 1981 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid­free paper 10 9 8 7 6 Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104­4011 Library of Congress Cataloging­in ­Publication Data Kramer, Samuel Noah, 1897–1990 History begins at Sumer. Originally published under title: From the tablets of Sumer: Indian Hills, Colo.: Falcon's Wing Press, 1956. 1. Sumerians. I. Title DS72.K7 1981 935´.01 81­51144 AACR2 ISBN 0­8122­1276­2 (pbk; alkaline paper) Page v TO THE MASTER OF SUMEROLOGICAL METHOD MY TEACHER AND COLLEAGUE Arno Poebel Page vii Contents Preface to the First Edition ix List of Illustrations xiii Photographic Sources xvii Introduction xix 1 Education: The First Schools 3 2 Schooldays: The First Case of "Apple­Polishing" 10 3 Father and Son: The First Case of Juvenile Delinquency 14 4 International Affairs: The First "War of Nerves" 18 5 Government: The First Bicameral Congress 30 6 Civil War in Sumer: The First Historian 36 7 Social Reform: The First Case of Tax Reduction 45 8 Law Codes: The First "Moses" 51 9 Justice: The First Legal Precedent 56 10 Medicine: The First Pharmacopoeia 60 11 Agriculture: The First "Farmer's Almanac" 65 12 Horticulture: The First Experiment in Shade­Tree Gardening 70 13 Philosophy: Man's First Cosmogony and Cosmology 75 14 Ethics: The First Moral Ideals 101 15 Suffering and Submission: The First "Job" 111 16 Wisdom: The First Proverbs and Sayings 116 17 "Aesopica": The First Animal Fables 124 Page viii 18 Logomachy: The First Literary Debates 132 19 Paradise: The First Biblical Parallels 141 20 A Flood: The First "Noah" 148 21 Hades: The First Tale of Resurrection 154 22 Slaying of the Dragon: The First "St. George" 168 23 Tales of Gilgamesh: The First Case of Literary Borrowing 181 24 Epic Literature: Man's First Heroic Age 223 25 To the Royal Bridegroom: The First Love Song 245 26 Book Lists: The First Library Catalogue 250 27 World Peace and Harmony: Man's First Golden Age 255 28 Ancient Counterparts of Modern Woes: The First "Sick" Society 259 29 Destruction and Deliverance: The First Liturgic Laments 270 30 The Ideal King: The First Messiahs 277 31 Shulgi of Ur: The First Long­Distance Champion 284 32 Poetry: The First Literary Imagery 289 33 The Sacred Marriage Rite: The First Sex Symbolism 303 34 Weeping Goddesses: The First Mater Dolorosa 325 35 U­a a­u­a: The First Lullaby 329 36 The Ideal Mother: Her First Literary Portrait 333 37 Three Funeral Chants: The First Elegies 336 38 The Pickaxe and the Plow: Labor's First Victory 342 39 Home of the Fish: The First Aquarium 348 Corrigenda and Addenda to the Second Edition 351 Glossary 358 Appendix A: A Curse and a Map: New Gleanings from the Tablets of Sumer 369 Appendix B: The Origin of the Cuneiform System of Writing: Comments on the 381 Illustrations Page ix Preface to the First Edition For the past twenty­six years I have been active in Sumerological research, particularly in the field of Sumerian literature. The ensuing studies have appeared primarily in the form of highly specialized books, monographs, and articles scattered in a number of scholarly journals. The present book brings together—for the layman, humanist, and scholar—some of the significant results embodied in those Sumerological researches and publications. The book consists of twenty­five essays strung on a common thread: they all treat of "firsts" in man's recorded history. They are thus of no little significance for the history of ideas and the study of cultural origins. But this is only secondary and accidental, a by­product, as it were, of all Sumerological research. The main purpose of the essays is to present a cross section of the spiritual and cultural achievements of one of man's earliest and most creative civilizations. All the major fields of human endeavor are represented: government and politics, education and literature, philosophy and ethics, law and justice, even agriculture and medicine. The available evidence is sketched in what, it is hoped, is clear and unambiguous language. Above all, the ancient documents themselves are put before the reader either in full or in the form of essential excerpts, so that he can sample their mood and flavor as well as follow the main threads of the argument. The greater part of the material gathered in this volume is seasoned with my "blood, toil, tears, and sweat"; hence the rather personal note throughout its pages. The text of most of the documents was first pieced together and translated by me, and in not a few cases I actually identified the tablets on which they are based and even prepared the hand copies of their inscriptions. Page x Sumerology, however, is but a branch of cuneiform studies, and these began more than a century ago. In the course of these years, scores of scholars have made innumerable contributions which the present­day cuneiformist utilizes and builds on, consciously and unconsciously. Most of these scholars are now long dead, and today's Sumerologist can do not more than bow his head in simple gratitude as he uses the results of his unnamed predecessors' labors. Soon his days, too, will come to an end, and his more fruitful findings will become part of the collective stream of cuneiform progress. Among the more recent dead, there are three to whom I feel especially indebted: to the eminent French savant, François Thureau­Dangin, who dominated the cuneiform scene for half a century and who exemplified my ideal of a scholar­productive, lucid, aware of the significant, and ever prepared to admit ignorance rather than overtheorize; to Anton Deimel, the Vatican scholar with a keen sense of lexicographical order and organization, whose monumental Schumerisches Lexikon proved highly useful in spite of its numerous drawbacks; and to Edward Chiera, whose vision and diligence helped pave the way for my own researches in Sumerian literature. Among the living cuneiformists whose work I have found most valuable, especially from the point of view of Sumerian lexicography, are Adam Falkenstein of Heidelberg, and Thorkild Jacobsen of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Their names and work will appear frequently in the text of this book. In the case of Jacobsen, moreover, a rather close collaboration has developed as a result of the tablet finds of the joint Oriental Institute­University Museum expedition to Nippur in the years 1948–1952. The stimulating and suggestive works of Benno Landsberger, one of the most creative minds in cuneiform studies, proved to be a constant source of information and guidance; his more recent works in particular are crowded treasure houses of cuneiform lexicography. But it is to Arno Poebel, the leading Sumerologist of the past half century, that my researches owe the heaviest debt. In the early thirties, as a member of the Assyrian Dictionary Staff of the Oriental Institute, I sat at his feet and drank in his words. In those days, when Sumerology was practically an unknown discipline in America, Poebel, a master of Sumerological method, gave me generously of his time and knowledge. Page xi Sumerology, as the reader may surmise, is not reckoned among the essential disciplines even in the largest American universities, and my chosen path was hardly paved with gold. The climb to a relatively stable and more or less comfortable professorial chair was marked by a constant financial struggle. The years 1937–42 were particularly critical for my scholarly career, and had it not been for a series of grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Philosophical Society, it might well have come to a premature end. In recent years, the Bollingen Foundation has made it possible for me to secure at least a minimum of clerical and scientific help for my Sumerologieal researches, as well as to travel abroad in connection with them. To the Department of Antiquities of the Republic of Turkey and to the Director of the Archaeological Museums in Istanbul, I am deeply grateful for generous cooperation. They made it possible for me to benefit from the use of the Sumerian literary tablets in the Museum of the Ancient Orient, whose two curators of the Tablet Collection—Muazzez Cig and Hatice Kizilyay—have been a constant source of very real help, particularly by copying several hundred fragments inscribed with portions of the Sumerian literary works. Finally, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Gertrude Silver, who helped prepare the typescript for this book. SAMUEL NOAH KRAMER Philadelphia, Pa. Page xiii List of Illustrations Line Drawings 1. Eighteen representative signs in the development of cuneiform writing xxiii 2. Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta: hand copy from Istanbul tablet 20 3. Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta: hand copy from Istanbul tablet 23 4. Gilgamesh and Agga: hand copy of Nippur tablet 32 5. Social reform and "freedom" 47 6. Ur­Nammu law code: hand copy of prologue 53 7. Farmer's Almanac: hand copy 66 8. Plowing scene 68 9. Hymn to Enlil 90 10. Social justice: fragments inscribed with parts of the Nanshe hymn 103 11. Summer and Winter: hand copy of two left columns 134 12. Summer and Winter: hand copy of two right columns 135 13. "Bird­fish" and "Tree­reed": debates 138 14. The flood, the ark, and the Sumerian Noah 150 15 & 16.
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