Why did scientists call the writing invented by the Sumerians cuneiform? What the Sumerians could do. Cuneiform: Basic Principles

The Sumerian tribes of Mesopotamia in various places of the valley were engaged in draining the swampy soil and using the waters of the Euphrates and then the Tigris to create irrigation agriculture. The creation of an entire system of main canals, on which regular irrigation of fields was based, in combination with well-thought-out agricultural technology, was the most important achievement of the Uruk period.

The main occupation of the Sumerians was agriculture, based on a developed irrigation system. In urban centers, crafts were gaining strength, the specialization of which was rapidly developing. Builders, metallurgists, engravers, and blacksmiths appeared. Jewelry making became a special specialized production. In addition to various decorations, they made cult figurines and amulets in the form of various animals: bulls, sheep, lions, birds. Having crossed the threshold of the Bronze Age, the Sumerians revived the production of stone vessels, which in the hands of talented anonymous craftsmen became genuine works of art. This is the cult alabaster vessel from Uruk, about 1 m high. It is decorated with an image of a procession with gifts going to the temple. Mesopotamia did not have its own deposits of metal ores. Already in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians began to bring gold, silver, copper, and lead from other regions. There was brisk international trade in the form of barter or gift exchanges. In exchange for wool, fabric, grain, dates and fish, they also received wood and stone. There may have been real trade carried on by sales agents.

The life of Sumerian society developed around the temple. The temple is the center of the area. The creation of cities was preceded by the creation of temples, followed by the resettlement of residents of small tribal settlements under its walls. In all the cities of Sumer there were monumental temple complexes as a kind of symbol of Sumerian civilization. Temples had important social and economic significance. At first, the high priest led the entire life of the city-state. The temples had rich granaries and workshops. They were centers for collecting reserve funds, and trade expeditions were equipped from here. Significant material assets were concentrated in the temples: metal vessels, works of art, and various types of jewelry. Here the cultural and intellectual potential of Sumer was collected, agronomic and calendar-astronomical observations were carried out. Around 3000 BC Temple households became so complex that they needed to be accounted for. They needed writing, and writing was invented at the turn of the 4th-3rd millennium BC.

The appearance of writing is the most important stage in the development of any civilization, in this case Sumerian. If previously people stored and transmitted information in oral and artistic form, now they could write it down in order to store it indefinitely.

Writing in Sumer first appeared as a system of drawings, as a pictogram. They drew on damp clay tablets with the corner of a sharpened reed stick. The tablet was then hardened by drying or firing. Each sign-drawing designated either the depicted object itself, or any concept associated with this object. For example, the sign of the foot meant walking, standing, fetching. This ancient form of writing was invented by the Sumerians. Around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. they handed it over to the Akkadians. By this time, the letter had already largely acquired a wedge-shaped appearance. So, it took at least four centuries for writing to transform from purely reminder signs into an orderly system for transmitting information. The signs turned into a combination of straight lines. Moreover, each line, due to the pressure on the clay with the corner of a rectangular stick, acquired a wedge-shaped character. This type of writing is called cuneiform.

The first Sumerian records did not record historical events or milestones in the biographies of rulers, but simply economic reporting data. Perhaps that is why the oldest tablets were not large and poor in content. A few written characters of the text were scattered across the surface of the tablet. However, they soon began to write from top to bottom, in columns, in the form of vertical columns, then in horizontal lines, which significantly speeded up the writing process.

The cuneiform script used by the Sumerians contained about 800 characters, each of which represented a word or syllable. It was difficult to remember them, but cuneiform was adopted by many neighbors of the Sumerians to write in their completely different languages. The cuneiform script created by the ancient Sumerians is called the Latin alphabet of the Ancient East.

http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/68407

1. The emergence of writing. The development of the state administration system, the accumulation of wealth by rulers, nobility and temples required the accounting of property. To indicate who, how much and what belonged, special symbols and drawings were invented. Pictography is the oldest writing using pictures.

Use pictographs to write a letter to your friend.

new combination of wedge signs. This writing is called cuneiform. At first, the signs of Sumerian writing were arranged vertically from top to bottom. Then the scribes began to line them up horizontally, which significantly speeded up the process of applying signs to wet clay.

Cuneiform writing was adopted from the Sumerians by other peoples living in Mesopotamia.

L | Jl Cuneiform writing was used in Mesopotamia for almost 3 thousand years.

However, later it was forgotten. For tens of centuries, cuneiform kept its secret, until in 1835 G. Rawlinson, an English officer and lover of antiquities, deciphered it. On a steep cliff in Iran, the same inscription has been preserved in three ancient languages, including ancient Persian. Rawlinson first read the inscription in this language he knew, and then figured out another inscription, identifying and deciphering more than 200 cuneiform characters.

The invention of writing was one of mankind's greatest achievements. Writing made it possible to preserve knowledge and made it accessible to a large number of people. It became possible to preserve the memory of the past in records, and not just in oral retelling, passed on from generation to generation “from mouth to mouth.”

2. The birth of literature. The first poems were created in Sumer, capturing ancient legends and stories about heroes. Writing has made it possible to convey them to our time. This is how literature was born.

The Sumerian poem of Gilgamesh tells the story of a hero who dared to challenge the gods. Gilgamesh was the king of the city of U-Ruk. He boasted of his power to the gods, and the gods were angry with the proud man. They co-

They created Enkidu, a half-man, half-beast who possessed enormous strength, and sent him to fight Gilgamesh.

However, the gods miscalculated. The forces of Gilgamesh and Enkidu turned out to be equal. Recent enemies have turned into friends. They went on a journey and experienced many adventures. Together they defeated the terrible giant who guarded the cedar forest, and accomplished many other feats.

But the sun god was angry with Enkidu and doomed him to death. Gilgamesh mourned the death of his friend inconsolably. Gilgamesh realized that he could not defeat death.

Gilgamesh went to seek immortality. At the bottom of the sea he found the herb of eternal life. But as soon as the hero fell asleep on the shore, an evil snake ate the magic grass. Gilgamesh was never able to fulfill his dream.

But the poem about him created by people made his image immortal.

What did Gilgamesh discover with the loss of his friend?

12 months, and the circle is 360 degrees.

The first schools were established in the cities of Sumer. Only boys studied there; girls were educated at home. The boys left for classes at sunrise. Schools were organized at churches. The teachers were the servants of the temples - the priests (about them, see § 11).

The classes lasted all day. It was not easy to learn to write in cuneiform, count, and tell stories about gods and heroes. Poor knowledge and violation of discipline were severely punished. Anyone who successfully completed school could get a job as a scribe, official, or become a priest. This made it possible to live without knowing poverty.

The Sumerian culture became the foundation for the development of the culture of many peoples of the Middle East.

Despite the severity of discipline, school in Sumer was likened to a family. The teacher was called "father" and the students were called "sons of the school." And in those distant times, children remained children. They loved to play and fool around. Archaeologists have found games and toys that children used to amuse themselves with. The younger ones played the same way as modern kids. They carried toys on wheels with them. It is interesting that the greatest invention, the wheel, was immediately used in toys.

Sumerian flood myth

People stopped obeying the gods and their behavior aroused their anger. And the gods decided to destroy the human race. But among the people there was a man named Utnapishtim, who obeyed the gods in everything and led a righteous life. The water god Ea took pity on him and warned him of a flood. Utnapishtim built a ship and loaded his family, pets and property onto it. For six days and nights his ship rushed through the raging waves. On the seventh day the storm subsided.

Toys for children of Ancient Sumer

Then Utnapishtim released a raven. And the raven did not return to him. Utnapishtim realized that the raven had seen the earth. It was the top of the mountain to which Utnapishtim’s ship landed. Here he brought
sacrifice to the gods. The gods forgave people. The gods granted immortality to Utnapishtim. The flood waters have receded. Since then, the human race began to multiply again, exploring new lands.

What is the instructiveness of the flood myth?

1. List the reasons for the emergence of writing. 2. Why did cuneiform replace writing with pictures? 3. Formulate and record the achievements of the Sumerians that contributed to the emergence of this civilization. 4. Give examples from Russian fairy tales in which the courage of the heroes is similar to the courage of Gilgamesh. 5. Read the section of the paragraph “Knowledge of the Sumerians.” Write down the rules of learning in the Sumerian school. 6. Use the knowledge of the Sumerians and calculate how much time is left until the end of lessons today; before the holidays.

T ^ " 1. Compare the Sumerian and modern schools. Draw conclusions. 2. Find the text of the poem about Gilgamesh in additional literature or on the Internet. Read about the adventures of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Can their relationship be called true friendship and why?

Our projects and research. Together with adults, prepare an electronic presentation about the emergence of cuneiform writing (no more than 5 slides).

The sensational discovery occurred quite by accident in the spring of 2008, during the construction of a pit for the foundation of a house in Kurdistan, Iran. According to press reports, a mausoleum was discovered containing the incorrupt body of the Anunnaki king. During further excavations, archaeologists found three more burials, the remains of the ancient Sumerian civilization and the ruins of an ancient city. The map shows the trade route connecting Sumer with Harappa, the ancient city of...

Sumerians is the first written civilization to exist from IV to III millennium BC. e. in the southeast of Mesopotamia in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Today this territory contains the southern part of modern Iran.

In Cosmogonic ideas of Sumerian-Akkadian mythology god Anu was considered the oldest and most powerful god of the Mesopotamian pantheon, closely related to goddess of the earth Ki, from whom he was born god of air Enlil, separating heaven from earth. Anu was considered the "father of the gods" and the supreme god of the sky. The symbol of Anu is the horned tiara (crown).

Anu is often hostile to people; there is a legend that, at the request of goddess Ishtar sent a heavenly bull to the city of Uruk and demanded the death of the hero Gilgamesh.

Sumerian snake-legged goddess with arms raised up

About the Anunnaki We were told by ancient Sumerian texts that talk about gods who arrived on Earth from the sky and brought people wisdom, knowledge, crafts and other benefits of civilization.

The word "Anunnaki" has several meanings, the most common translation of this word is " those who came down to earth" or "those of noble blood", who came about 400 years ago.

Sumerian texts attribute the creation of the first man to the Anunnaki, and the Sumerians describe in sufficient detail the engineering and genetic actions of the Anunnaki, as a result of which the first man appeared on Earth.
One of the most revered deities of Sumerian mythology was the first ruler of the Earth is Enki (or Eya).

Enki is one of the triad of great gods: Anu - patron of the heavenly world, Enlil (lit. "Lord of the Wind", Akkadian Ellil) is the lord of the wind, the elements and the god of fertility. Enki - deity of the World Ocean, underground waters, wisdom, cultural inventions; kind to people. Enki was revered as the patron god of all people and the city of Eridu, where the main temple of Enki stood, called E-Abzu (“House of the Abyss”). The goddess Damkina (Damgalnuna), mother of Marduk, was revered as the wife of Enki.

Anu - patron of the heavenly world, “father of the gods”

In the etiological Sumerian-Akkadian myths, Enki is the main demiurge deity, the creator of the world, gods and people, the bearer of wisdom and culture, the deity of fertility, the good creator of all humanity. Enki is cunning and capricious, and is often depicted as drunk.
The first written information about the Sumerian god Enki dates back to the 17th–26th centuries. BC e. Enki was also revered by the Hittites and Hurrians.

Later, power over the land was divided between Enki and his brother Enlil, who ruled the Northern Hemisphere Earth. Enlil became the supreme god of the pantheon of Sumerian-Akkadian gods in 2112 BC. e. - 2003 BC e. The temple of the god Enlil in Nippur - E-kur (“House on the Mountain”) was the main religious center in Babylon.

After analyzing the layer of soil in which the burial and ruins of the city were found, as well as thanks to the artifacts found inside, archaeologists determined that the age of the unique finds is about 10-12 thousand years. Shortly after publication in the Russian press, Iranian authorities publicly stated that the ruins and bodies were only 850 years old, which is obviously not true.
What was inside the sarcophagi found in the mausoleum? Two videos can be found showing incorrupt bodies in two sarcophagi, the contents of the third are unknown.

In the video it is quite difficult to determine the height of the man who lies in the first sarcophagus, but he is clearly not a giant, as the Anunnaki are commonly considered to be, but an ordinary person. Considering that he has a royal crown on his head, we can assume that he is the ruler of the city. In the second sarcophagus lies, as scientists believe, his court magician. The third would probably contain the king's wife.
In ancient times, it was a common custom for a king to have gold coins placed over his eyes during burial so that he could pay for his passage to the afterlife. Most likely, this misled the Iranians regarding the age of the mausoleum.

Those buried in the mausoleum clearly exhibit "Caucasian features ", which translates as « white race traits», what does it mean "white-skinned", and not as “Caucasian features”, while the skin of the mummy of the king of the Anunnaki is copper-colored, like that of Egyptian, which was proven through genetic analysis of their remains.
Both people were buried in luxurious clothes and gold jewelry with precious stones. Visible on jewelry cuneiform, which is not yet decipherable. The royal sarcophagus is lined with gold or similar metal. Next to the body of the monarch stands a golden chest inlaid with stones that appear to be luminescent.
It remains a mystery to scientists how the bodies of the dead were able to remain in perfect condition for such a long period of time - it seems as if they were alive.

Double Sumerian ax - similar to the vajra of the god Indra - 1200-800 AD. BC.

« Human history begins in Sumer"

One of the largest experts on Sumer, Professor Samuel Noah Kramer, in the book " History begins in Sumer" listed 39 discoveries that the Sumerians gave to humanity. The first writing system - cuneiform, was invented by the Sumerians.

2 thousand BC Royal ax with the name of King Untash-Napirish

The list of Sumerian inventions includes wheel, first schools, first bicameral parliament, were accepted first laws and social reforms, for the first time attempts were made to achieve peace and harmony in society, for the first time taxes.

First appeared in Sumer cosmogony and cosmology, appeared first a collection of Sumerian proverbs and aphorisms, were conducted for the first time literary debate.

King Ashurbanipal

In Nineveh, the library of King Ashurbanipal The works of the first historians were stored, the first “farmer's almanac” was created and the first book catalog with a clear order and divisions appeared. In the large medical department there were several thousand clay tablets. Many modern medical terms are based on words borrowed from the Sumerian language.

3rd – 2nd millennium BC Double-headed eagle. Bactria and Magdiana - middle Iran

Medical procedures were described in special reference books containing information about hygiene rules, operations, for example, the use of alcohol for disinfection during surgical operations. Sumerian physicians made diagnoses and prescribed courses of medical treatment or surgery using scientific knowledge and medical reference books.

Scientific knowledge of the Sumerians

The Sumerians were the inventors of the world's first ships, which allowed them to become travelers and explorers. One Akkadian dictionary contains 105 Sumerian words for different types of ships by their size, purpose, passenger, cargo, military, trade.

The breadth of the range of goods transported by the Sumerians is amazing, in household cuneiform tablets goods made of gold, silver, copper, diorite, carnelian and cedar are listed. Often goods were transported over thousands of miles.
The first kiln for firing bricks and other clay products was built in Sumer.

700 BC - Scythian running deer, fragment of a gold plaque-patch. Iran.

Special technology was used for smelting metals from ore at temperatures above 1500 degrees By Fahrenheit in a closed oven with low oxygen supply.

Researchers of ancient Sumerian metallurgy were extremely surprised that the Sumerians knew the method of ore enrichment, metal smelting and casting.

These advanced metal processing technologies became known to other peoples much later, several centuries after the emergence of the Sumerian civilization.

The Sumerians knew how to produce alloys from various metals, the process of chemically combining various metals when heated in a furnace.

The Sumerians learned to alloy copper with lead, and later with tin, to produce bronze, a hard but easily workable metal that changed the entire course of human history.

The Sumerians found a very precise ratio of copper and tin - 85% copper to 15% tin.

Tin ore is not found at all in Mesopotamia, which means it had to be brought from somewhere and extracted from the ore - tin stone - tin, which is not found in nature in its pure form.

The Sumerian dictionary contains about 30 words for different types of copper of different quality.

To designate tin, the Sumerians used the word AN.NA, which literally means "Heavenly Stone" - which many consider evidence that Sumerian metalworking technology was a gift from the gods.

Astronomy.
Thousands of clay tablets, called ephemerides, were found with hundreds of astronomical terms, precise mathematical formulas with which the Sumerians could predict solar eclipses, various phases of the moon and the trajectories of planets.

« The Sumerians measured the rising and setting of visible planets and stars relative to the Earth's horizon, using the same heliocentric system used today.

We adopted the division from the Sumerians celestial sphere into three segments - northern, central and southern; among the ancient Sumerians these segments were called “the path of Enlil”, “the path of Anu” and “the path of Ea (or Enki)».

All modern concepts of spherical astronomy - a complete spherical circle of 360 degrees, zenith, horizon, axes of the celestial sphere, poles, ecliptic, equinox, etc. - all this was known in Sumer.

In the city Nippur - all the knowledge of the Sumerians about the movement of the Sun and Earth were united in the world's first solar-lunar calendar. The Sumerians considered 12 lunar months to be 354 days, and then added another 11 additional days to get full solar year - 365 days.

The Sumerian calendar was composed very precisely so that the main holidays, e.g. The New Year always fell on the day of the spring equinox.

Mathematics of the Sumerians had very unusual “geometric” roots. The Sumerians used a sexagesimal number system.

Only two characters were used to represent numbers: "wedge" meant 1; 60; 3600 and further degrees from 60; "hook" - 10; 60x10; 3600x10, etc.
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 series: 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 exponentiation.

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, division of 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.

Division of an 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 dividing a day into 24 hours, a year into 12 months, a foot into 12 inches, and in the existence of a 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.

Now we are no longer surprised that the zodiac was also another invention of the Sumerians, an invention that was later adopted by other civilizations.

The Sumerians used the signs of the zodiac in a purely astronomical sense- In terms of deviation of the earth's axis, whose movement divides a complete precession cycle of 25,920 years into 12 periods of 2160 years. During the twelve-month movement of the Earth in orbit around the Sun the picture of the starry sky, forming a large 360-degree sphere, changes. The concept of the zodiac among the Sumerians arose by dividing this circle into 12 equal segments (zodiac spheres) of 30 degrees each. The stars in each group were then combined into constellations, and each of them received its own name, corresponding to their modern names.

5th-4th centuries BC. — bracelet with winged griffins

Knowledge received from the gods.

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, 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.

This system is undoubtedly designed specifically for astronomical purposes.
The Sumerian civilization lasted only a couple of thousand years, and scientists cannot answer the question How were the Sumerians able to observe and record the 25,920-year cycle of celestial movements?? Does this not indicate that the Sumerians inherited astronomy from the gods they mentioned in their epic?

2400 BC animal style in Sumerian art

Goddess Mother-nurse, ancestor, mistress of animals. Goats are a symbol of the goddess of the nurse.