Paul Collins - The Sumerians

THE SUMERIANS

LOST CIVILIZATIONS

The books in this series explore the rise and fall of the great civilizations and peoples of the ancient world. Each book considers not only their history but their art, culture and lasting legacy and asks why they remain important and relevant in our world today.

Already published:

The Aztecs Frances F. Berdan

The Barbarians Peter Bogucki

Egypt Christina Riggs

The Etruscans Lucy Shipley

The Goths David M. Gwynn

The Greeks Philip Matyszak

The Indus Andrew Robinson

The Persians Geoffrey Parker and Brenda Parker

The Sumerians Paul Collins

PAUL COLLINS

REAKTION BOOKS

To my parents

Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
Unit 32, Waterside
4448 Wharf Road
London N1 7UX, UK
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk

First published 2021
Copyright Paul Collins 2021

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

Page references in the Photo Acknowledgements and Index match the printed edition of this book.

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN 978 1 78914 423 9

CONTENTS

CHRONOLOGY

Baked clay prism inscribed with the so-called Sumerian King List, c. 1800 BC.

After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu. In Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28,800 years.

S o read the first lines of the Sumerian King List. Although several versions of the List have survived, the most extensive, as well as the most complete, now resides in the University of Oxfords Ashmolean Museum, many thousands of miles from the place where it was composed. It takes the form of a small block of clay, about the size of a modern house brick, known to specialists as a prism. Perforated through its length, perhaps so that it could be rotated on a vertical spindle for reading, the prism is inscribed on each of the four sides with two columns of wedge-shaped (cuneiform) script, used here to write the Sumerian language. Based on information in the text, this particular version of the King List can be dated to about 1800 BC. We are less clear, however, about precisely where it was written, since the prism had been sold in Iraq to the English collector Herbert Weld-Blundell shortly before 1923, the year he gave it to the Ashmolean along with many other cuneiform tablets (a story to which we will return later). It may have been plundered from the site of Tell as-Senkereh (ancient Larsa), one of the thousands of abandoned settlement mounds often described by the Arabic word