The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character

Samuel Noah Kramer

The University of Chicago Press, 1963 [pbk. 1971]; Pages: xiv, 355

This volume, written by one of the most eminent Sumerologists, is aimed at the general public although it might be useful as a synthesis of Kramer's aerial view of the field, in which he has spent a lifetime. The author's intention, which the book admirably serves, is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture of Sumer, while avoiding the usual gloss and superficiality that sometimes accompanies similar texts. The book can also serve as companion to his very popularHistory Begins at Sumer by providing the political and economic background necessary to fully appreciate the contributions of that civilization to our modern world. The photographs, separated in two inserts, are black and white and not many, with most of them previously widely available. On the other hand, the numerous translations of Sumerian texts, both in the chapters and in separate appendices, are quite useful, even if they are regrettably incomplete and have significant lacunae of missing lines.

The book begins with a brief summary of the state of archaeology and decipherment of documents, and is quite sketchy. For people, who are more interested in the mechanics of these, Crawford's book should be quite useful. Chapter 2 deals with the political history, beginning from the prehistory of around 4500 B.C., before the Sumerians arrived, and ending in about 1750 B.C. with the period when Sumer ceased to exist as a political entity and became part of the Babylonian empire. The picture this chapter paints is one of constant strife between the city-states, especially the most prominent ones of Kish, Erech, Ur, Adab, and later Lagash and Umma. These fights weakened the Sumerians until "the kinship was carried away by foreigners" such as the king of Awan, Sargon of Akkad, the Gutians, the Elamites, and eventually Hammurabi. It is quite curious that despite their sense of nationalism and the sharing of a common identity, the "black-headed" people failed to unite sufficiently to resist the conquerors. Ironically, although they lacked military might, the Sumerians' advanced culture conquered the conquerors as the newcomers invariably adopted their customs, script, religion, and literature wholesale.

The next chapter discusses the urban civilization of Sumer, and its agricultural base. Kramer disagrees with descriptions that picture the economy as dominated by the temple and instead argues that it was "relatively free and that private property was the rule rather than exception" (p. 75). In this he follows Daikanoff to conclude that there were four classes of nobles, who owned large estates and had many clients, and slaves; clients, who were temple-dependents or personnel, or worked the estates of the nobles; slaves, who were either prisoners of war or Sumerians reduced to slavery for certain offenses; and commoners, who owned small plots of land. The chapter emphasizes the development of legal code and procedures, beginning with the first known as the Urukagina reforms (Lagash, ca. 2700 B.C.), that records the sweeping changes aimed at curtailing the abuses of power by the wealthy (p. 79). The code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin is translated in the appendix. The rest of the chapter deals with architecture and housing (Crawford's book is more detailed on this), and concludes with brief sketches of various aspects of Sumerian life, such as "science", medicine, learning, art, music, crafts, transport, farming (the Farmer's Almanac is also translated in the appendix), and food.

The next chapter presents the conventional view of Sumerian theology and myth. (For an exceptionally good introduction to this much disputed subject, see Jacobsen's Treasures of Darkness.) The rather simplistic cosmogony of the ancient Sumerians is still intriguing because of the concept of me, which is believed "to denote a set of rules and regulations assigned to each cosmic entity and cultural phenomenon for the purpose of keeping it operating forever in accordance with the plans laid down by the deity creating it" (p. 115). The list of me (on p. 116) is a rather mystifying and diverse collection that ranges from kingship to troubled heart. The rest of the chapter traces the rise and decline in importance of the main gods of the Sumerian pantheon: Enlil, Ninhursag, and Enki, along with the man's place in this world as the servant of the gods, doomed to a life of obedience and an eternity in the dark underworld after death. Kramer also provides interesting, although disputed, evidence of Biblical borrowings from Sumerian mythology (notion of paradise, the creation of Eve, pp. 148-50). The chapter ends with the description of the popular myths of Inanna and Dumuzi.

Chapter 5 is on literature, which compares "not too unfavorably with the ancient Greek and Hebrew masterpieces" (p. 168). Although frequently assumed, it is not the case that all Sumerian literature is religious in character or written by priests. Kramer claims that much of the literary output was from the edubba (school) and its affiliated scribes and professors (priests were apparently not among the school personnel!). The chapter has sections on myths, epic tales, hymns, lamentations, historiographical, and wisdom compositions, all with extensive quotations and translations. All in all, this is a fascinating chapter that invites further exploration of the Sumerian belles-lettres.

For me, Chapter 6 was of utmost interest because it depicts Sumerian school and the formal system education, which, along with cuneiform writing, Kramer classifies as "supreme achievements" of civilization. Although education was not universal or compulsory, it was necessary to achieve prominence and many wealthy people sent their sons to the edubba to learn the craft. The learning process was long, pedantic, uninspiring, full of rivalrous contention between the unruly students, and involved the not infrequent application of the teaching rod. Kramer offers a translation of "Schooldays," an essay that deals with the recollection of an edubba alumnus and is rather telling of the dreary days of school, and, curiously, the seemingly orthodox way to secure good grades: bribing the teacher (pp. 237-40).

Chapter 7 is perhaps Kramer's greatest contribution for in it he derives the drives, motives, and system of values of the Sumerians. The author gleans his conclusions from his encyclopedic knowledge of Sumerian texts, many in his own translation. To Kramer, the Sumerians were pragmatic, materialistic, extremely competitive, and placed a premium on worldly success (in this their values favorably compare to much of Western ones), which he sees as the reason for their remarkable accomplishments. If they were lacking something, it is the ethical and moralistic coloring that has come to us from the Hebrews. The drive to excel, especially among fellow Sumerians, was responsible for the developments that set their civilization apart from the rest, but it also carried the seeds of the destruction of that civilization for it resulted in incessant interstate strife that made Sumer easy prey to less advanced Akkadians, Gutians, and finally Amorites (that is, Babylonians). It is somewhat startling to realize how "modern" the Sumerians were in their emphasis on recorded documents, attachment to legal resolution of conflicts, and their unabashed materialism.

The book concludes with a chapter which attempts to evaluate Sumer's contribution to modern civilization. As such, much of it is tentative and rests on fairly thin ground, although Kramer's enthusiasm is at times rather contagious. Fortunately, he does not suffer from the pro-Semitic bias that frequently relegates the Sumer to a sort of a backwater in ancient history. At the other extreme, it is tempting to read quite a bit in the rather patchy evidence. Still, it is perhaps not under dispute that the Sumerians were first in recorded history to write down laws, or use the positional system in math. The chapter then delves into enumerating parallels with the Hebrew Bible, some of which startling, and others quite tenuous.

As a whole, this book is perhaps the best possible introduction to the fascination that is ancient Sumer. There is little that we know about this civilization and yet in relative terms, we know of them much more than many more recent ones (because of their tendency to record things on tablets that, unlike paper, tends to survive). Unknown until the middle of the 19th century, Sumer has emerged as arguably the oldest known civilization in history. It is both intriguing and disheartening to realize how little we have changed in our basic character as humanity.

February 6, 2002

@book{kramer-63,
  title    = {The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character},
  author   = {Samuel Noah Kramer},
  year     = {1963},
  publisher= {The University of Chicago Press},
  address  = {Chicago},
  isbn     = {0-226-45238-7 (pbk.)},
  notes    = {Index, Farmer's Almanac, Kings' List}
}