The Sumerians
The country of Sumer and Akkad is located on Lower valley of the Tigris River, while the valley extends to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, south and west of which lies the Western Desert and the Persian Gulf.
It is worth noting that the cities of Sumer are all located on the Euphrates River or some of its tributaries, and not on the Tigris, except for the city of "Opis", the farthest city of Sumer to the north.
Some say that the reason for this is the rapid flow of the Tigris River, and that its banks are high, and these two reasons constitute an obstacle preventing its investment in irrigation.
There was no natural boundary between Sumer and Akkad, such as the boundary separating them together from the regions of Assyria and Mesopotamia in the north, and the northeastern half was called (Akkad) and the southeastern part at the head of the Arabian Gulf was known as Sumer.
Perhaps the first name for Sumer and Akkad in the ancient Iraqi texts dates back to the era of the kings of Ur, who called themselves (the kings of Sumer and Akkad) (Lugal ki-en-gi ki-uri), which the Akkadians translated into their language (Shar Mat Shmerim u Akkadim).
In 1869 A.D., some researchers argued that the word “Akkad” in the title “King of Sumer and Akkad” means all the peoples who speak a Semitic language, whether they are Akkadians, Babylonians, or Assyrians, while the word “Sumer” in the title itself denotes those to whom the written texts belong, in a non-Semitic language.
In 1869 A.D., some researchers argued that the word “Akkad” in the title “King of Sumer and Akkad” means all the peoples who speak a Semitic language, whether they are Akkadians, Babylonians, or Assyrians, while the word “Sumer” in the title itself denotes those to whom the written texts belong. in a non-Semitic language.
However, it is known that since an ancient era, the people of the south called their country kalam, meaning the land, and the ruler at that time was known as the king of the land, while the world outside that country was called (Karkur).
As for the word Akkadu, it is the Semitic pronunciation of the word Agade, which is the old name of the city.
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| the Sumerian land that was called Kalam |
The original home of the Sumerians
There is a great debate about the origin of the Sumerians, and perhaps the reason for this is that the distinction between the Salafis, the Akkadians, and other peoples that inhabited southern Iraq could be more linguistic than ethnic, indeed, there are those who go to the fact that anthropological studies of the skeletal remains found in Sumerian tombs indicate that there is no what can be called the Sumerian race, but there is a mixture represented by people with long heads, who are known as the Mediterranean race, and others with rounded heads, which is prevalent in Central Europe and Armenia.
This is until the archaeological excavations in the different Sumerian cities have proven that these Sumerians and Akkadians they all practiced similar political systems, social norms and customs, as well as similar religious beliefs and rituals and social trends as well, in other words, they were all part of one civilization that arose and flourished in southern Iraq, known today as the Sumerian civilization, we mean , by Akkadian those tribes that spoke the Semitic language and were originally from the Arabian Peninsula.
However, the linguistic separator was never a solution to the problem of the origin of the Sumerians, because the Sumerian language is a single language that cannot be traced back to a living or extinct language family.
A modern hypothesis went to approximate it to the group of languages that are taken by the method of agglutination, such as the Asian group or the Ural group, which include the Chinese, Turkish, Hungarian, and Finnish languages, and in which the actual sentence consists of several elements, some of which are attached to others.
There is the actual sentence tool, which is usually in the foreground, then the gender of the verb preceded or appended by the subject pronoun, and there are other tools to indicate the time and place of the action.
However, although agglutination is a well-known linguistic adjective in many ancient languages such as Alameya, and modern ones such as Turkish, the Sumerian language does not have similar vocabulary and grammar in any other language.
Hence, the origin of the Sumerians remained a controversial problem that anthropological or archaeological studies could not solve, although historians agree that they are a non-Semitic race, and that their language is Western and is not similar to the Semitic languages, It is not known that they came to Mesopotamia, although some thought that it may have been in the early period of the fourth millennium BC.
Based on all this, there are several opinions regarding the original home of the Sumerians. There is an opinion that their owners believe that the Sumerians may have come by sea to the south of Mesopotamia in the era prior to Uruk, That is, in the era of slaves, and that they first lived in Dilmun (Bahrain), which feature prominently in the Sumerian heritage, and then migrated northward towards the southern part of the Mesopotamian Valley, which was then known as the country of Sumer, This is based on the new cultural elements that are usually associated with the presence of the Sumerians, which appeared in the Uruk era, such as cylindrical seals, sculpture, pottery wheels and writing.
However, there is another point of view that goes to the fact that the Sumerians, nomads from beyond the Caucasus, or from beyond the Caspian Sea, rushed to the regions of western Iran during the era of the slaves, and the early Warkas, and succeeded in borrowing the civilization of Mesopotamia, from which it extended across the borders of Iran, and then they used what They learned it from them, with manual agility, in rushing since the last quarter of the fourth millennium BC to southern Iraq and gradually took control of it during a period of the Warka civilization.
And what they spread of turmoil at that time had an impact on the beginning of a civilizational stagnation that included it, even if it arose during this same period (around the thirtieth century BC), the era of Samarian heroism, which was based on the individual courage of the Sumerian leaders and their attempts to seize power in the conquered cities on its outskirt Especially since they did not stop rushing on the borders of Iraq, and when the Sumerians prevailed and were integrated into the indigenous people, who were superior to them, the Biblical era began in Iraq around the twenty-ninth BC.
The third point of view Hrozny goes, its owner, that the Sumerians came from Asia Minor in two waves of migration, and the fourth point of view holds that the Sumerians came to Iraq from the northern and northeastern highlands that surround it, via Armenia and Iran.
And if Armenia could be basically excluded from the subject, given that it was unlikely that immigrants would land from it, They bypass the areas suitable for settlement near it in the north of the two rivers, to go away from it and then settle in the parts, they bypassed the areas suitable for settlement close to it in the north of the two rivers, to go away from it and then settle in the southern parts, the edges of which were still at that time brutal in nature, requiring many efforts to refine them and facilitate their use, and again it may be related to this supposed mountainous origin, and the proposed link of the ancestors of the Sumerians to the heights of Iran What is known about the connection of some Sumerian deities with the physical world of heights.
They bypassed the areas suitable for settlement close to it in the north of Mesopotamia, to go away from it and then settle in the southern parts, whose edges were still at that time brutal in nature, requiring many efforts to refine them and facilitate their use, and again this supposed mountainous origin may be related to the proposed link of the Sumerians’ ancestors to the heights of Iran What is known about the connection of some Sumerian deities with the physical world of heights.
Fifthly, the Sumerians’ frequent use of stone material, and the many models of carving on stone that represented the ruler with distinct features that do not change, and the scenes of wars that were in no way devoid of the representation of this ruler, which expresses that these Sumerians were a fighting mountain people, who imposed themselves through wars.
Sixth (perhaps it is closely related to the first opinion) that the Sumerians migrated from an area located among northern India, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and settled for a while, then they migrated from it to Mesopotamia, via the Persian Gulf and its offshore islands, depending on the similarity of the ancient Sumerian pottery styles and decorations in the countries of Mesopotamia, with the ancient pottery models that spread as far south as the Kharba and Mohenjodaro region in the plain of Akkad, which suggests ancient primitive sexual and cultural ties among the people of these regions who preceded the (Indo-European) races in inhabiting them, and who suffice it to say that they are from the early branches of the Asian and Asian dynasties, with appreciation of what the Sumerian legends hinted at that their owners migrated from the south through the sea in ages when people were still striving on all fours, and they settled for a while in the paradise of Talmon, then they were displaced from it to (Kalama) in Iraq, for something that the legend did not refer to.
Seventh, as Iraqi historians say, the Sumerians are among the peoples who inhabited Iraq in prehistoric times, and their civilization is indigenous to Iraq, The Iraqi slaves civilization in even be called the Sumerians, despite our lack of knowledge of the the slaves language.
Based on this opinion, they see the Sumerians as an extension of the peoples of prehistoric times in Mesopotamia, and that they descended from northern Iraq to its south, and settled in an area that was probably known as (Sumer), which the Sumerians knew by its name.
However, it is difficult for opinion-holders to explain the difference between the Sumerian language and the Semitic languages.
Thus, scholars have not yet agreed on a final opinion regarding the original home of the Sumerians, and that the matter is still in the hypothesis stage.
