Sumer and Akkad Bashny.Net

I begin the story of cities Sumera, who more and more because we habitually called Sumer and Akkad about.
For some reason, the civilization of Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia otherwise) are attractive for us to remain in a mysterious and attractive.









esusvetnaya civilization of Sumer.

"On the one who saw it all to the edge of the universe,
Who was in charge of the hidden, who are grasped,
Experienced fate of heaven and earth,
The depth of knowledge of all the wise men ».
"Gilgamesh". Babylonian epic translated Gumilev

In the XIX century Mesopotamia has given mankind many discoveries - have found the legendary city of Babylon, Nineveh, and their structure, considered allegorical figures - the Tower of Babel, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the palace of Belshazzar ... The scientific world was sure that between the Tigris and Euphrates once flourished two State - Assyria and Babylonia, and here French archaeologists discover traces of a completely unknown, no one else like people - some bald, stocky man in grass skirts. At the time it was to exclaim: "Lord, and those who are somehow?! & Quot;

And yet this nesusvetny people - the Sumerians, like all other people of Mesopotamia, cuneiform writing on clay tablets. This world has experienced culture shock when their inscriptions deciphered. American professor of Russian origin, Samuel Noah Kramer published the book "The History begins in Sumer", after which it seemed that radically changed not only the distant past, but the present and perhaps the future. In fact, the theory of evolution is now flying to the devil! We - not the tip of a long development of mankind. Many scholars whisper asked yourself: "Is humanity regressing, only occasionally remembering and re-inventing what was known a long time ago our predecessors? & Quot;



Firstly, it became known that the Sumerians, nabrodivshis plenty of light appeared in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, at least in the fourth millennium, that is, their civilization was as old as the Egyptian, if not older. State them as much later than Ancient Greece, represented the Confederation of Independent's: Hooray, Heredia, Larsa, Lagash, Nippur, and two dozen others.



Secondly, we can only roughly estimate their level of knowledge, "men & quot; freely operated number "pi" and solve complicated algebraic problems, click as nuts quadratic equations with several unknown and puzzling problem of the interest does not represent for them difficulty. A thousand years before the Greek mathematician Pythagoras' theorem they knew that modern students called "Pythagorean pants." Long before Descartes and Leibniz on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates used 15-digit numbers!
Were no less technical skills. The ancients used and electricity. During excavations in Mesopotamia found small glazed vessels of up to 10 centimeters.

They were iron rods and sealed copper cylinder, corroded acid. One of the archaeologists suggested that found galvanic cells, a kind of prehistoric batteries. For fun decided to test this conjecture. What was the surprise, bordering on panic, when reconstituted in its original form elements given current!

You can endlessly talk about the achievements of the Sumerian civilization in medicine and law, economics and agriculture, but will focus on education. The first school for the preparation of the scribes were organized in churches. It took children from wealthy families. Fathers "graders" served gradopravlenii were envoys, led by the clergy, led ships to the far distance, was headed by the archives, or collecting taxes.

Pretty soon, the school separated from the churches turned into universities where he taught a variety of subjects: theology, botany, zoology, mineralogy, geography, mathematics, grammar, linguistics and literature. Sumerian professor accounted for their students mathematical tables, collections of tasks, grammar, dictionaries of foreign words.

Only a few graduates of these cultural centers to hold public office, others became teachers in the "alma mater" made a living giving lectures and free time devoted to scientific research and literary creativity.

Imagine that all this happened in the 3rd millennium BC! In Egypt, began to rule the first dynasty of pharaohs. In India, it roared into life the mysterious city of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Only after the millennium came the first settlement of the Hittites and Assyrians In the XVIII century BC formed the first semi-legendary, Chinese state Shang-Yin. The rest of the nations for a long time remained in the darkness of barbarism. A Sumerian civilization - as a lone star in the evening sky. It will take time and a scattering of stellar turn away the darkness of the universe. Anticipating the future, so Lagash wrote:

 - Hail them that they may be built,
Bede them but will be dispersed.
Bricks in the place of the Holy City
Indeed they may be assigned.
In the holy place - established rituals ...



Sumerian cuneiform tablets are markedly different from the later, the Babylonian.