Prayers by proxy
They irrigated the land and built settlements which developed
into rival city - states, such as Ur, Eridu, Lasara, Uruk, Nippur and Lagash. Sometimes
one city - state, led by an able and aggressive ruler, would gain power over
others and found a tiny empire, but the city – states never remained united for
long. Nevertheless, the Sumerians shared a common culture that stamped its
distinct character on their art.
Sumerians sculptors have left us a fascinating collection of
status of royal persons, officials and worshippers, all for use in temples. The
Sumerians believed that their statues prayed to and propitiated the gods on
behalf of their donors, who could not be in the temples all the time. Some of
the most fascinating pieces of Sumerian art were found in the royal tombs of
Ur, and can now be seen at the British Museum. Perhaps the most well – known
piece is the upright ram carved in wood and covered with gold, silver, lapis
lazuli and shell, cemented in position with bitumen. The wooden interior of the
‘ram in the thicket’ has been expertly renewed and the whole figure restored
exactly as it was when made. Was this unique figure the prototype of the ‘ram
in the thicket’ provided by God for Abraham to sacrifice as a substitute for
his son Isaac? In Old Testament tradition Abraham’s birthplace was Ur and it
was from that city that he set out on his travel.
The British Museum houses a unique object from Ur, a mosaic
representation of Sumerian life in peace and in war. This has been given the
name ‘the Standard of Ur’, and like other objects from the city has been
restored largely to its original state. The standard has two rectangular sides
about 22 inches by 9 inches, and triangular ends. The mosaic is composed of
human and animal figures carved from shell, set in lapis lazuli. One of the
main panels illustrates life in peacetime. In the top row, the king and his family
sit in the chars at a feast, wearing sheepskin kilts. Servants scurry about,
waiting on them, while a harpist and a women singer entertain them. The other
two rows of the panel show servants bringing in spoils of war an food for the
feast. Some drive goats and bullocks, anther carries fish. Some lead asses;
others struggle with sacks and packages.
The other main panel shows Sumerians warfare. The bottom row,
where, by Sumerian convention, the narrative begins, shows the advance of the chariots,
drawn by asses which trample the defeated enemy underfoot. In the second row,
infantry, lightly armed with spears and axes, strike down the naked enemies of Ur.
Behind them, copper – helmeted soldiers wearing long cloaks advance with
heavier weapons. The king, taller than the rest, stands in the top row, facing
his soldiers, who bring bound and naked prisoners to him for judgement. A dwarfed
figure holds the reins of the asses which pull the king’s chariot in war. The weapons
and chariots of the Sumerians, shown on the Standard, were far superior to any
that other peoples were to develop for hundreds of years.
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| The famous box called the 'Royal Standard' od Ur, c 2700 BC, shows scence of peace. Some experts belive it was not in fact a standard, but the sounding box of a musical instrumrnt. |
The Sumerians, together with the Egyptians, Cretans and
Chinese, were the earlist inventors of a practical system of writing. From pictographs they developed syllabic system
which was a step towards the system of writing we use today. By about 2500 BC
they had evolved cuneiform which they wrote on damp clay tablets with a
sharpened reed. The Sumerian cuneiform was later taken over by the Babylonians,
Assyrians, Hittites and Persians, who adapted it for their own languages. Thousands
of Sumerian clay tablets and fragments have been recovered by archaeologists. Most
of these are now in museums awaiting examination by scholars. The Sumerians
also produced delicately carved cylinder seals which they used to roll pictures
and writing on clay tablets, labels and stoppers. Most business documents were
sealed as a matter of course.
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| This magnificent curly - haired bull's head adorned a lyre, like that being played at the court banquet on the 'Royal Standard'. |
In the nineteenth century archaeologists excavated the
library of Assurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrians Empire. Among the
tens of thousands of clay documents and literary works unearthed was a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, written in
the Akkadian Semitic language. This poem
was found to be a translation from the original Sumerian. Gilgamesh, legendary
king of the city – state of Uruk, is among the earliest – known human heroes. The
Epic tells how Gilgamesh, distressed by the death of his friend, the divinely –
created Enkidu, set off on the quest to discover the secret of immortality. After
many adventures he came to the Ocean of death, where he built a boat and persuaded
a ferryman to take him across. Beyond the ocean Gilgamesh met Utnapishtim, a
semi – divine immortal, who was a pre – Biblical Noah. Utnapishtim told
Giglgamesh adivine secret concerning a great flood cruelly sent by the gods to
destroy mankind. The gods planned this destruction to stop the perpetual noise
and uproar of the human race which disturbed the sleep of their divine
creators. But one of the gods, Ea, betrayed the plan of destruction to
Utnapishtim, advising him to build a boat and take ‘the seed of all living
creatures’ into it. The boat was built on schedule, and Utnapishtim and his
family, together with other people and wild and tame animals, went abroad as
the rain began to fall. Enlil, the warrior god, at first enraged that any human
should have escaped the deluge, was persuaded by Ea to relent and grant
Utnapishtim immoratality.