The remaining two antediluvian cities of the Sumerian tradition – Badtibira and Larak – have also been identified with archaeological sites in Iraq;62 however (as indeed is the case with Sippar, Shurrupak and Eridu as well), these sites are not particularly large, splendid or significant as one might expect of such sanctified ground. As William Hallo of Yale University comments, ‘The cities in question are not outstanding in importance … They are distinguished, rather, for their antiquity.’63
Since excavations at Eridu found the earliest occupation layers to have been laid down as much as 7000 years ago the city is indeed technically ‘antediluvian’ (by more than 1000 years) with respect to the Flandrian transgression – and the same is already known to be the case at Ur, where Woolley’s excavators found habitation traces not only above the flood layer but also below it.
On the face of things, then, it seems reasonable to agree – and many scholars from Woolley onwards have agreed – that it was this flood at this time, or at any rate one of the frequent large-scale floods both riverine and marine to which the region was much prone in antiquity, that must have given rise to the Sumerian flood tradition. The new evidence revealing the extent of the flooding of southern Mesopotamia between approximately 4000 and 3500 BC – just on the edge of the historical period – should, if anything, have strengthened this hypothesis.
So why didn’t I feel comfortable with it?
Heyerdahl on Sumer
The floods that had been archaeologically testified in the valley of the Lower Euphrates and Tigris took place too soon after the date for the foundation of Eridu and the other ‘antediluvian’ cities to fit in with the sense of grandeur and vast age that the traditions conveyed. When I looked again at the story of Zisudra, the story of the Babylonian flood hero Atrahasis,64 the Epic of Gilgamesh,65 the fragments of Berossos, and numerous other recensions and variants, I found that all of them set the antediluvian city-building period in the frame of vast expanses of time – frequently running into tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years.66 While I could understand why William Hallo felt that ‘this chronology, measured in millennia, is obviously fantastic,’67 I found his own proposed chronology equally absurd. ‘Mesopotamian urbanism,’ he argued in the prestigious Journal of Cuneiform Studies, ‘was only some two centuries old at the time of the flood …’68
In June 2000 I met the explorer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, then eighty-six years old, at the excavation of a group of step-pyramids on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. We spent the afternoon together, under the blazing sun, exploring the site that he had brought to world attention.
Heyerdahl was everything I had expected him to be – impatient with protocol, a powerful presence, with piercing blue eyes, endearing vanities, a bawdy sense of humour, and an open, inquiring, restless mind. His Tigris expedition in 1977, which had begun in the Persian Gulf and culminated in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, had proved that the reed boats of ancient Mesopotamia were sufficiently seaworthy and technically advanced to make long-distance marine voyages. Evidence of trans-oceanic trade at the very beginning of Sumerian history suggested very strongly that they had indeed made such voyages as early as the fourth millennium BC – and perhaps even earlier. Moreover, wherever archaeologists excavate they find amidst the ruins of Sumer’s most ancient cities all the signs of a civilization that was already highly evolved, accomplished and sophisticated when those cities were founded more than 5500 years ago.
‘Now we know that man is more than two million years old,’ exclaimed Heyerdahl, ‘it would be very strange if our ancestors lived like primitive food collectors for all that time until suddenly they started in the Nile valley, in Mesopotamia and even in the Indus valley, to build a civilization at peak level pretty much at the same time. And there’s a question I ask that I never get an answer to. The tombs from the first kingdom of Sumer are full of beautiful ornaments and treasures made of gold, silver, platinum, and semi-precious stones – things you don’t find in Mesopotamia. All you find there is mud and water – good for planting but not much else. How did they suddenly learn – in that one generation just about – where to go to find gold and all these other things? To do that they must have known the geography of wide areas, and that takes time. So there must have been something before.’
I pointed out that the First Dynasty of Sumer defined itself as the first dynasty after the flood. The historical Sumerians had always believed that their history was connected to an earlier episode of city-building and civilized life that had begun many thousands of years in the past and from which this deluge separated them. ‘We’re coming to a controversial idea,’ I suggested, ‘which is that the great civilizations of historical antiquity may have received some kind of legacy from an antediluvian culture – an idea orthodox archaeologists detest.’
‘I know that,’ Heyerdahl replied, ‘but I mean they cannot give any answer to how could the Sumerians five thousand years ago know where to go and find these different kinds of raw material. They must have known the world. So, and I mean it, it is for me almost as fantastic as Erich Von Daniken who brought in people from space, to say as the archaeologists do – oh no, no, they sat in Egypt and Mesopotamia and the Indus valley, and they decided, bang, suddenly, just like that, we are going to build pyramids, we are going to go and find gold and we are going to do all this … It’s ridiculous. I say it straight out – it could not be possible.’
‘The idea of a lost civilization drives archaeologists mad and they seem to want to stop people thinking about it.’
‘Well I understand why! Too many people have brought this up together with fairytale stories …’
‘Which has put the historians off, so that they simply never explore this kind of question?’
‘Yes, and this is a great pity. Because I mean even the sunken Atlantis story, which they all dismiss, is interesting – because why did the early Greeks write this story and why did they get it from the Egyptians, and for that matter why does every civilized and half-civilized nation in the world talk about the flood? Don’t let us throw it away until we know that this is impossible. There has to be a possibility … and I think that we should look for it with the modern technical means we have. I think we are going to get many surprises yet on land, and under the sea.’
No surprises: what the archaeologists say about ‘before’
Heyerdahl had arrived at his misgivings about the orthodox chronology of Sumer because he felt that it did not allow time for the evolution and development of the advanced urban civilization that archaeologists now knew had flourished there from the fourth millennium BC. ‘There has to have been something before,’ he reminded me when we parted. ‘Look for whatever was before.’
Of course, there had been something before – a well-worked-out stratigraphical sequence that traced the development of human civilization in Mesopotamia back through ‘proto-history’ before the early dynastic period and thence into the Neolithic, Mesolithic and even the Palaeolithic epochs – a long, gradual, unsurprising process spread out over 30,000 years that Georges Roux sums up as ‘from cave to farm and from village to city’.69
At risk of grossly abbreviating the painstaking archaeological work that has gradually uncovered this sequence, here are a few of the main mileposts:
Shanidar Cave in the Kurdish mountains of what is now northern Iraq: occupied by Neanderthal man c.50,000 years ago to 46,000 years ago; occupied by anatomically modern Upper Palaeolithic humans around 34,000 years ago; occupied by Mesolithic peoples around 11,000 years ago.70
Jarmo, also in northern Iraq – a Neolithic agricultural site which may perhaps date as early as 8750 years ago. It has a 7 metre high artificial mound resting on top of a very steep hill and is formed of sixteen layers of superimposed habitations.71
Hassuna, again in northern Iraq (35 kilometres south of Mosul). The first settlement here has the appearance of a more primitive Neolithic farming community living in huts or tents. Overlying this layer
archaeologists found six layers of houses, progressively larger and better built.72
Umm Dabaghiya – about 8000 years old: more sophisticated features found, including beautiful murals and floors made out of large clay slabs ‘carefully plastered with gypsum and frequently painted red’.73
The Samarra period – named after a widespread pottery style created by what Roux describes as ‘a hitherto unsuspected culture which flourished in the Middle Tigris valley during the second half of the sixth millennium BC’-i.e. approximately 7500 years ago.74 The geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza suggests that this date should be pushed back to ‘about 8000 years ago’.75 There is evidence that this culture used irrigation techniques, grew large surpluses of wheat, barley and linseed, and built spacious houses out of mud-brick76 – later the favoured method of construction in the cities and temples of historical Sumer.
As well as Samarra several other ‘proto-historical’ cultural phases have been identified in which elements of Sumer’s future civilization can be witnessed taking shape in increasingly organized and recognizable forms. Two of these phases stand out prominently in the archaeological record – the ‘Ubaid’ period (roughly 7200 to about 5500 years ago77 and including the first temple at Eridu),78 and the ‘Uruk’ period (6000 years ago79 down to about 5200 years ago, showing further developments in the evolution of temple architecture).80 The Uruk period, which some archaeologists prefer to see as a subdivision of the Ubaid,81 then merges fairly seamlessly into the early dynastic period of Sumer.82
All of the above dates are of course approximate and are subject to processes of continuous revision and refinement by scholars. Nevertheless, they are thought likely to be accurate to within about 300 years.83 In general the academics also agree that the direction of the ‘flow’ of the urban lifestyle in Mesopotamia is from north to south – with the first village-style settlements and large houses established in the north before being seen in the south. However, and paradoxically, Sumerian civilization as a distinctive entity, the origins of which archaeologists now trace back at least as far as the Ubaid period if not further, appears to be a phenomenon that had its origins in southern Mesopotamia. According to Georges Roux:
During the fourth millennium BC the cultural development already perceptible during the Ubaid period proceeded at a quicker pace and the Sumerian civilization finally blossomed. This, however, took place only in the southern half of Iraq, the northern half following a different course and lagging behind in many respects.84
The word ‘Sumerian’ is derived from Shumer, the ancient name of southern Iraq.85 Archaeologists believe that they have distinguished the presence of three distinct ethnic groups living in close contact in this region at the dawn of history around 5000 years ago. These were:
the Sumerians, predominant in the extreme south from approximately Nippur [near modern Diwaniyah] to the Gulf, the Semites, predominant in central Mesopotamia (the region called Akkad after 2400 BC), and a small, diffuse minority of uncertain origin to which no definite label can be attached.86
Apparently, the only distinguishing features of these three groups are their languages.87 Otherwise:
All of them had the same institutions; all of them shared the way of life, the techniques, the artistic traditions, the religious beliefs, in a word the civilization which had originated in the extreme south and is rightly attributed to the Sumehans.88
The Sumerian problem
With so much known about the evolution and development of the magnificent urban civilization of Sumer, it comes as a surprise to discover that there is such a thing as ‘the Sumerian problem’.89 I prefer to let the scholars speak for themselves:
Who are these Sumerians? Do they represent a very ancient layer of population in prehistoric Mesopotamia, or did they come from some other country, and if so, when did they come and whence? This important point has been debated again and again ever since the first relics of the Sumerian civilization were brought to light more than a century ago. The most recent discoveries, far from offering a solution, have made it even more difficult to answer …90
And there is a mystery about the Sumerian language. It can be read and studied because later civilizations, such as the Babylonians, kept archives of Sumerian texts and also helpfully translated them into their own languages. However, Sumerian has a distinct peculiarity. It is unrelated to any of the known language families of the world.91 So although there is a real sense in which Sumer and its precocious urban culture fit in very nicely with long-term developmental trends in ancient Mesopotamia – as I believe the scholars have successfully demonstrated – there is also a sense in which the Sumerians are definitely a bit different, a bit special … and conspicuously attached to the south …
I’ve been dealing with archaeologists long enough now to realize that they don’t like myths or traditions very much (‘can’t weigh ’em, can’t measure ’em, can’t carbon-date ’em’). I was therefore not surprised to learn that they discounted what the Sumerians themselves had to say about their own origins:
Sumerian literature presents us with the picture of a highly intelligent, industrious, argumentative and deeply religious people, but offers no clue as to its origins [emphasis added]. Sumerian myths and legends are almost invariably drawn against a background of rivers and marshes, of reeds, tamarisks and palm-trees – a typical southern Iraqi background – as though the Sumerians had always lived in that country, and there is nothing in them to indicate clearly an ancestral homeland different from Mesopotamia.92
But, as we have seen, the Sumerians had very clear ideas about their own origins … In their myths and legends they remembered a time, before the flood, when they had lived in five great cities. And they remembered a deluge so ferocious that it threatened the existence of all mankind …
The Seven Sages: what the Sumerians said about ‘before …’
Sumerian myths and legends of the antediluvian world do much more than speak of the five cities. They also tell an extraordinary story of how their ancestors, who lived in the ‘most ancient times’, were visited by a brotherhood of semi-divine beings described as half men, half fish, who had been ‘sent [by the gods] to teach the arts of civilization to mankind before the Flood’ and who had themselves ‘emerged from the sea’. The collective name by which these creatures were known was the ‘Seven Sages’ and the name of their leader was Oannes. Each of them was paired as a ‘counsellor’ to an antediluvian king and they were renowned for their wisdom in affairs of state and for their skills as architects, builders and engineers.93
Fish-garbed figure taken from stone relief on Assyrian temple, possibly representing Oannes, leader of the Seven Sages.
The priest Berossos compiled his History from the temple archives of Babylon (reputed to have contained ‘public records’ that had been preserved for ‘over 150,000 years’).94 He has passed on to us a description of Oannes as a ‘monster’, or a ‘creature’. However, what Berossos has to say-ridiculous though this may sound – is surely more suggestive of a man wearing some sort of fish-costume. There is also a geographical anomaly in the text that may prove worthy of further consideration:
There appeared from the Red Sea in an area bordering on Babylonia a frightening monster, named Oannes … It had the whole body of a fish, but underneath and attached to the head of the fish there was another head, human, and joined to the tail of the fish, feet like those of a man, and it had a human voice. Its form has been preserved in sculpture to this day …
This monster spent its days with men, never eating anything, but teaching men the skills necessary for writing and for doing mathematics and for all sorts of knowledge: how to build cities, found temples, and make laws. It taught men how to determine borders and divide land, also how to plant seeds and then to harvest their fruits and vegetables. In short, it taught men all those things conducive to a civilized life. Since that time nothing further has been discovered. At the end of the day, this monster, Oannes, went back to the sea and spent the night.
It was amphibious, able to live both on land and in the sea … Later, other monsters similar to Oannes appeared.95
Did they come from the east?
In 1944 Benno Landsberger, one of the great Sumerian scholars of the twentieth century, commented in an obscure essay that in his opinion:
The legend of the Seven Sages who, emerging from the sea, imparted all technical skills and all knowledge to the Babylonians, may quite possibly have some historical basis.96
What he had in mind here was ‘the Sumerian problem’ – i.e. the as yet unanswered question: where did the Sumerians come from? Earlier than most archaeologists, he fully understood that ‘the essential civilizing process on Mesopotamian soil must be ascribed to the pre-Sumerian population’. But at the same time the Sumerians were distinctively different and much more advanced than their immediate neighbours in terms of the level of development of their intellectual and philosophical ideas. ‘In the area of intellectual culture,’ he wrote, ‘only the Sumerians possessed creative powers.’97
In fact they were so different in this respect that Landsberger was convinced they must have been migrants from somewhere else. He felt that only such a migration could account for the creation of the unique and idiosyncratic early dynastic culture
which is considered to be so specifically Sumerian and which in its later manifestations indeed represented the Sumerian essence in its purest state. In all probability the Sumerians came from the East. Not only does the density of the settlement indicate a settling from south to north, but the absence of Sumerian elements in the mountain ranges north and east of Babylonia favors the thesis that the Sumerians came across the sea.98
Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization Page 6