In the south of Mesopotamia in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. Sumerian population lived. It was here, at that time, that a whole group of large Sumerian cities existed. These were the cities Eredu, Ur, Larsa, Uruk, Lagash, Umma, Shuruppak, Isin, Nippur, and Kish.

In 3 thousand BC Sumer experienced an economic boom. Agriculture was actively developed here and metal tools began to be more widely used. Sumerian craftsmen mastered the methods of casting, riveting, soldering. They learned how to make bronze. Various ornaments were made from copper, gold and silver. Clay bricks were used in construction. Carts, chariots, boats, various furniture were made of wood. There is a separation of trade from crafts. Special merchants appear - damkars, who were engaged only in the purchase and sale of various goods. At the same time, livestock and grain served as a measure of value, but a metal equivalent is already being used - copper and silver. Trade with Syria, Transcaucasia, Iran is developing. There are often wars. Slaves appear from among the prisoners. They were counted by their heads (sag). Slaves were branded and beaten into stocks. Slaves were engaged in weaving and other activities, were used as diggers in the construction of canals. Slaves could be temple and private.

The land in the Sumerian city was divided into two parts. One was owned by the community, the other was owned by the temples. At the beginning of the early dynastic era (28 - 27 centuries BC), the head of state was en - high priest(sometimes a priestess) of the city of the state. He led the temples, oversaw the construction of the city, the construction of the irrigation system, looked after the life of the community. The term was sometimes used lugal, which meant "master, lord, king." However, often the lugal was a different person, not the high priest, and led only military units.

In the future, rulers with the title of ensi or lugal become the heads of the Sumerian cities of the states. Initially, the army in such cities consisted of the people's militia, but soon a fairly strong army appeared, consisting of war chariots, heavily armed warriors, and also light foot soldiers.

First Early Dynastic Period(28 - 27 centuries BC) is characterized by the rise of the city of Kish and the reign of the first Kish dynasty. Then Uruk began to rise. In the second early dynastic period(27th-26th centuries BC) Kish's influence declines and the ruler of Uruk, Gilgamesh, liberates his city from Kish hegemony. He and his successors controlled a huge territory, erected buildings in Lagash, Nippur and other cities.

In the third early dynastic period(25-24 centuries BC) the city of Upi-Akshak advances in the north, and Ur in the south, where the first dynasty rules. The tombs of the kings of this dynasty are known for their wealth and numerous items of decoration. Soon the hegemony began to pass to the rulers of the city of Lagash, where the dynasty founded by Ur-nanshe ruled. Lagash reached its greatest power under his grandson, Eannatum, who subjugated almost all of Sumer. Soon a coup takes place in Lagash - a new ensi - Uruinimgina (2318-2312 BC) comes to power, who carries out important economic reforms in the state. They were written down and are among the first written forms of legal norms.

But at the same time, the old enemy of Lagash, Umma, is getting stronger. During the reign of Lugalzaggesi, it merged with Uruk, and the new state managed to unite Nippur, Larsa, Adab, and then Kish under its rule. Soon Lugalzaggesi made a trip to Lagash, ruined it and subjugated it. For a quarter of a century, Lukalzaggesi was able to create a united Sumerian kingdom headed by Umma. However, this association was very unreliable. Soon Sumer was conquered by Akkad.

Cuneiform writing originated in Sumer. They wrote on damp clay tablets, which were later fired. A word or concept was depicted as a special icon, consisting of wedge-shaped sticks applied to clay.

The settlement of Lagash appeared, apparently, at the turn of the 5th - 4th millennium BC. e.

For a long time it was believed that the ancient city of Lagash corresponded to the ancient city of Tello (ancient Girsu), but now scientists localize it in Tel El-Hibba, a grandiose city of 480 hectares, 20 km southeast of Tello and 15 km east of the modern city of Shatra .

The Sumerian kings of the country of Lagash (SHIR.BUR.LA ki) ruled over an area ca. 3000 km2, south of the country of Sumer proper.

Little is known about the ancient history of Lagash. In the Early Dynastic period, the nome capital was moved from the city of Lagash (lit. "Place of Crows", modern El-Hibba) in Girsu (modern Tello), where the temple of the supreme deity of this nome, Nin-Ngirsu, was built. In addition to the cities of Girsu and Lagash proper (or Urukuga lit. "Holy City"- the epithet of Lagash), this nome also included a number of more or less large settlements, apparently walled: Nina (or Siraran), Kinunir, Uru, Kiesh, E-Ninmar, Guaba, etc. Political and economic life was concentrated in the temples dedicated to Nin-Ngirsu, his divine wife Baba (Bau), the goddess of legislation Nanshe, the goddess Geshtinanna, who acted "scribe of the country without age", and Gatumdug, the mother goddess of Lagash.

The rulers of Lagash bore the title of ensi and received the title of lugal (king) from the council or the people's assembly only temporarily, along with special powers, during an important military campaign or any other important events.

1st dynasty of Lagash

The first king of Lagash known in history is Ur-Nanshe. He was also the ancestor of the 1st dynasty of Lagash. Ur-Nanshe laid the foundations for the future power of Lagash, as he contributed to the strengthening of agriculture, the construction of defensive walls around ancient Lagash, and the construction of new temples.

In the 25th - 24th centuries. BC e. there is a strengthening of the nome Lagash. At that time, the I dynasty of the rulers of Lagash ruled there. In terms of wealth, the Lagash state was second only to the South Sumerian state of Uru-Uruk. Lagash port Guaba (lit. "Sea shore") competed with Ur in maritime trade with neighboring Elam and India. The rulers of Lagash, no less than others, dreamed of hegemony in Lower Mesopotamia, but the neighboring city of Umma blocked their path to the center of the country. With Umma, in addition, for many generations there were bloody disputes over the border between these two nomes, the fertile region of Guedenu.

Under the king of Lagash, Eanatum, who ruled around 2400 BC. e. Lagash was able to win this fight and conquer the Ummah. The Lagashians were able to subjugate the neighboring cities of Ur, Adab, Akshak and also make trips to Elam.

Eanatum

Eanatum can be considered the next great king of Lagash. Under him, Lagash began to intensify. During his reign, the old enemy of Lagash, the city of Umma, broke away from him and began a war with the Lagashians. Two ensi (rulers) of Umma, Ur-Luma and Enkale, made military campaigns against Lagash, but both ended in failure. Eanatum conquered the Ummians and again forced them to pay tribute to Lagash.

Eanatum also made several military campaigns in Mesopotamia, conquering the cities of Uruk and Ur. He soon had to face a dangerous coalition of northern Sumerian cities and Elamites. The cities of Akshak, and the Elamites joined forces and attacked Lagash. Eanatum was able to defeat the enemies and drive the Elamites away, and brought the Sumerian cities to submission. When he died, Lagash stood at the pinnacle of power in Mesopotamia.

After the death of Eanatum, his brother Enannatum I, then his son Enmetena, assumed power in the country. Around 2350 B.C. e. he had to wage repeated wars with the Ummah, as the Ummians continued to quarrel with Lagash because of the Gueden strip. Enmetena was able to defeat Umma and install his own ruler there. But the Ummians, apparently, managed to maintain their independence and continued to be at enmity with Lagash.

Priests of the god Nin-Ngirsu

At that time, the second most powerful persons in Lagash were the high priests of the god Nin-Ngirsu. After the suppression of the clan of King Ur-Nanshe, the supreme power in Lagash (about 2340 BC) was taken over by a certain Dudu, who was a priest of the god Nin-Ngirsu. His heirs Enentarzi and Lugaland were very unpopular rulers, their reign in Lagash remained a very bad memory. Both Enentarzy and Lugalanda were more concerned about increasing their wealth. At least 2/3 of the temple households passed into the possession of the ruler - ensi, his wife and children. Lagashians were subjected to heavy taxes and taxes, which ruined the population. The dominion of the priests lasted until 2318 BC. e., when Lugalanda was deposed by the new king of Lagash - the reformer Uruinimgina.

Uruinimgina's reign

The coming of power of Uruinimgin (who ruled in 2318 BC - 2311 BC) was, although bloodless, but rather violent. The previous ensi Lugaland, who had ruined the country with extortions, was deposed by him. The simple population of Lagash apparently welcomed this change of power. Uruinimgina was indeed quite a popular ruler. He reduced many taxes and did not allow officials to rob the people. He also returned many privately occupied lands to the temples, which, apparently, could help appease the priestly class of Lagash. Under Uruinimgin, the Lagashians again waged heavy wars with their longtime rivals, the Ummians, from whom Lagash suffered several humiliating defeats. Although these wars ended in nothing, Lagash was rather weakened. When in 2311 BC. e. the troops of the great king Sharrumken (Sargon the Great), the founder of the Akkadian state, invaded Lagash, Lagash did not have the strength to successfully resist the invasion. Ngirsa - the capital of Lagash was captured, and Uruinimgina himself went missing. Lagash fell under the rule of Akkad for more than a century. The 1st Dynasty of Lagash thus ceased to exist.

Subjugation to Akkad

The reign of the Akkadian kings was quite cruel, they controlled almost the entire region of Mesopotamia. Many Sumerian cities were also under the rule of Akkad. However, the Sumerians conquered by them continued to resist. There were frequent uprisings against the Akkadians, to which Lagash joined. However, these uprisings were for the most part not successful. The Sumerians were constantly defeated, and the Akkadian kings did not hesitate to punish the rebels. Rimush is considered the most cruel, under him Lagash was severely devastated and lost many people. However, the Akkadians held power in Lagash for little more than a century. After the death of their last king, Sharkalisharri, and the collapse of the Akkadian state under the onslaught of the Gutian tribes, Lagash was able to regain its independence again.

2nd Dynasty of Lagash

The first post-Akkadian rulers of Lagash were rather insignificant figures, and little information about them has been preserved. The heyday of Lagash begins with the king of Ur-Baba, who was able to conquer Ur and Uruk. The last ensi of Lagash, Nammahani, was an ally of the Gutian king Tirikan in his historical battle with the king of Uruk, Utuhengal. This battle took place around 2109 BC. e. The Kuti suffered a crushing defeat from the Uruks, and lost their influence in Mesopotamia. The power of Lagash was also undermined, but the Lagash people managed to maintain their independence. However, a few years after the defeat, Lagash was still conquered by the king of Ur - Ur-Nammu. Lagash fell under the rule of the Urts and more, as an independent state, was not revived.

Literature

• Sauvage, Martin, Lagaš (ville) // Dictionnaire de la Civilization Mésopotamienne. Sous la direction de Francis Joannes. Paris, 2001. P.453.
• Lafont, Bertrand, Lagaš (rois) // Dictionnaire de la Civilization Mésopotamienne. Sous la direction de Francis Joannes. Paris, 2001. P.453-456.

see also

• Lagash 1st Dynasty
• Lagash 2nd Dynasty

Eredu (Priest City)
In translation, it probably means “good city”. The place from which both the material and sacred history of Mesopotamia began. It was located in the extreme south, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates into the Persian Gulf. Back in the middle of the 4th millennium BC. here appeared the first great sanctuary, from which only the foundation has come down to us. After 500 years, the sanctuary became the temple of the god Enki. It was believed that all the secrets of the world and the sources of life come from Eredu, since this place is the entrance to the mysterious watery abyss - the Abzu. That is why the temple of Enki was called the “House of the Abzu”. The life of the city of Eredu was short-lived. Already at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, citizens left it and moved to the more northern Ur and Uruk. Eredu has become a ghost town and a symbol city. All the priests of the cult of Enki, who lived in various cities, called themselves "priests from Eredu." Why the city was deserted is unclear. Either the soils became saline, or after the retreat of the bay, a drought began. The Sumerians themselves explained the migration of inhabitants from Eredu to Uruk by the fact that Inanna stole ME from her father and transported them to her city on a boat. Not a single inscription from Eredu has come down to us.

Uruk (Warrior City)
In Sumerian they pronounced “unug”, but what people called the city that way and what it means is unknown. In ancient times, Uruk was said to be the first fenced settlement in the world, and therefore the first city. No one can either confirm or deny this legend. However, we know for certain that writing appeared precisely in Uruk and that it was Uruk that was the first center of the military-political union of the Sumerian cities. The heroes of Uruk are the powerful priest-kings of the Sumerian epic Enmerkar, Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh, who fought with the tribes of the Iranian Highlands. Under Gilgamesh, Uruk became the main city of Sumer. The Uruk masters are the heavenly gods An and Inanna (Venus), and the ancestor of the royal dynasty of Uruk was the sun god Utu. In Uruk, the first House of the People's Assembly known to archaeologists appears, which speaks of the beginnings of communal democracy. The ruler at that time was not called the word lugal “king”, but bore the title en “owner, lord”. It was the title of the priest-wife of Inanna in a sacred marriage. Uruk is not only the first capital of the Sumerians and a symbol of their military superiority, but also a long-lived city in which the religious and written tradition was not interrupted until the era of Rome.

Ur (Merchant City)
In Sumerian "Urim", the translation is unknown. A city that was twice the capital of a powerful kingdom. At the beginning of Sumerian history, there was a well-established economy and a scribal school that trained cadres of accounting bureaucrats. The owner of Ur, the moon god Nanna, patronized the account of time and exact knowledge. Maritime transit trade caused the accumulation of countless treasures - gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian, silver, from which the best craftsmen made jewelry, musical instruments and weapons for the royal family. All these masterpieces were discovered in the burial of Queen Puabi, who was accompanied to the next world by numerous servants. The royal power of Ur has always been strong and rich. In addition, Ur was a clear favorite of the gods: after many centuries, he was given unlimited power over all the cities and peoples of Mesopotamia. The era of the III dynasty of Ur was the heyday of the Sumero-Akkadian culture to the same extent that it can be considered the era of the crisis of the Sumerian civilization. After the collapse of the last Sumerian state, Ur again lived well at the expense of the sea and strong merchant traditions. You can call it a city of educated businessmen.

Shuruppak (City of the Immortal)
We know about this city either from economic texts, or from myths and later legends. It is known that in the earliest antiquity its rulers were elected people and ruled in turn (the order passed from quarter to quarter). The texts of the local scribal school arrived: proverbs, fragments of myths and lists of gods. But the most famous story associated with Shuruppak is, of course, the story of the flood and the miraculous salvation of the righteous, which the gods made immortal. The name of the righteous was Ziusudra (“Life (for) long days”) and he was the ruler of Shuruppak. This city was not noticed in political activity, and what its mistress Sud was doing - judging by the lack of information, even the Sumerians themselves did not know about this.

Nippur (Judge City)
Nippur was the geographically central city of Sumer, so it became cosmogonically central, uniting all other cities under its sacred authority (like Athens in Greece). The master of Nippur is the mighty Enlil, the god of air, nature and world order. In Nippur, an assembly of the gods met, choosing a king for the Country. Important legislative decisions were made in Nippur. Political activity is uncharacteristic for Nippur; there have never been kings in it. But here was the largest library and the most famous scribe school. We owe all our knowledge about the Sumerian religion to Nippur school teachers who worked part-time as state or temple scribes. It was they who brought to us all the myths and epic texts of the Sumerians, proverbs, spells and fragments of rituals.

Lagash (City builder and chronicler)
It means "storeroom" in translation. Lagash is the only one of the significant Sumerian cities located on a canal diverted from the Tigris, and not from the Euphrates. Therefore, he was always in some isolation from his neighbors, which, however, only added to his ambitions. The owner of the city is the patron of creation (mainly construction and agriculture) Ningirsu, also known as the patron of defensive war. Lagash is a city through whose history we have to perceive the entire early Sumerian history. This is due to the fact that chronicles were invented in Lagash and, moreover, all grammatical forms were carefully written out (which eliminated ambiguity in reading, although it did not help to eliminate ambiguity in interpretation). A lot has always been built in Sumer, but only in Lagash they wrote so much about what they built. We started with a simple enumeration of objects, then added to this list a list of our military and political prowess, then we began to write in detail about laws. Thus began the historical texts. Gudea added to the construction and political part a description of his sacred dreams and travels in which he met with the gods. The result was a hymn that glorifies both the gods and the ruler at the same time. Later, full-fledged royal hymns arose from this, singing the deified rulers of Sumer. In the early Sumerian era, the city lived excellently, many of its rulers were kings of all Sumer. Under the Sargonides, Lagash did not lose its influence on the political life of the country. In the era of the rule of the Gutians, Lagash lived very richly and prospered, but after the defeat of the invaders, he was accused of treason and excluded from the general Sumerian list of royal dynasties. Since then, Lagash has failed to regain its political and ideological power.

Umma (Usurper City)
This strange city, a neighbor and enemy of Lagash, went down in history with only two unseemly acts. First, its rulers illegally seized the territory that belonged to Lagash by agreement. This caused a great war in which the Ummah invariably lost. And then, when Lagash was at the height of its political power, the king of Umma Lugalzaggesi declared himself the king of all Sumer and attacked his neighbors. Lagash then suffered greatly, but was eventually avenged: the Akkadian ruler Sargon brought down the pride of the Ummian usurper, first defeating him in a fair fight, and then ritually depriving him of power. However, Umma was well known after the Sargonids, and even in the era of the III dynasty of Ur. It was a medium-sized city with a well-developed industry. Its owner was the god Shara, who was somewhat reminiscent of Ningirsu.

Kish (politic city)
The northernmost city in Southern Mesopotamia. Sumerian, Semitic, and possibly Elamite were also spoken here. It entered the history of the country as a city-politician. It was here that the first royal inscription was composed, quite short. But it was the very first historical document that read: "Enmebaragesi, king of Kish." And the royal title (lugal) also appears for the first time in this city. To be king at first meant "bearing the title of the rulers of Kish." An old retinue song about Gilgamesh says that once it was Kish that was the main city of Sumer. The Kish king disposed of the citizens of all other cities, which were considered the younger brothers of Kish. But the ruler of Uruk, Gilgamesh, did not like this fate, he declared war on Kish and won it. Since then, Uruk became the main city, but Kish was held in high esteem for a long time. In the Assyro-Babylonian time, as a result of a language game, the title "King of Kish" (lugal-Kisha) began to be translated "King of the Universe" (shar kishshati). So the provincial Kish acquired cosmic significance.

Babylon (City of Peace)
The eternal city, replaced at its post by Rome. Babylon has been known since the Sumerian times. It was then called in Semitic Babbilum "carrying (heavy)" (probably because of its powerful and rich port). From the name it follows that it was founded either by the Akkadians or the Western Semites (Amorites). However, the Sumerians also considered it theirs, so they called it ka2-dingir-ra, which in Semitic translation should sound like bab ilani "gate of the gods" (such a folk etymology). In the Book of Genesis, as is well known, the name Babylon is derived from the root "to confuse", because it was in this place that the Lord mixed the languages ​​of the builders of the great tower. But this is already quite far from the truth. Babylon is a city of powerful royal power, great laws, literary works and scientific works famous throughout the world. He flourished in the era of two reigns. Under Hammurabi (XVIII century), Babylon was considered the center of the universe, and its god Marduk was the king of the gods and the wisest of the gods. Under Nebuchadnezzar the Second (VI century), Babylon was the cultural capital of the world and a city of great military glory. Babylon experienced its last rise under Alexander the Great, when at the end of the 4th century. BC. became the capital of his empire and the deathbed of the great commander. Babylon is the Laws of Hammurabi, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblically deep reflections of the Innocent Sufferer about the place of man in the world.

Nineveh
The city was the capital of three kings, of which the first - Sennacherib - cut out and destroyed Babylon, the second - Esarhaddon - conquered Egypt, and the third - Ashurbanipal - destroyed Elam. The best masters of relief came to the capital of the empire, temples and scribe schools prepared cadres no worse. Therefore, it was in Nineveh that the arts and sciences flourished extraordinarily. The military power of Assyria and the valor of its kings were glorified, the literary texts of antiquity were rewritten and updated. It was the Nineveh library of Ashurbanipal that was the largest and most diverse book collection of the ancient world (which was later surpassed only by the Library of Alexandria). Nineveh did not live even a century, falling in 612 under the blows of the Medes and Babylonians. The terrible capital was cursed by all the Jewish prophets and so completely forgotten that it was dug up only at the beginning of the 19th century AD.

2355 BC e.

Almost at the same time as in Egypt, maybe even a little earlier the story begins in Sumer(if we repeat the title of the book by the Sumerologist Cramer).

Sumer occupied the southern part of Mesopotamia. The last name is made up of the Greek words "Meso" (in the middle) and "Potamos" (river). It is given to a low-lying region with an arid climate, through which the Tigris and Euphrates flow, their waters merge near the Persian Gulf.

The dry plain, thanks to the two great rivers, became fertile and convenient for the development of irrigated agriculture. There is considerable similarity in the position of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but there is also a difference. Mesopotamia is an open, unprotected space. It is open to trade flows, and this is its advantage. But it is also open to invasion, so Mesopotamia did not know long-term, permanent political unity.

By the end of IV millennium BC. e. city-states emerge from agricultural communities. Probably, the need for the joint construction of dams and irrigation canals lay at the heart of the first forms of power. First, city-states arise in the country of Sumer, in the extreme south of Mesopotamia. The Sumerians, whose language is unlike any other currently known, probably came from the east, perhaps by sea.

Each city was under the patronage of the local deity, whose representative was the king-priest. Among these cities we will mention Ur (from where, according to the Bible, Abraham came), Uruk, Eridu, Lagash, Umma.

The formation of Sumerian cities coincides in time with the appearance of writing.

In contrast to Egypt, where nearby mountains allow stone to be mined in abundance, in Mesopotamia, stone was used little (only a few statues and stelae survive). Royal palaces and temples-ziggurats in the form of multi-story towers were built from dried clay, so now archeology deals only with preserved foundations.

Writing at first, as in Egypt, it consisted of small pictograms. But while in Egypt hieroglyphs were carved on stone or written on papyrus leaves (a Nile water plant), Sumerian writing was written on soft clay tablets, which were then dried or fired. Signs were applied with sharpened reeds in the form of squeezed carnations or wedges (hence the name cuneiform). Because of this technique, the original drawings quickly became simplified and turned into a set of wedge-shaped icons of a completely abstract configuration.

Like the Egyptian, Sumerian society was hierarchical. The bulk of the population consisted of free peasants, brutally exploited by the military-religious nobility.

Tsar ( lugal- big man or ensi- ruler, sovereign) at the same time represented the god, the patron of the city. The flourishing of the original Sumerian, then Mesopotamian civilization is directly related to the development of trade relations. In Egypt, trade was the monopoly of the state and was reduced mainly to foreign trade. Mesopotamia is an open country where many trade flows intersect, where you can find goods brought from the mountainous regions of the North and from the Mediterranean. Merchants played a big role here, and cuneiform was used not only for religious and political purposes, but also for the needs of trade (inventory of goods, trade agreements). Impressions of stone engraved cylinders on clay tablets replaced seals and signatures.

Priest-kings and officials in the service often abused their power, which was the cause of one of the first social crises marked by history.

We have an amazing eyewitness account of this social crisis. The population of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash consisted of peasants, artisans, fishermen, sailors and merchants. These free people enjoyed a certain independence, and even the poorest had some kind of property - a piece of land, a house, cattle.

But most of the land was owned by the god (i.e., the temple and its priests) and the royal palace.

Ruler- donkey was the secular representative of the local deity. Under the pretext of the wars waged by Lagash against neighboring cities, especially the northern neighbor of Umma, the king and the nobility raised taxes, increased exactions, and seized the lands of the temple and priests.

A historian from Lagash, whose evidence has been found by modern scholars, gives a detailed description of these abuses. The boatmaster took over the boats. The overseer of cattle captured large and small cattle. The keeper of the fishing grounds captured the fish. When a resident of Lagash brought a sheep to the palace for shearing, he had to pay five shekels (1 shekel - 8 grams of silver). When an incense merchant made anointing incense, the ishakku received five shekels, his vizier one, and the palace manager another one. As for the temple and its property, ishakku took possession of everything. Our narrator says: “The bulls of the god plowed the onion allotments of the ishakku; onion and cucumber allotments of ishakku occupied the best lands of the god. The most respected servants of the temple were forced to give the ishakk a large number of their donkeys, bulls and grain. When the deceased was brought to the cemetery for burial, his relatives had to pay with barley, bread, beer and all kinds of household items. Throughout the country, from end to end, the narrator remarks, "everywhere there were tax collectors."

Such brutal oppression led to a revolution: the ruling dynasty was overthrown, power passed to a new ruler named Urukagina. He eliminated most of the tax collectors and abolished illegal fees; put an end to the oppression and mistreatment of which the poor were victims. He freed the city from usurers, thieves and criminals.

Urukagina made an alliance with the god of Lagash, Ningirsu, promising that he would not tolerate widows and orphans becoming victims of "strong people".

But these reforms (or was it a revolution?) of the Urukagines did not fortify the city. A few years later, Urukagina was defeated by the king of Umma Lugalzagesi; from this defeat the city of Lagash could no longer recover.

These events made such a great impression on contemporaries that four versions of the descriptions of what happened have come down to our time.

The events we have just described took place at the very beginning of the long history of Mesopotamia. The winner of Urukagina, Lugalzagesi, for some time united the entire country of Sumer under his rule. However, in 2340 BC, he himself was defeated by the Akkadian king Sargon, who created the first Mesopotamian empire.

Akkad, north of Sumer, was inhabited by tribes who spoke a Semitic dialect (from the same language family as Arabic and Hebrew). By the end of the 3rd millennium, the Sumerians were finally absorbed by the Semitic peoples, but their language, having ceased to be spoken, remained the language of religion, like Latin in medieval Europe. Since it was no longer spoken, dictionaries appeared where Sumerian words were given translated into Akkadian. It is this circumstance that has made it possible in our time to decipher the Sumerian language.

Around 1100 BC. e. the Assyrians, who came from the mountainous northeastern region, established their dominance over Sumer, since they had iron weapons and a cavalry army. One of the most famous rulers was Ashurbanapal (668-631 BC). Later, power passed to the southerners-Chaldeans, who founded a new capital - Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC) conquered the Jews and brought some of them to Chaldea. In the VI century. BC e. Mesopotamia was conquered by the Persians and finally lost its independence.

Notes:

In the book of S. Kramer, from where this paragraph is borrowed, further, according to the words of an ancient historian, the blessings of Urukagina are told: “He recalled the caretakers of the boatmen. He recalled the keepers of the cattle and small cattle. He called off the keepers of the fishing grounds. He recalled the silver collectors who charged for the shearing of white sheep ... And throughout the country, from edge to edge, there was not a single tax collector left ”(S. Kramer. The story begins in Sumer. M., 1991. P. 58–59 ).

100 Great Archaeological Discoveries Andrey Nizovsky

3. ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST LAGASH, THE FIRST FOUND CITY OF THE SUMERIANS