Re: Sumer loses its Underworld?

Glen in supposing that

> No cities started without agriculture first, as far as I know.

So... first

> agriculture, THEN a city.

Yes but there are many developments needed to get from agriculture to
cities. Most of the area south of the Siberian treeline and down to
the Timor Gap had developed agriculture by 2,000 BCE. Yet cities
were first developed in Southern Iraq, not for the
mystical "atractivity" of Glen, but due to some very sound
geographical and cultural reasons.

> >I think it would help if we all defined the time frames we're

talking

> > >about. By "prehistoric Sumerian," I'm assuming you mean pre-

writing. >Is

> >that before 4000 BCE?
>
> That's a good a time as any.
>
> >Before the start of the cities, each tribe was probably more or

less >equal

> >in influence and size. Early IE and early Sumerians (c. 6000
>BCE) were
> >most likely *all* peasants digging in the dirt. However, >once

the

> >Sumerians started cities, they had more influence.
>
> However, regarding proto-IE itself (c.4000), I don't see how

Sumerian

> civilisation was as yet powerful enough to have affected in any

direct way

> IE-speaking cultures. If anything, whatever influences existed were

very

> small and irrelevant from Sumer. The brunt of the innovations would

come

> from Turkey, itself a product of the innovative general area of the
> Middle-East, just like Sumer. To say that Sumerians gave the IE

agriculture

> or mythology is an assumptive and unmotivated leap of faith.

No one is saying this, but the Uruk phase was effecting the whole
area from Anatolia to Bahrein by 4,000 BCE and most reputable
archaeologists now cnsider Uruk culture was Sumerian.

> >The Sumerians' myths and knowledge and starlore (derived from those
> >prehistoric Sumerians) spread widely because nobody else had

anything >to

> >match it, and those became, if not the heart, then at least a part
>of many
> >other tribes' myths and knowledge, too, even down to today, >when

we

> >measure time and circles in 60 seconds and 60 minutes, just >as

the

> >Sumerians did.
>
> The "60 seconds" idea was a very late creation in comparison to the

early

> timeframe of the IE. Certainly, that idea was Sumerian in origin

since the

> number system is based on "60". However, IE myth itself could not

have come

> about in the same fashion through the same contacts. The

timeframes,

> geographical locations and likely cultural power of both the IE-

speaking

> population and the pre-Sumerians (at around 4000 BCE) cannot be

accounted

> for in such a way as to make a convincing arguement that the

Sumerians

> indeed affected the IEs or vice-versa.

> Well, it is my personal view that one must be aware not only of the

myths

> that one is reconstructing but the influences that shaped these
> reconstructed myths in order to fully understand. (That goes for
> reconstructed languages too!) My feeling is that IE myth is a blend

of three

> sources: Pre-IE Europe, Anatolia & Steppe.

Glen I am surprised to see you leaving out your Semitish! I would
agree with Glen's list but I would also add Sumeria and Afro-asiatic
peoples too.

Regards

John