Re: Sumerians and Creation

Glen and Mark O

Glen wrote

> That's the creation myth you're thinking of, me suspects. Pretty
> much the entire Middle-East ended up believing that they "came from
> the (primordial) water". Nothing uniquely Sumerian there. It could
> just as well be Egyptian, Greek or Cretan.
>
> >My own feeling is the ancestors of the Sumerians really did come

from

> >the water, refugees from sea-level rising, from further down in now
> >indudated portions the Persian Gulf.
>
> This should be in the List Archives: John Croft mentioned Sumerian
> legend (Dilmun) and its connection to this very idea of a southern
> origin of these people. I had resisted the thought for the longest
> time but I've turned around and can accept it with some provisions.

Good for you mate!

> I used to think that the Sumerians came from further north (the
> whole Halaf-Ubaid thing) but now I've come to a peaceful conclusion
> that this cultural spread should be associated with a concurrent
> linguistic spread of Caucasic speaking peoples (HurroUrartian-ish)
> which must have heavily affected Sumerian to give it a strange and
> un-Nostratic looking character, thereby making it difficult for
> longrangers to agree on a proper placement of the language within
> the Nostratic tree.

I would strongly agree with you on this one too.

> Despite Sumerian's cloak of mystery, I continue to feel that it's
> probably most closely related to ElamoDravidian languages, and hence
> would have been once part of a chain of languages stretching from
> Saudi Arabia (Proto-Sumerian) to the South Caspian (ElamoDravidian,
> Early Steppe). So...
>
> If you're right, Mark, the question is could Sumerian,
> by moving from Saudi Arabia, have replaced a related and
> autochthonous "Eurasiatic" language in the process and by what
> date might this northward movement have taken place exactly?

The date seems associated with the spread of Ubaid I (Eridu)
culture. The Sumerians themselves claim Eridu was their first city,
settled when Enki arrived from Dilmun. But the following Ubaid II
(Hadji Muhammad) which really pioneered irrigation agriculture had
more in common with Samara culture, and this saw the major Proto-
Euphratean (Hurro-Urartuan-ish) settlement of Southern Mesopotamia.
This was the period that the Tigris and Euphrates, as well as most
cities got their un-Sumerian names.

The great arrival of Sumerians from Dilmun was in Ubaid III. Ubaid
III ware is found right down the Persian Gulf and is concentrated on
the Bahrein, Qatar area, as well as extending from Southern Iraq as
far as the Syrian Mediterranean coast at Amuq. This spread Sumerian
influences throughout the area, and was the period that Akkadian
began to impact upon Southern Iraq, first at Sippar and later at Kish.

Hope this helps

Regards

John