Sumerian Culture

The literary text that comes from the Sumerian Culture was widely based on the people that settled in Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C. in the country called Sumer. Sumer was foremost a group of little people that finally grew to organize metropoliss. The state of Sumer was divided into 13 metropoliss. Once the metropoliss had been settled down they so turned into metropolis provinces that male monarchs ruled. Once the male monarchs started to govern, the economic categories started to develop they included the common man, the baronial, the slave and the client. The Sumerian ‘s where the first know civilisation on Earth ; they had to larn how to command their ain physical environment, something that was ne’er heard of earlier ( Lawrence ) . They had to command the Euphrates and Tigris rivers because they knew that in the spring that the rivers would deluge and it would go forth behind levees. The Sumerians used the levees that were left from the old inundations to maintain back the floodwaters on the new inundations. When the summer would come the land of Sumer would go dry, so the Sumerians would hold to jab holes in the levees. The holes would let the river H2O to run through them and do an irrigation channel in the dirt. The irrigation from the H2O allowed them to turn such harvests as day of the month thenars, fruit trees, benne, wheat, barley and broad assortment of veggies. Sumerians believed that all forces of nature were alive and seen them as Gods, because they could non command them ( Tigay 92 ) . In the Sumerian civilization there were more than three-thousand Gods and goddesses. One of the most celebrated male monarchs was the male monarch of Uruk Gilgamesh.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh the Sumerian Culture plays a immense function in how the narrative develops. The heroic poem was based on a existent Sumerian King named Gilgamesh, who ruled around 2600 B.C. The heroic poem comes from several clay tablets that where written in cuneiform and were discovered at the beginning of 1845 during the digging of Nineveh ( Matthews 65 ) . The narrative of the inundation, that ‘s in the Sin-liqui-unninni version, is chiefly based on the existent inundation that occurred in Mesopotamia around 2900 B.C. ( Matthews 68 ) . The Sumerians helped to act upon the full Near East, their civilization was dependent on the agricultural of the country. Year after twelvemonth at that place were inundations that provided dirt for agriculture and bucked up people to remain in the country alternatively of traveling off to happen new countries to turn harvests. There are some indicants that the Sumerians were composed of two different groups of people that stayed in the same country. The Semites where believed to hold joined with the Highlanders. The Semites were more aggressive and were patriarchal huntsmans as the Highlanders were merely matriarchal and peaceable.

The Epic of Gilgamesh compares to the Sumerian civilization in many ways. You can state that the Sumerians valued the qualities of Gilgamesh a batch, since they made him their hero of Uruk. Gilgamesh was a individual that had power, courage, and cognition. You can besides state that doggedness was a large trade in their civilization besides ; by the manner Gilgamesh is persevered test after test in his attempt to happen the secrets of immortality. When Gilgamesh ‘s travels it shows you that the Sumerians were literate people, because the storyteller says that “ Gilgamesh would scratch his travels and his ideas upon rock tablets. ” ( Damrosch ) The Sumerians had eight different classs for literature ; they were Proverbss, myth, percepts, heroic poem narratives, anthem, essays, Lamentationss, and historiographical paperss ( Kluger 23 ) . Since Gilgamesh was portion God and portion homo you can state going a hero in the Sumerian civilization was a combination of faith and political relations. The male monarchs of the metropolis provinces were expected to come in into a symbolic matrimony with a temple goddess each twelvemonth. The male monarch was viewed to be a great warrior for the people around him. Gilgamesh had both of the qualities ; in the Epic of Gilgamesh there are parts that are imagery and subjects of animate beings that are viewed as civilised. Enkidu is animalistic and follows Gilgamesh around who is a civilised individual, but Gilgamesh does n’t move every bit suitably as a male monarch would. The forest which they both must go through through is viewed as unsafe, which was a common them in the Sumerian literature. In order to go heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu would hold to get the better of the monster Humbaba, a character that represents decease and shame in the Sumerian Culture.

The Sumerians would compose their literary text based on existent universe events that existent happen to them. As Gilgamesh would demo in the Epic of Gilgamesh he would compose his idea on rock tablets as he traveled. The Sumerians were really different from the civilizations we have today. The Sumerians had to develop their ain authorship manner that would “ act upon the manner of the books in the same geographical country for the following three-thousand old ages ” . ( Lawrence ) Sumerians believed that the male monarch of their metropolis province should hold the qualities of power, courage, and cognition. The King of Uruk, Gilgamesh had all of these qualities. But Gilgamesh would utilize his powers to his ain disadvantage when he would ravish any miss he wanted to, whether she was married or non. Gilgamesh had broken the common regulations that the Sumerians would travel by. So the Gods decided to demo Gilgamesh how the people were being treated so they created a wild adult male named Enkidu, who was merely every bit powerful as Gilgamesh. The two became great friends, but when Enkidu dies of an unwellness inflicted from the Gods Gilgamesh decides to go around the universe. Gilgamesh wants to larn more about the yearss before the inundation and the secrets of the Gods so he records his experiences on rock tablets ( Vanstiphout 5 ) .

Plants Cited

• Lawrence, Lo. “ Sumerian. ” ancientscripts. 2007. Lawrence Lo, Web. 1 Nov 2009..
• Damrosch, David.The Longman Anthology of World Literature. 2nd. Angstrom, B, C. Old Tappan, NJ: Pearson Education, 2008. 56-97. Print.
• Tigay, Jeffrey.The development of the Gilgamesh heroic poem. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. 384. Print.
• Vanstiphout, Herman.Epics of Sumerian male monarchs: the affair of Aratta. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003. 176. Print.
• Kluger, Rivkah.The Archetypal significance of Gilgamesh: a modern antediluvian hero. Einsiedeln, Switzerlan: Daimon, 1991. 238. Print.
• Saint matthews, Victor.Old Testament analogues: Torahs and narratives from the antediluvian Near East. 3rd. New York: aulist Press, 2006. 430. Print.