Quotes from Samuel Noah Kramer

I discovered that in life, one has got to serve to be observed, if one serve not, one will probably be reserved. Don't wisdom teach this?

They devised such useful tools, skills, and techniques as the potter's wheel, the wagon wheel, the plow, the sailboat, the arch, the vault, the dome, casting in copper and bronze, riveting, brazing and soldering, sculpture

to itself, is arid, wind-swept, and unproductive. The land is flat and river-made, and therefore has no minerals whatever and almost no stone. Except for the huge reeds in the marshes, it had no trees for timber. Here, then, was a region with "the hand of God against it," an unpromising land seemingly doomed to poverty and desolation. But the people that inhabited it, the Sumerians, as they came to be known by

Si d'aventure, tel se prend à douter de la fraternité des hommes et de l'humanité commune à tous les peuples et à toutes les races, qu'il parcoure leurs adages et leurs préceptes : il se rassurera.

5 LETTER FROM PUZUR-NUMUSHDA TO IBBI-SIN To Ibbi-Sin my king speak; thus says your servant Puzur-Numushda: The messenger of Ishbi-Erra

Throughout the rest of the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries numerous travelers, each with a different idea as to the identification of the various localities and ruins, journeyed to Mesopotamia, all trying to fit what they saw into the Biblical frame of reference. Between 1761 and 1767, there took place one of the most valuable of these expeditions, that of Carsten Niebuhr, a Danish mathematician who, besides

In spite of the land's natural drawbacks, they turned Sumer into a veritable Garden of Eden and developed what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man.

When man had not yet been created and the city of Nippur was inhabited by gods alone, "its young man" was the god Enlil; "its young maid" was the goddess Ninlil; and "its old woman" was Ninlil's mother, Nunbarshegunu. One day, the latter, evidently having set her mind and heart on Ninlil's marriage to Enlil, instructs her daughter thus: In

Tarih Sümer'de Ba?lar

About this same time Abbe Beauchamp, vicar-general at Baghdad and correspondent of the Academy of Science, was making careful and accurate observations

Sumer, the land which came to be known in classical times as Babylonia, consists of the lower half of Mesopotamia, roughly identical with modern Iraq from north of Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. It has an area of approximately 10,000 square miles, somewhat larger than the state of Massachusetts. Its climate is extremely hot and dry, and its soil, left to itself, is arid, wind-swept, and unproductive.

consisted of twenty-odd disparate essays united by a common theme-"firsts" in man's recorded history and culture. The book did not treat the

wish to express my sincerest and most heartfelt thanks to the Jayne Memorial Foundation and its board of trustees, which selected me as the annual lecturer for 1942 to speak on the subject of Sumerian mythology. I also acknowledge my gratitude to the board of managers of the University Museum; to Dr. George C. Vaillant, its director; to Mr. Horace H . F. Jayne, his predecessor; and to Professor Leon Legrain, the curator of its Babylonian section, for their scientific

no stone. Except for the huge reeds in the marshes, it had no trees for timber. Here, then, was a region with

chapter deals with the history of Sumer from the prehistoric days of the fifth millennium to the

was nothing known of Sumerian culture; the very existence of a Sumerian people and language was unsuspected. The scholars and archeologists who some hundred years ago began excavating in Mesopotamia were

First, the linguistic difficulties. Sumerian is neither a Semitic nor an Indo-European language. It belongs to the so-called agglutinative type of languages exemplified by Turkish, Hungarian, and Finnish.

gave unto the gods what was the gods"' and recognized and accepted as inevitable mortal

mates with the river imagined as a wild cow. Then, to make sure that the Tigris and Euphrates function properly, he appoints the god Enbilulu, the "canal inspector," to take charge of them.

Une langue implique obligatoirement l'existence d'un groupe culturel, plus ou moins considérable, avec sa mentaliteé.

roughly identical with modern Iraq from north of Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. It has an area of approximately 10,000 square miles, somewhat larger than the state of Massachusetts. Its climate is extremely hot and dry, and

The most significant myths of a given culture are usually the cosmogonic, or creation myths, the sacred stories evolved and developed in an effort to explain the origin of the universe, the presence of the gods, and the existence of man.

in classical times as Babylonia, consists of the lower half of Mesopotamia, roughly identical with modern Iraq from north of Baghdad to the Persian

12 Divine Retribution and National Catastrophe Jahweh's wrath and the humiliation and destruction of the people that incurs it constitute an often repeated theme in the Biblical books. Usually the national catastrophe comes about through a violent attack by some neighboring people, especially selected as Jahweh's scourge and whip. To this theme the historiographic document