01-01 Ubaid

http://everything2.com/title/Sumer?searchy=search
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Cities Before the Flood:   after Cain killed his brother he went into the land of "wandering" (the meaning of Hebrew nod) and built a city. Here he apparently set up a new religious system in defiance of YHVH -- "wandering" not in the countryside, but in his heart. Some indication of the earliest cities are given in Genesis 4. Cain built the first city (Genesis 4:.17), naming it after his son Enoch. This may set an early precedent for men to name cities after themselves. According to Sumerian King Lists, eight cities (at least) were built before the Flood. If the names of men were given also to these cities, we may be able to equate Eridu of the King List with Irad of Genesis 4:18 and possibly Lamech with Larak. (Hallo 1970: 64. See article on Cain.)




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 Ubaid

8500-6000 BCE: The slow transition from semi-nomadic hunter/gatherer existence to a slightly more urbane, village-centered existence takes hold in various regions of Southern Africa, Egypt, India and the Fertile Crescent regions around this time. Specific to the Tigris-Euphrates area, early shepherd communities seem to have come down from the mountainous north, after several continuous harsh winters, to settle on the valley plain.ⁱ Villages and towns were established along the shores of the two rivers – and with these settlements livestock breeding, grain cultivation and primitive irrigation emerged as sound practice. The people of this pre-historic culture are often referred to as proto-Sumerians or the Ubaid


5000 BCE: With better resource sharing, farming & communal effort, the villages grow into towns, and towns into cities. The town of Eridu is established on the grassland marsh just south of the lower Euphrates, the oldest extant town-site in the region

3500 BCE: Better irrigation practices and food surpluses lead to increased birth rates, decreased infant mortality, and even larger communities. City-life begins to adhere, with increased specialization and more productive division of labour. Ur, Uruk, Lagash & Nippur now rise alongside Eridu as the principal centers in the region. Simultaneous with the ascendance of these city-states, early cuneiform scripts are developed. Previously, as far back as 75,000 BCE, special rock tokens, bone wands or carved wooden counters had been used to calculate trade or track goods, but for the first time, in Sumer, an actual syllabic form of writing emerged for the first time beyond crude pictographic marks.

3360-2400 BCE: With these foundations, Archaic Sumerian culture flourishes and grows for centuries. Sheep, goats, milk, grain, wool, bread, honey and fish became the major components of the local market. Increased trade leads to increased competition between various competing interests leading each city-state, who begin to vie for wider control. At the same time, cultural, economic and technological exchange from Sumeria extends to Anatolia (Lower Turkey),Syria, Persia (Iran) and as far away as the Indus River valley. Internal wars between city-rulers erupt as cities begin to fortify their walls and mobilize crude, four-wheeled chariots

2400-2350 BCE: Sargon I unites Sumer into a loose confederation of city-states, the first in a chain of Mesopotamian empires. The Akkadian prince (from the hilly region north of the lower Tigris) pushes his troops³ and influence to the cedar forests of Lebanon, the silver rich Taurus Mountains of Anatolia (southern Turkey), and to the rich stone quarries of Elam (southern Iran). Trade and diplomatic missions are extended to Egypt and Ethiopia, as well as Harappa &Mohenjo-Daro on the Indus. The Akkadian Sumerians supply barley, grain, glasswork, bronze, millet, and alcohol to most of their trade partners. ⁴ The raw metal resources of the Akkadians had to be imported, as there were few productive mines in the mostly marshy region. As an early example of economic interdependence, when the tin supplies of the Levant were exhausted around this time, Sumerian weapons reverted from bronze to copper

2150 BCE: The city of Akkad is invaded by Gutian forces, severing three centuries of Akkadian rule. The city of Ur, now some 80,000 souls, becomes the major political center, with provinces extending from Susa (Elam/Iran) to Byblos in Lebanon. Ziggurats over 100 ft. high are build with baked mud bricks.

”The great storm howls above…in front of those clouds, fires burn. All our people moan. In its boulevards, where our feast were celebrated, scattered they lay. The children lay in heaps. Cry for my city! Tears for my home!” – Lament for Ur, dated est. 2000 BCE

2000 BCE: Elamites revolt against Sumerian dominion and destroy Ur. The now fragile priesthood class governing the region disperse in fear, and the unity of the region collapses. However, in Nippur, the Epic of Gilgamesh is written down for the first time, and added to an extensive library of hymns, omens, laments, aphorisms, creation tales, legends, epics, grammars and dictionaries. Amid a crumbling empire, the first organized libraries, with catalogues and indices, first appeared in Nippur.⁵ Sumerian writing, much like Latin, remained the lingua franca of the Near East’s literate class for another millennium.