In 1837, during one of his business trips, the English diplomat and linguist Henry Rawlinson saw on the sheer cliff Behistun, near the ancient road to Babylon, some strange relief surrounded by cuneiform signs. Rawlinson sketched both reliefs and inscriptions, and eight years later published both, as well as his translation of the inscriptions. His book had the effect of an exploding bomb.
In the same years, the French explorer Botta opened the first Assyrian palace near Khorsabad. This find also literally stunned the scientific world. Crowds of people looked like a miracle at the monuments of amazing art found in the lifeless sands - images of kings and warriors, gods and slaves, rushing at full speed bearded archers and spearmen, at giant statues of strange monsters (with the body of a bull, eagle wings and a human head) … So from the darkness of thousand-year oblivion emerged the mysterious and great first civilization on Earth, so ancient that even Herodotus, the greatest historian of Ancient Greece, who lived in the IV century. BC e., nothing was known about her.
“You, who in the coming days will see this inscription, which I commanded to knock out in the rock, and these images of people, do not destroy or touch …” - these were the first words read by Rawlinson, and a few years later any orientalist could read the cuneiform. Discoveries followed one after another, and finally archaeologists found those who invented cuneiform writing itself - a writing technique that spread throughout Asia Minor for centuries. These were the Sumerians - a people, at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. settled on the fertile lands of Mesopotamia, in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and created the state of Sumer, unprecedented at that time.
The Sumerians were the first to invent irrigation canals. They learned to drain swamps and conduct water to fields several centuries earlier than the Egyptians. There was no stone or wood in their country, and they made the stone themselves - they burned clay bricks and built houses and temples from them. They erected cities, the oldest in the world, and architectural and construction techniques developed by their architects entered the practice of peoples who did not even suspect the existence of their teachers.
Today it is known for certain that the first Sumerian cities arose at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennia BC. e. and the most important of them were Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Nippur, Lagash. Trade flourished in the cities, artisans made excellent pottery and bronze tools. Each of the cities was an independent state, ruled by the king-ensi. Cuneiform tablets tell about the wars that were fought over land, water, slaves. They describe in detail the methods of farming on the royal lands and in the homes of citizens. The Sumerians were engaged in boxing, wrestling and hunting, and also participated in horse races on light two-wheeled carts pulled by donkeys. Their priests watched the sun and the stars from the walls of the sacred towers. They calculated how many days in a year, divided the year into twelve months, a week into seven days, determined that there are twenty-four hours in a day,and in an hour sixty minutes.
And the more Sumerian tablets were found, the more the historians were surprised. It turns out that it was the Sumerians who invented the bow, plow and wheel. They were the first to grow wheat, flax, peas and grapes. But here's what is interesting - as soon as these tablets start talking about where and when the first Sumerians came to the fertile land of Mesopotamia, the impassive hand of the chronicler explodes with unrestrained fantasy. This is where the mysteries of the country of Sumer begin. So, according to one chronology, the first 120 Sumerian rulers reigned … 241,200 years, according to another - 456,000! Moreover, the chronicles say that the inhabitants “still remember the time when people did without a king, that is, without a state,” and from the lists of rulers themselves it is clear that the first kings were considered messengers of the gods. However,Similar myths about the origin of the supreme power are characteristic of most ancient peoples, but the Sumerians have one important difference - their royal power did not fall from heaven, but came out of the deep sea.
According to the Sumerians, they owe all their knowledge to the god Ea. He came out of the water in the form of a fish-man. The details of the myth are quite curious:
“And from the Sea of Eritrean (Persian Gulf), where it approaches Babylonia, a sentient being named Ea appeared. The whole body of that beast was fish, only under the fish's head it had another, human; his speech was also human. This creature used to spend all day among people without taking any food.
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It passed on to people writing, sciences, arts of all kinds, taught them to settle in cities, erect temples, establish laws and measure the land, taught them to plant and collect various fruits. And when the sun went down, this amazing Ea plunged back into the sea and spent the night in the depths, for there was his home.
Ancient texts, highlighting the supernatural origins of Ea, mention the glow that crowned the head of the fish-man.
In the magical texts of the priests of Eridu, the oldest Sumerian city, the apkallu are also mentioned - the fish people who guarded Ea and appeared everywhere with him.
So where did the first Sumerians live? If you believe the myths of the ancient people, then one should consider the ancestral home of the Sumerians some fabulous country of Dilmun, lying across the seven seas. Ea himself, the "expert in the depths of the sea," was the ruler there. Apparently, it was no coincidence that the Sumerians were excellent navigators who knew the entire coast of the Persian Gulf perfectly. On one clay tablet, the image of the oldest map of the world dating back to 3200 BC has survived. e. and confirming their vast geographical knowledge.
Some later information made it possible to identify Dilmun with the island of Bahrain. Since the 1950s. Archaeological excavations began on the island, and as a result, various evidence of human activity were found: burials, pyramidal temples and, most importantly, various seals made of clay and stone, with which merchants marked their goods. They caused the surprise of the entire scientific world, because among them there were both Sumerian and belonging to the most ancient civilization of the Indian subcontinent Mohenjo-Daro. In the latter, archaeologists were convinced by the engraved images on the seals, on the one hand - the exploits of Gilgamesh and Etana, on the other - the zebu bulls, the sacred animals of Hindustan. Thus, the fact of a brisk trade in copper, gold, ivory, lapis lazuli and carnelian was established,established between two opposite shores of the Indian Ocean five thousand years ago!
But the greatest sensation was caused by the discovery of a number of seals with images of bird-people on them. The fact is that such characteristic drawings are found only in one place on earth … on Easter Island, where the cult of the bird-man once flourished.
From the book: "100 Great Mysteries of History". Nikolai Nepomniachtchi