On this once densely populated fertile land were countless troops of the Persians of Cyrus and Darius, the Greeks of the army of Alexander the Great were dusting, the troops of the Prophet Muhammad's soldiers and the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire galloped, the Bedouin tribes wandered for centuries, not even suspecting what was under their feet.
Forgotten Sumer
Years passed, developing into centuries and millennia. Rare Europeans saw on the desert plain only strange hills, illuminated by the merciless sun. But, apparently, the time has come to learn about the completely forgotten past. In 1869, the French archaeologist Jules Oppert found cuneiform inscriptions of the ancient kingdom, the ruler of which - Sargon - called himself the king of Sumer and Akkad, and suggested calling the Sumerians the people who ruled Mesopotamia, the territory between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, long before the rise of Assyria and Babylon.
At that time no one knew the very word "Sumer". The fact of its existence was long forgotten. The land of Shinar mentioned in the Bible remained without explanation. And in this land, unknown masterpieces of worship and admiration of ancient people and their household items rested.
The fourth expedition to excavate one of the oldest cities in Sumer - Nippur - in 1889, led by Professor of the University of Pennsylvania (USA) H. Hilprecht, was successful for archaeologists. While studying the stepped ziggurat (temple tower), he found a library containing more than 20,000 cuneiform tablets. This mass of documents became a revelation for those who studied them. It is impossible to study them all at once in such a volume. However, even the translation of some of them gave an unprecedented collection of monuments of Sumerian literature, religious writings and commercial documents.
Protected by higher powers
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The researchers had enough difficulties in their work. Cholera, malaria and dust storms. The entire area was engulfed in war. The recalcitrant, wild and unbridled tribes were in a state of bloody feudal civil strife: strife, their enmity with irregular troops and the authorities of the Ottoman Empire. There were constant threats of attacks by nomads, attempts to get to the weapons of the expedition and theft. There were cases of shootings and robbery of expeditionary property.
In order to somehow secure their lives, archaeologists had to intimidate the superstitious population with their "magical power". The launch of rockets and fireworks terribly frightened not only women and children, who scattered with insane screams in search of shelter, but also men. Scientists have unearthed a giant human head made of alabaster, which plunged the local population into horror and confusion. What was not there, but, as they say, God had mercy on archaeologists.
P. Botha and R. Koldewey, O. Layard and L. Woolley achieved great success. They found ancient Nineveh - the stronghold and capital of the mighty Assyrian kings, mentioned in the Bible, and Babylon, which in the days of the greatest glory of all the forgotten Sumer was an unknown village. Only under Hammurabi in the 18th century BC. Babylon began to thunder throughout the ancient world. It is not clear where the cuneiform tablet from the times of Sargon the Ancient came from. Found bilinguals - inscriptions in two languages, which made it possible to decipher ancient texts in a previously unknown language. Raking up centuries-old debris and dirt, shoveling thousands of cubic meters of earth with the efforts of several hundred excavators, archaeologists have discovered a whole layer of forgotten history.
From the darkness of the ages
Our newspaper wrote about the once sensational excavations of the city of Ur, where the biblical Abraham was born, in the spring of 2011 in the article "Sumerian Chronicles". It was about the fabulous wealth of his forgotten kings, in comparison with which the famous Tutankhamun is simply a poor man. However, archaeologists also came across completely looted burials, in which the marauders did not spare even the royal remains.
Ruins of ancient palaces and temples, giant statues of winged bulls and lions with a human head, and wonderful bas-reliefs of deities, sphinxes and winged creatures have been found. Battle scenes of siege and battles are depicted on chariots, made with great skill and rich ornamentation.
The ancient walls have preserved so many things: drawings of warriors, dressed from head to toe in chain mail, with pointed helmets on their heads and shooting from bows; images of women begging for mercy and tearing their hair out of grief; figures of people with styled hair and curled beards in richly decorated clothes, decorated with embroidery and tassels that have not lost color; bricks with stamps of the names of unknown kings and one with the name of the semi-mythical Naram-Sin (about 3750 BC).
They also found terracotta figurines of bearded gods with weapons and other devices in their hands, toys in the form of horses and riders, elephants and monkeys, rams, dogs and birds. Spearheads and daggers, coins and necklaces, bracelets and earrings, rings and clasps, brass hairpins and relics from agate, turquoise, malachite and lapis lazuli, dishes and cups with ancient legends written on them, often covered with images of terrible demons, and much more other.
The found and deciphered Sumerian texts made it possible to look into antediluvian history and learn about the emergence of Homo sapiens, the arrival of aliens (Nephilim) from the planet Nibiru and their life on Earth. The documents they read talk about how they passed on knowledge to people, taught them crafts and created ancient civilizations. There are mentions of two visits to Earth by Anu - the ruler of Nibiru, about the dynasty of antediluvian rulers and the first king of all Sumer after the Mesannepadda flood.
The high level of knowledge of the Sumerians is striking, especially in astronomy, mathematics and metallurgy. They had 23 types of copper alone. With the death of civilization, much knowledge was lost, but the heritage of the Sumerians is still present in our lives. We know 12 signs of the zodiac and 12 months of the year, use a clock with 60 seconds and minutes, and divide the circle by 360 degrees.
Sumerian texts made it possible to understand many inexplicable passages in the biblical stories and the actions of her characters. Later, Zechariah Sitchin wrote a history of lost kingdoms and civilizations, and Alan Alford compiled a chronology of gods and people. A temple was excavated in Nippur, the religious center of Sumer, and it became clear that the cult of the god Bel played an important role in the life of the people in the past, as evidenced by the enormous ruins and many cuneiform literature. The temple library indicated the existence of a huge class of priests and clerics.
Helped … a Sumerian priest
True, once information came to scientists in a mysterious way. Hilprecht, at the end of the expedition, finished a book on the excavations and their scientific results and had to give it to the publisher the next day. In it, he mentioned two fragments of agate found during the work. The archaeologist could not read the ancient Sumerian inscriptions on them. He sat in his office until late at night, trying to decipher the text and give the book a finished look.
Dozing off (if it was a dream, and not something else in an altered state of consciousness), the scientist saw next to him a man in a Sumerian priestly attire. The surprised archaeologist got up, but not from an armchair, but from a stone step, on which for some reason he found himself. He was not even surprised that the priest said to him in English: “Follow me! I will help you". They walked down the street past several massive buildings and entered the dimly lit hall of the next, which seemed even larger. "Where are we?" Hilprecht asked. “In Nippur, between the Tigris and the Euphrates. We are in the temple of Bel, the father of the gods,”the priest replied.
During the excavations, archaeologists were unable to find the treasury - a room that must be at the temple, and the scientist asked his guide about it. He led him into a small room in the far corner of the temple. There, in a wooden chest, were several pieces of agate, among which Hilprecht recognized two fragments that he could not decipher. The priest explained that these are parts of a cylinder donated to the temple of Kurigalsu, the ruler of the Kassites. They wanted to make ear jewelry for the statue of the god from it. One piece split when sawing. The inscriptions on the fragments that the scientist could not read were parts of the same text. At the request of the archaeologist, the priest read this inscription to him. Waking up (or waking up), Hilprecht wrote down everything that the priest said to him. The decoding of an inscription dating back to a very distant past has been recognized by other scientists as flawless. The location of the treasury in the temple, which was soon found by archaeologists, turned out to be accurate. And thousands of unread cuneiform tablets are still waiting for their researchers, and no one knows what information they will bring to humanity.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №51. Author: Valery Kukarenko
