Hi Peter, you wrote:
>I just wanted to say that at the time indicated
by Gen.2:5-15, there were non-Adamites, mainly Sumerians, living in
southern Iraq. It seems that the Accadians came only much later, and
mainly in northern Mesopotamia, rather than in the South. The first
biblical mention of Accad is in Gen.10:10, in the line of the Hamites,
after the flood: "The beginning of his [Nimrod's] kingdom was Babel,
Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar [Babylon]." The
famous Sargon I of Accad reigned after 2270 BC.<
There is not an abundance of information available from this time
frame. And archaeologist don't always agree. That said, I
think I can give you some comment and if there are any Sumerologists on
the list, please feel free to jump in.
Although there were earlier settlements in Syria and Turkey, it took the
invention of irrigation to allow southern Mesopotamia to be
settled. The land is rich alluvial soil suitable for agriculture,
but insufficient rainfall prevents it. The earliest cities that
required irrigation were located miles from the Euphrates and Tigris in
order to be far enough away so that Spring floods wouldn't wipe them
out. These canals were intricate enough that it took a fairly
sophisticated culture to work out the engineering required. That's
why we don't find any old stone age settlements there.
From the mound of Tell Hassuna in northwestern Iraq, the Hassuna culture
takes its name, and dates to 6000 to 5250 BC. Numerous agricultural
villages have been unearthed in Iran, Turkey, and Palestine that were
contemporaneous with the Hassuna.
The Hassuna, identified by their coarse pottery wares, were replaced
gradually by the Samarra culture starting about 5500 BC. At Tell-es
Sawaan in Iraq, alabaster female figurines were discovered along with
ornaments of turquoise, carnelian, greenstone, and copper. The
presence of widely disparate materials in one location indicates trading
practices, and that trade routes had been established by that
time.
Settlements in Samarra on the Tigris, Halaf in Syria, and Eridu located
near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates all date within the range
of 5500 to 4500 BC.
The Halaf culture succeeded, but overlapped the Samarran. Halafian
ceramics have been discovered from the Mediterranean coast to Iran,
though the Tigris-Euphrates region south of Baghdad may have been
uninhabited at this early date.
From similarities in pottery shards and other artifacts, the highly
developed Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations that
flourished in the third and second millennium periods can be traced to
the late Neolithic villages of around 5500 BC.
After people had been making the fancier
Hassuna
style pottery for about 500 years, a new style called Halaf developed in roughly the same area, and spread further east, west, and south, along the southern slopes of the Zagros mountains. For several centuries, both the Hassuna and Halaf styles were used, maybe by different ethnic groups.
But the Hassuna style faded from use as the Halaf style continued on. The lives of people who used Halaf style pottery were basically similar to that of those who used Hassuna pottery, concerning subsistence, town size, etc. All within an area of possible dry farming (i.e. no irrigation needed) wheat (emmer and einkorn) and barley sheep, goats, cattle.
Together with
Samarran pottery to the south, the Halafian style was the first really widespread cultural "horizon. Not just isolated fancy pieces, but 80-90% of the pottery assemblage at any site is virtually identical to that from any other site in house styles, other artifacts also are very uniform.
Ceramic paste studies (neutron activation) show pots from a single clay source are found as much as 600 miles apart, some pots moved at least 300 miles, which indicates long-distance trade in ceramics not just the spread of a style that influenced local potters
Tell (mound) of Ubaid near Ur in southern Iraq has given its name to the prehistoric culture which represents the earliest settlement on the alluvial plain of south Mesopotamia. The Ubaid culture has a long duration beginning before 5000 BC and lasting until the beginning of the Uruk Period. In the mid 5th millennium BC the Ubaid culture spread into northern Mesopotamia replacing the Halaf Culture. The Ubaid culture is characterized by large village settlements and the appearance of the first temples in Mesopotamia.
The
Ubaid period of civilization dates from 4500 to 3500 BC. Ubaid is located only a few miles from Eridu and Ur, and Ubaidan pottery was found at the lowest level of excavation at Eridu dated to 4800 BC by independent dating techniques.
Also found at the lowest level of occupation was another pottery style so unique that the archaeologist called it simply "Eridu ware." It is this pottery, I believe, that identifies early Adamites as it shows a pottery style not found anywhere else. It simply began there.
The
Uruk Period follows, dated 3500 BC to 3100 BC. The Uruk Period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and in the ensuing Early Dynastic Period it was by far the largest settlement known up to that time. Uruk is the biblical Erech, and is the site of Enoch (E-Anna(k), the city Cain built. In fact, Erech may simply be a corruption of Enoch.
The following period is called
Jamdet Nasr, 3100 to 2900 BC ushered in by another pottery style. The Early Dynastic Period (2900 BC to 2350 BC) follows. This is significant because the flood marks the beginning of the period and the reign of Sargon marks the end.
The Sumer and Accad period is dated 2500 BC to 2000 BC, ending roughly with the destruction or Ur and the departure of Abraham from the land of Canaan.
The origin of the Sumerians is in dispute. Some believe that they were simply an amalgam of the people who lived in that region as they developed a culture, and a written language. Others believe the Sumerians arrived by sea, settled at Ur, and gradually displaced the remnant Ubaidans as they moved inland over a period of centuries. Both the Sumerians and Accadians are dated by archaeologists to roughly 4000 BC.
Accad (or Akkad if you prefer the German) is within Mesopotamia, occupying the northern part of later Babylonia. The southern part was Sumer . In both regions city-states had begun to appear in the 4th millennium BC. In Accad a Semitic language, Accadian , was spoken. Accad flourished after Sargon began (c.2340 BC) to spread wide his conquests, which ranged from his capital, Agade, also known as Accad, to the Mediterranean shores. He united city-states into a vast organized empire. Furthermore, he was overlord of all the petty states of Sumer and Accad, as were his successors, most notably Naram Sin.
Since the Accadians spoke a language precursor to Hebrew, it is likely that the Semites derived from the Accadians. Now here is a point of confusion. Semites proceed from Shem, Noah's son. But archaeologists don't recognize Noah or Adam, probably because we Christians have convinced them these biblical patriarchs started the whole human race :>?). (That's my figure for tongue in cheek.)
So according to archaeologists, the Canaanites at
Ebla spoke a "west Semitic tongue" even though we know Canaan was Ham's son. So "Semites" known as Accadians may predate the flood as a culture, even though Shem had only post flood descendants according to Genesis.
The Sumerian king list starts with kings who ruled before the flood. So although the Accadians (Adamites) in the northern cites concentrated along the Euphrates were obliterated survived only by Noah and family, the Sumerians, located predominantly in the South and along the Tigris, survived.
When I was writing my book, I visited with Ake Sjoberg who founded the Pennsylvanian Sumerian Dictionary Project. I wanted some learned input, whereas he was more interested showing me their famous broken flood tablet - the other part of which is owned by the French, since they were partners in the joint expedition at Nippur where the flood tablet(s) were unearthed. So Ake is tossing this priceless relic in the air and catching it in his hand with an air of bravado, while I'm trying to see where the ties are between Sumerian kings and Genesis patriarchs.
So here is what I gleaned from him between tosses. The king list commences: "When kingship came down from on high it was in Eridu; in Eridu, Alulim became king." Alalgar is the next king at Eridu before Eridu is "smitten with weapons," and "kingship is carried to Badtabira."
What I learned from Dr. Sjoberg is that the first two names on the Sumerian king list are not Sumerian! They are Semite names. Go figure. So the first king to rule at Eridu was part of Adam's brood, or maybe even Adam himself if Alulim and Adam are one and the same.
What makes all this interesting to me is that Genesis fills in some of the missing information. But archaeologists and historians are constrained from using the Bible for anything for fear of repercussions from the scientific intelligentsia. And, of course, the reverse is true. Theologians (with rare exception) wouldn't be caught dead reading pagan archaeologist's material.
Dick Fischer -
Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Mon Nov 29 16:32:08 2004