The great empire of Babylonia was formed by merging two smaller, but important, empires: Akkad and Sumer.
The name of the earliest inhabitants of Mesopotamia of whom there are historical records is ‘Sumerians’ — their cultural contributions to later Mesopotamian civilizations were great and original. Archaeologists have recovered tens of thousands of Sumerian tablets and revealed extensive remains of cities and temples. The Sumerian language can now be read by scholars and the history of Sumer from the beginning of written records reconstructed and dated with some assurance. This is a remarkable achievement; as recently as 1915 leading scholars denied that the Sumerians ever existed!
The Sumerians were not a Semitic people; their language is related to Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian. They probably entered Mesopotamia via the Persian Gulf about 3000 B.C.; they were not the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. The geographical name ‘Sumer’ in ancient times designated lower Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf.
Prior to 2800 B.C., the Sumerians appear organized in cities which are temple communities. The god is the king of the city and the temple is the owner of the land; the people are the servants and tenants of the temple. Writing and art are known and monumental temples are built. Commerce and the crafts and the division of labor permit fuller realization of natural resources.
After 2600 B.C., independent city-states have a tendency to league themselves under one king as an overlord.
From 2500 B.C. until 2350 B.C., Ur was the dominant power among the Sumerian cities. Its wealth and artistic progress are evident from royal tombs. Its kings have left numerous inscriptions and records.
A family of kings from Akkad ruled from 2350 to 2150 B.C.; such a royal family is called a ‘dynasty’ — in this dynasty, two important kings were Sargon and Naram-Sin. The empire expanded into most of Mesopotamia and even a bit beyond; it is not clear whether to call it the ‘Sumerian Empire’ or the ‘Akkadian Empire’ at this stage, because Sumer and Akkad would eventually merge to become Babylonia.
The most important Sumerian invention was the cuneiform script. This was first used for records and accounts. Although their writing system would grow to be complex and sophisticated, the Sumerians remained a largely pre-religious culture: they were dominated by myth, magic, and attempts to manipulate nature (which characterize the pre-religious phase), rather than a relational connection with the personality of the deity (involving acceptance and appreciation rather than manipulation) which characterizes a religious or even post-religious phase. Given this pre-religious state, archaeologists have found conclusive evidence of human sacrifice as a ritual practice among the early Sumerians.
