HUM 140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Urshanabi, Sumer, Cedar Forest
Document Summary
An urban settlement is established at uruk by 4,100 b. c. Historical king of uruk, between 2,700 - 2,500 bce. His name is found on the inscribed stone called sumerian king list and stamped on bricks. United the cities of southern mesopotamia, creating the sumerian empire. Empire: a government where diverse cultures are ruled through military power. Five poems in sumeria, dated to 2100 bce: cedar forest/humbaba, bull of heaven, showing mercy to captives, journey to the dark land, gilgamesh"s death. Additional gilgamesh texts are created in old babylonian during this period. An alliance of cities in the north rise to power. Ancient documents are translated into assyrian, a semitic language. Semitic: the root language of assyrian, hebrew, and arabic. Sin-leqi-unimmi - a priest who compiles the stories into a single epic. He does this between 1600 and 1000 bce. At the same time, the earliest hebrew documents are being written.