“The early history of Mesopotamia is in one aspect the struggle of the non-Semitic peoples of Sumeria to preserve their independence against the expansion and inroads of the Semites from Kish and Agade and other centers of the north. In the midst of their struggles these varied stocks unconsciously, perhaps unwillingly, cooperated to produce the first extensive civilization known of history, and one of the most creative and unique.
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935 (italics added)
"Despite much research we cannot tell of what race the Sumerians were, not by what route they entered Sumeria. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935
"When their civilization was already old -- about 2300BC -- the poets and scholars of Sumeria tried to reconstruct its ancient history. The poets wrote legends of a creation, a primitive Paradise and a terrible flood that engulfed and destroyed it because of a sin of an ancient king. This flood passed down into Babylonain and Hebrew tradition, and became part of the Christian creed.
In 1929 Professor Woolley, digging into the ruins of Ur, discovered, at considerable depth, an eight-foot layer of silt and clay; this, if we are to believe him, was deposited during a catastrophic overflow of the Euphrates, which lingered in later memory as the Flood. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, 1935 (italics and formatting added)
"Meanwhile the priest-historians sought to create a past spacious enough for the development of all the marvels of Sumerian civilization. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935
"[...] Tenacious dynasties of city-kings seem to have flourished at Kish ca. 4500BC, and at Ur ca. 3500BC. In the competition of these two primeval centers we have the first form of that opposition between Semite and anti-Semite which was to be one bloody theme of Near-Eastern history[:]
1) from the Semitic ascendancy of Kish and the conquests of the Semitic kings Sargon I and Hammurabi,
2) through the capture of Babylon by the 'Aryan' generals Cyrus and Alexander in the sixth and fourth centuries before Christ,
3) and the conflicts of Crusades and Saracens for the Holy Sepulchure and the emoluments of trade,
4) down to the efforts of the British Government to dominate and pacify the divided Semitics of the Near East today."
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935 (formatting added)
"[...] the writing of history and the partiality of historians are very ancient things. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935
"[...] It was the King's boast that he 'gave liberty to his people'; and surely the tablets that preserve his decrees reveal to us the oldest, briefest, and justest (?) code of laws in history."
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935 (italics and bold added)
"[...] A monolith found in Susa portrays [Sargon I] armed with the dignity of a majestic beard, and dressed in all the pride of long authority. His origin was not royal: history could find ne father for him, and no other mother than a temple prostitute. Sumerian legend composed for him an autobiography quite Mosaic in its beginning: 'My humble mother conceived me; in secret she conceived me. SHe placed me in a basket-boat of rushes; with pitch she closed my door.' Rescued by a workman, he became a cup-bearer to the king, grew in favor and influence, rebelled, displaced his master, and mounted the throne of Agade. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935 (italics added)
"(as an introduction to the rule of Gudea of Lagash) To be burned to the ground is not always a lasting misfortune for a city; it is usually an advantage from the standpoint of architecture and sanitation. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935
"Meanwhile, "Ur of the Chaldees" was having one of the most prosperous eposhs in its long career from 3500BC (the apparent age of its oldest graves) to 700BC. Its greatest king, Ur-engur, brought all western Asia under his pacific sway, and proclaimed for all Sumeria the first extensive code of laws in history. "By the laws of righteousness of Shamash forever I established justice." As Ur grew rich by the trade that flowed through it on the Euphrates, Ur-engur, like Pericles, beautified his city with temples, and built lavish ly in the subject cities of Larsa, Uruk, and Nippur. His son Dungi continued his work through a reign of fifty-eight years, and ruled so wisely that the people deified him as the god who had brought back their ancient Paradise.
But soon that glory faded. The warlike Elamites from the East and the rising Amorites from the West swept down upon the leisure, prosperity and peace of Ur, captured its king, and sacked the city with primitive thoroughness. The poets of Ur sang sad chants about the rape of the statue of Ishtar, their beloved mother-goddess, torn from her shrine by profane invaders."
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Book 1, Ch.7, Part 2, Segment 1, 1935
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