The cities that had emerged in southern Mesopotamia in the later 4th millennium BC long remained separate states, although they did not differ significantly from each other in language, population, and political organization. Everywhere in these Sumerian city-states, the temple of the main god of the city initially played a central role. The servants of the god
(his priests) oversaw the collective activities of the population and organized the storage and distribution of the produce of the land. It is not clear, however, whether the fields and gardens were originally collective property, or whether they at least in part had been in private hands from the beginning. In any case, private property developed strongly in the 3rd millennium BC and must have been the norm, according to our sources, from around 2300 BC on. The main priest of the main god of the city may have developed into a “king” in some places, but this cannot have been a general rule, for already at an early stage non-priestly persons, such as the commander of the citizens at arms, could assume kingly powers as well. Certainly, the monarchy in these Sumerian cities seems to have been an ancient institution. In the 3rd millennium BC, the royal palace became the center of the city’s political organization, next to or combined with the temple. It is important to note that in the relationship between the king and the world of the gods, the king retained some priestly functions and presented himself as the first and most beloved servant of the god. In Mesopotamia, the king was not, at least certainly not as a rule, a god in human form. On the contrary, the idea that the gods are far elevated above the world of men always remained strong in Mesopotamia and in fact in the whole Near East.
In the 3rd millennium BC, the Sumerian cities lived in a state of constant rivalry among themselves. We are informed of wars from which now this city-state, now another, emerged as a hegemonic power among its surrounding neighbors. Important power centers were, for instance, Uruk, Lagash, and Ur. Shortly after 2400 BC, a warlike king of Uruk succeeded in acquiring a short-lived hegemony over all of South and Central Mesopotamia. It was the first attempt in history that we know of to build with the use of force an “empire” that encompassed practically the whole known and “civilized” world. “King of all,” or “King of the four regions of the world” would since remain the titles expressing the pretense of ruling the world, titles to which many a king in Mesopotamia would henceforth aspire. This first Sumerian empire was soon destroyed and supplanted by the first Semitic empire of Akkad under the famous king Sargon, who around 2375 BC conquered the whole of Mesopotamia and even for a moment reached the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. But after a few generations, this empire too met its end, caused by the incursions of warlike peoples from the mountainous regions to the north of Mesopotamia. Following this, the Sumerians for a last time, under the leadership of the city of Ur, exerted their power over at least the south and probably the whole of Mesopotamia. Toward 2000 BC, that empire in its turn came to an end, in part as a consequence of the infiltrations of new Semitic groups, this time the Amorites. Thereafter, the language of the Sumerians disappeared as a spoken language, although it would remain in use as the language of learning for religious and some other writings.
World History
