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Sumer Quotes

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Sumer Quotes

“One of the most pleasant recollections of those busy days was a Babylonian dinner given by Present Morton to the friends of the expedition. The cards at our plates were written in the language of Nebuchadnezzar; the bread was of the shape of Babylonian bricks; the great tray of ice-cream was the colour of the desert sand over which sweet icy camels bore burdens of other sweet ices; and there was a huge cake, like the Tower of Babel; about it wandered miniature Arabs with miniature picks, and concealed within its several stages was an art treasure for each of the guests. Then and there, as the Director of the Expedition, I opened the excavations, and from the ruins of the huge cake I rescued and distributed its buried treasures - antiquities fresh from Tiffany's. Finally the host proposed a toast to the expedition, but it happened by some chance that no glass was at my plate. Imagine my consternation when the guests were raising their glasses and were expressing wishes for my success, and I could not respond! Did it portend failure? Was it destined that success be denied me?”

FoodExplorationForeshadowingSumer
Book:Sumer and the Sumerians
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“Any flood would feel like the end of the world if your neighbors drowned and your community washed away. In Mesopotamia when torrential rains hit alongside spring snowmelt, the Tigris and Euphrates would burst their banks, growing the region under hundreds of miles of lakes. Archaeologists say an ancient Sumerian city called Shurrupak (Iraq's Tell Fara) was laid waste by flood nearly 5,000 years ago. A Babylonian version of GILGAMESH mentions Shurrupak by name. It describes a deluge that wipes out mankind, and a pious king called Ziusudra who overhears from a sympathetic god that the great flood is on its way. Ziusudra builds a huge boat and survives.”

WeatherArkFloodingBabylonAncient CivilizationsMesopotamiaGilgameshSumerGreat FloodEuphrates River
Book:Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
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“When the poet finds it advisable to repeat a given description or incident, he makes this repeated passage coincide with the original to the very last detail. Thus when a god or hero orders his messenger to deliver a message, this message, no matter how long and detailed, is given twice in the text, first when the messenger is instructed by his master, and a second time when the message is actually delivered.”

PoetryStyle Of WritingSumer
Book:Sumerian Mythology
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“Incredible as it may seem, however, this pinpoint historian, this Toynbee in reverse, has something of unusual interest (an "ace in the hole," as it were) to offer to the general reader. The Sumerologist, more than most other scholars and specialists, is in a position to satisfy man's universal quest for origins — for "firsts" in the history of civilization.”

HistoryOriginsSumerSumerlogy
Book:History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History
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“The third zone consists of the flat alluvial plain between the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. It comprises the ancient kingdom of Sumer in the south of the plain, and Akkad in the north, and according to tradition was the site of the Garden of Eden. Looking at it today it is hard to understand why this featureless waste, exposed to every extreme of heat, flood and storm, should ever have been identified with the original land of plenty and ease. Yet, in spite of its apparent inhospitality, the soil is immensely fertile, capable of producing a huge agricultural surplus which underpinned what is arguably the earliest civilisation in the world. The Sumerian civilisation is in many ways the classic example of the Toynbee theory of 'stimulus and response' or, in less academic terms, of necessity being the mother of invention. [...] It is not entirely frivolous to suggest that if the region had been more hospitable the Sumerian civilisation might not have developed as early as it did.”

SumerToynbee
Book:Sumer and the Sumerians
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