From the article archive
Writing Practice, Dec. 1st 2001
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The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate
Part Four: Lay We Down by the Sweet Flowing Water
When the Sumerians entered the land of Mesopotamia it was already inhabited by another people. These were a taller, darker skinned folk, with medium brown hair. They were relative new comers to Mesopotamia, having first learned of agriculture and village life in the highlands west of the rivers. The people who were there before them had either died off, or fled into the mountains. There the Sumerians had driven them into extinction, for they would not be reasoned with.
The Sumerian "invasion" was a slow thing, with Sumerian tribes and clans wandering into the valley. Being a peaceful people, the natives were quite unprepared to resist the Sumerian onslaught. It took but a few centuries for the black-headed people to take control of the southern third of Mesopotamia.
Again they recreated their villages, towns and cities. Again they started to learn the art of writing. In this case adopting the signs their servants had invented and elaborating upon them. They expanded upon the primitive channels their predecessors had created to guide water from the rivers to the fields, building the first canals.
But not all of the people of Sumer came down out of the mountains. There were those who had grown to love the land they had fought so hard to get through. So there were those who stayed in the southern edge of the Iranian Plateau. They soon became estranged from their cousins, and as those who had moved to the new land grew wealthy, those who had stayed behind became jealous. It was not long before they began raiding the lowlanders.
Thanks to the raids by the people of the land of Elam the Sumerians learned well the art of war. That, and the almost constant fighting that occured between Sumerian cities. Still, there was time for agriculture and trade. As well as erecting primitive monuments. Trade too prospered, with Sumerian merchants traveling far and wide with goods for barter.
Copper and tin for bronze, stone and wood for buildings was brought to the cities. Sun and fire brick was sent to the highlands and mountains. Gold, silver, and precious stones to adorn the rich and bedeck the gods.
It was a time of heroes, when gods walked the world and kings walked with the gods. This is the time of the god-king Gilgamesh. The Lord of Ur who slew the demon god of the land of cedars and spoke with Zuisudra of Dilmun of the sweet water
It was during this time that the Sumerians founded cities up and down the length of the twin rivers. Most started as trading posts, but a few were established as full fledged cities. Many of the great cities we know today began as Sumerian settlements.
But things were not going as well as one might think. You see, the Sumerians had become a largely urban people. Their predecssors in Mesopotamia were the ones who lived in the villages, the ones who tended the fields that fed Sumerian cities. In those days disease took a greater toll than today, for the healing magicks we know now did not exist back then. The Sumerians were starting to die out.
It would be millennia before the Sumerians as a people would disappear from the Ærth. They would forge empires and discover new lands. Sumerians would travel to the mouth of the Indus River and the Valley of the Nylle. They would leave behind literally tons of writing, epics, hymns, and tax records that aid us today in understanding the Children of the People of Dilmun.
By 2,000 BAF the Sumerians were gone as a distinct ethnic group. Their language was still spoken, but as a liturgical language only. A new people had come to replace them, a people who spoke a different language, who worshipped different gods. The Sumerian deities themselves had withdrawn to the realms beyond the world, as had the deities of many other countries, there to live quiet lives and tend to the prayers of the few who still worshipped them. Their successors called themselves Sumerians, but they were a different people altogether.
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Before I close I have another subject to write about, pyramids. I have heard stories of those who say that it was creatures from other worlds who taught the Sumerians, Ægyptians, and Mayans how to build pyramids. This ignores the obvious fact that the Mayans didn't even exist as a people at the same time as the Sumerians and Ægyptians. Now consider that there is no evidence that the Sumerians and the early Ægyptians were ever in contact when the each built their first. Such would occur centuries later.
The gods Set and Inanna were asked about this in a recent interview. I shall let them speak for themselves.
Set: Outworlders and pyramids? The question is about...
Inanna: [indistinct]
Set: Oh, thank you. Did outworlders build... Yeah, and Yahweh of Shamash is the one true god.
[Scattered laughter from the audience]
Set: As big an Ægyptian chauvinist as I am, I must confess it was the Sumerians who came up with the idea first. Something to do with recreating their mountain...
Inanna [interrupting]: They hated the mountains. Couldn't wait to get out of them and into a place where they could recreate their homes back in lost Dilmun. Even after millennia of wandering through the valleys and highlands of Persia it was the lowlands they pined for.
From the audience: Then why the pyramids, the ziggurats?
Inanna [shrugging}: To be closer to us, their gods. Even then we tended to live apart from the mortals, only coming to visit on occasion.
Set: In Ægypt the pyramids were built to house the body of Pharoah. A very different purpose. It's why Khufu gave his smooth sides, to discourage people from climbing it.
Inanna (interjecting): I could've told him it wouldn't work.
Set [laughing]: I know. It was but a year after his death that the first man to climb his monument reached the top. Pissed Mr. "Ra Incarnate" off no end.
[general merriment]
From the audience: What about the Mayan pyramids?
Inanna: The Mayans built their's for two purposes. As a place to bury their dead kings, and to get closer to their gods. Sort of combining the purpose of Ægyptian pyramids and Sumerians Ziggurats.
Set: And they used an innovation neither the Sumerians or the early Ægyptians ever did. Instead of building the whole thing out of sun brick or stone, they piled up dirt and rubble, and lined the heap with dressed stone. Something we never thought of I must confess.
Inanna: Sped up pyramid construction remarkably.
Question from the audience: But weren't the pyramids beyond Sumerian or Ægyptian technology of the time? Certainly their magick.
Set [looking a bit peeved]: Beyond their...? Son, the pyramids are piles of rocks. Well constructed piles of rocks, but piles of rocks. If I were some highly advanced being from another world I'd build something more advanced than a pile of rocks. A huge dome for instance. Neither the Sumerians or the early Ægyptians had the skills to build any kind of dome. A 5,000 year old dome in the midst of mud huts and fire brick palaces would say "outworlders" more than a pile of rocks.
Moderator: It's time for the next panel, and Set and Inanna have an autograph session coming up. I thank you all for attending and hope you found it informative.
Set [whispering, but not low enough]: "Beyond Ægyptian technology of the time." Right, and Isis stuffed me in a chest and dropped me in the Nylle to drown. What kind of idiot would believe crap like that?
*******
Coming up: An article on appearance in RPGs. Till then.
Alan
BTW, I've decided to be more honest in how I appraise my own writing, thus I gave this an "8". I do like it, but it's not the best thing to go up on GO.
The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate
Part Four: Lay We Down by the Sweet Flowing Water
When the Sumerians entered the land of Mesopotamia it was already inhabited by another people. These were a taller, darker skinned folk, with medium brown hair. They were relative new comers to Mesopotamia, having first learned of agriculture and village life in the highlands west of the rivers. The people who were there before them had either died off, or fled into the mountains. There the Sumerians had driven them into extinction, for they would not be reasoned with.
The Sumerian "invasion" was a slow thing, with Sumerian tribes and clans wandering into the valley. Being a peaceful people, the natives were quite unprepared to resist the Sumerian onslaught. It took but a few centuries for the black-headed people to take control of the southern third of Mesopotamia.
Again they recreated their villages, towns and cities. Again they started to learn the art of writing. In this case adopting the signs their servants had invented and elaborating upon them. They expanded upon the primitive channels their predecessors had created to guide water from the rivers to the fields, building the first canals.
But not all of the people of Sumer came down out of the mountains. There were those who had grown to love the land they had fought so hard to get through. So there were those who stayed in the southern edge of the Iranian Plateau. They soon became estranged from their cousins, and as those who had moved to the new land grew wealthy, those who had stayed behind became jealous. It was not long before they began raiding the lowlanders.
Thanks to the raids by the people of the land of Elam the Sumerians learned well the art of war. That, and the almost constant fighting that occured between Sumerian cities. Still, there was time for agriculture and trade. As well as erecting primitive monuments. Trade too prospered, with Sumerian merchants traveling far and wide with goods for barter.
Copper and tin for bronze, stone and wood for buildings was brought to the cities. Sun and fire brick was sent to the highlands and mountains. Gold, silver, and precious stones to adorn the rich and bedeck the gods.
It was a time of heroes, when gods walked the world and kings walked with the gods. This is the time of the god-king Gilgamesh. The Lord of Ur who slew the demon god of the land of cedars and spoke with Zuisudra of Dilmun of the sweet water
It was during this time that the Sumerians founded cities up and down the length of the twin rivers. Most started as trading posts, but a few were established as full fledged cities. Many of the great cities we know today began as Sumerian settlements.
But things were not going as well as one might think. You see, the Sumerians had become a largely urban people. Their predecssors in Mesopotamia were the ones who lived in the villages, the ones who tended the fields that fed Sumerian cities. In those days disease took a greater toll than today, for the healing magicks we know now did not exist back then. The Sumerians were starting to die out.
It would be millennia before the Sumerians as a people would disappear from the Ærth. They would forge empires and discover new lands. Sumerians would travel to the mouth of the Indus River and the Valley of the Nylle. They would leave behind literally tons of writing, epics, hymns, and tax records that aid us today in understanding the Children of the People of Dilmun.
By 2,000 BAF the Sumerians were gone as a distinct ethnic group. Their language was still spoken, but as a liturgical language only. A new people had come to replace them, a people who spoke a different language, who worshipped different gods. The Sumerian deities themselves had withdrawn to the realms beyond the world, as had the deities of many other countries, there to live quiet lives and tend to the prayers of the few who still worshipped them. Their successors called themselves Sumerians, but they were a different people altogether.
*******
*******
Before I close I have another subject to write about, pyramids. I have heard stories of those who say that it was creatures from other worlds who taught the Sumerians, Ægyptians, and Mayans how to build pyramids. This ignores the obvious fact that the Mayans didn't even exist as a people at the same time as the Sumerians and Ægyptians. Now consider that there is no evidence that the Sumerians and the early Ægyptians were ever in contact when the each built their first. Such would occur centuries later.
The gods Set and Inanna were asked about this in a recent interview. I shall let them speak for themselves.
Set: Outworlders and pyramids? The question is about...
Inanna: [indistinct]
Set: Oh, thank you. Did outworlders build... Yeah, and Yahweh of Shamash is the one true god.
[Scattered laughter from the audience]
Set: As big an Ægyptian chauvinist as I am, I must confess it was the Sumerians who came up with the idea first. Something to do with recreating their mountain...
Inanna [interrupting]: They hated the mountains. Couldn't wait to get out of them and into a place where they could recreate their homes back in lost Dilmun. Even after millennia of wandering through the valleys and highlands of Persia it was the lowlands they pined for.
From the audience: Then why the pyramids, the ziggurats?
Inanna [shrugging}: To be closer to us, their gods. Even then we tended to live apart from the mortals, only coming to visit on occasion.
Set: In Ægypt the pyramids were built to house the body of Pharoah. A very different purpose. It's why Khufu gave his smooth sides, to discourage people from climbing it.
Inanna (interjecting): I could've told him it wouldn't work.
Set [laughing]: I know. It was but a year after his death that the first man to climb his monument reached the top. Pissed Mr. "Ra Incarnate" off no end.
[general merriment]
From the audience: What about the Mayan pyramids?
Inanna: The Mayans built their's for two purposes. As a place to bury their dead kings, and to get closer to their gods. Sort of combining the purpose of Ægyptian pyramids and Sumerians Ziggurats.
Set: And they used an innovation neither the Sumerians or the early Ægyptians ever did. Instead of building the whole thing out of sun brick or stone, they piled up dirt and rubble, and lined the heap with dressed stone. Something we never thought of I must confess.
Inanna: Sped up pyramid construction remarkably.
Question from the audience: But weren't the pyramids beyond Sumerian or Ægyptian technology of the time? Certainly their magick.
Set [looking a bit peeved]: Beyond their...? Son, the pyramids are piles of rocks. Well constructed piles of rocks, but piles of rocks. If I were some highly advanced being from another world I'd build something more advanced than a pile of rocks. A huge dome for instance. Neither the Sumerians or the early Ægyptians had the skills to build any kind of dome. A 5,000 year old dome in the midst of mud huts and fire brick palaces would say "outworlders" more than a pile of rocks.
Moderator: It's time for the next panel, and Set and Inanna have an autograph session coming up. I thank you all for attending and hope you found it informative.
Set [whispering, but not low enough]: "Beyond Ægyptian technology of the time." Right, and Isis stuffed me in a chest and dropped me in the Nylle to drown. What kind of idiot would believe crap like that?
*******
Coming up: An article on appearance in RPGs. Till then.
Alan
BTW, I've decided to be more honest in how I appraise my own writing, thus I gave this an "8". I do like it, but it's not the best thing to go up on GO.
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.