[CHAPTER IV]
THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS IN SUMER; THE DAWN OF HISTORY AND THE RISE OF LAGASH
In their origin the great cities of Babylonia were little more than collections of rude huts constructed at first of reeds cut in the marshes, and gradually giving place to rather more substantial buildings of clay and sun-dried brick. From the very beginning it would appear that the shrine of the local god played an important part in the foundation and subsequent development of each centre of population. Of the prehistoric period in Babylonia we know little, but it may be assumed that, already at the time of the Sumerian immigration, rude settlements had been formed around the cult-centres of local gods. This, at any rate, was the character of each town or city of the Sumerians themselves during the earliest periods to which we can trace back their history. At Fâra, the most primitive Sumerian site that has yet been examined, we find the god Shuruppak giving his own name to the city around his shrine, and Ningirsu of Lagash dominates and directs his people from the first. Other city-gods, who afterwards became powerful deities in the Babylonian pantheon, are already in existence, and have acquired in varying degrees their later characters. Enki of Eridu is already the god of the deep, the shrine of Enzu or Nannar in the city of Ur is a centre of the moon-cult, Babbar of Larsa appears already as a sun-god and the dispenser of law and justice, while the most powerful Sumerian goddess, Ninni or Nanâ of Erech, already has her shrine and worshippers in the city of her choice.
By what steps the city-gods acquired their later characters it is impossible now to say, but we may assume that the process was a gradual one. In the earlier stages of its history the character of the local god, like that of his city, must have been far more simple and primitive than it appears to us as seen in the light of its later development. The authority of each god did not extend beyond the limits of his own people's territory. Each city was content to do battle on his behalf, and the defeat of one was synonymous with the downfall of the other. With the gradual amalgamation of the cities into larger states, the god of the predominant city would naturally take precedence over those of the conquered or dependent towns, and to the subsequent process of adjustment we may probably trace the relationships between the different deities and the growth of a pantheon. That Enki should have been the god of the deep from the beginning is natural enough in view of Eridu's position on an expanse of water connected with the Persian Gulf. But how it came about that Ur was the centre of a moon-cult, or that Sippar in the north and Larsa in the south were peculiarly associated with the worship of the sun, are questions which cannot as yet be answered, though it is probable that future excavations on their sites may throw some light upon the subject.
In the case of one city excavation has already enabled us to trace the gradual growth of its temple and the surrounding habitations during a considerable portion of their history. The city of Nippur stands in a peculiar relation to others in Sumer and Akkad, as being the central shrine in the two countries and the seat of Enlil, the chief of the gods. Niffer, or Nuffar, is the name by which the mounds marking its site are still known. They have been long deserted, and, like the sites of many other ancient cities in Babylonia and Assyria, no modern town or village is built upon them or in their immediate neighbourhood. The nearest small town is Sûk el-'Afej, about four miles to the south, lying on the eastern edge of the Afej marshes, which begin to the south of Niffer and stretch away to the west. The nearest large town is Dîwânîya, on the left bank of the Euphrates twenty miles to the south-west. In the summer the marshes in the neighbourhood of the mounds consist of pools of water connected by channels through the reed-beds, but in the spring, when the snows have melted in the Taurus and the mountains of Kurdistan, the flood-water converts the marshes into a vast lagoon, and all that meets the eye are isolated date-palms and a few small hamlets built on rising knolls above the water-level.
Although, during the floods, Niffer is at times nearly isolated, the water never approaches within a considerable distance of the actual mounds. This is not due to any natural configuration of the soil, but to the fact that around the inner city, the site of which is marked by the mounds, there was built an outer ring of habitations at a time when the enclosed town of the earlier periods became too small to contain the growing population. The American excavations, which have been conducted on the site between the years 1889 and 1900, have shown that the earliest area of habitation was far more restricted than the mounds which cover the inner city.[1] In the plan on p. 88 it will be seen that this portion of the site is divided into two parts by the ancient bed of the Shatt en-Nîl. The contours of the mounds are indicated by dotted lines, and each of them bears a number in Roman figures. Mound III. is that which covered E-kur, the temple of Enlil, and it was around the shrine, in the shaded area upon the plan, that the original village or settlement was probably built. Here in the lowest stratum of the mound were found large beds of wood-ashes and animal bones, the remains of the earliest period of occupation.
