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." But the Sumerian legal system, and the enforcement of justice, go back even farther in time.By 2600 B.C.so much must already have happened in Sumer that the ensi Urukagina found it necessaryto institute reforms.A long inscription by him has been called by scholars a precious record of man'sfirst social reform based on a sense of freedom, equality, and justice - a "French Revolution" imposed bya king 4,400 years before July 14, 1789.The reform decree of Urukagina listed the evils of his time first, then the reforms.The evils consistedprimarily of the unfair use by supervisors of their powers to take the best for themselves; the abuse ofofficial status; the extortion of high prices by monopolistic groups.All such injustices, and many more, were prohibited by the reform decree.An official could no longerset his own price "for a good donkey or a house." A "big man" could no longer coerce a common citizen.The rights of the blind, poor, widowed, and orphaned were restated.A divorced woman - nearly 5,000years ago - was granted the protection of the law.How long had Sumerian civilization existed that it required a major reform? Clearly, a long time, forUrukagina claimed that it was his god Ningirsu who called upon him "to restore the decrees of formerdays." The clear implication is that a return to even older systems and earlier laws was called for.The Sumerian laws were upheld by a court system in which the proceedings and judgments as well ascontracts were meticulously recorded and preserved.The justices acted more like juries than judges; acourt was usually made up of three or four judges, one of whom was a professional "royal judge" and theothers drawn from a panel of thirty-six men.While the Babylonians made rules and regulations, the Sumerians were concerned with justice, for theybelieved that the gods appointed the kings primarily to assure justice in the land.More than one parallel can be drawn here with the concepts of justice and morality of the OldTestament.Even before the Hebrews had kings, they were governed by judges; kings were judged notby their conquests or wealth but by the extent to which they "did the righteous thing." In the Jewishreligion, the New Year marks a ten-day period during which the deeds of men are weighed andevaluated to determine their fate in the coming year.It is probably more than a coincidence that theSumerians be-lieved that a deity named Nanshe annually judged Mankind in the same manner; after all,the first Hebrew patriarch - Abraham - came from the Sumerian city of Ur, the city of Ur-Nammu andhis code.The Sumerian concern with justice or its absence also found expression in what Kramer called "the first'Job.'" Matching together fragments of clay tablets at the Istanbul Museum of Antiquities, Kramer wasable to read a good part of a Sumerian poem which, like the biblical Book of Job, dealt with thecomplaint of a righteous man who, instead of being blessed by the gods, was made to suffer all mannerof loss and disrespect."My righteous word has been turned into a lie," he cried out in anguish.In its second part, the anonymous sufferer petitions his god in a manner akin to some verses in theHebrew Psalms:My god, you who are my father, who.begot me - -lift up my face.How long will you neglect me,leave me unprotected.leave me without guidance?Then follows a happy ending."The righteous words, the pure words uttered by him, his god accepted;.his god withdrew his hand from the evil pronouncement."Preceding the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes by some two millennia, Sumerian proverbs conveyed manyof the same concepts and witticisms.If we are doomed to die - let us spend; If we shall live long - let us save.When a poor man dies, do not try to revive him.He who possesses much silver, may be happy; He who possesses much barley, may be happy; But whohas nothing at all, can sleep!Man: For his pleasure: Marriage; On his thinking it over: Divorce.It is not the heart which leads to enmity; it is the tongue which leads to enmity.In a city without watchdogs, the fox is the overseer.The material and spiritual achievements of the Sumerian civilization were also accompanied by anextensive devel-opment of the performing arts.A team of scholars from the University of California atBerkeley made news in March 1974 when they announced that they had de-ciphered the world's oldestsong.What professors Richard L.Crocker, Anne D.Kilmer, and Robert R.Brown achieved was to readand actually play the musical notes written on a cuneiform tablet from circa 1800 B.C., found at Ugariton the Mediterranean coast (now in Syria)."We always knew," the Berkeley team explained, "that (here was music in the earlier Assyrio-Babylonian civiliza-tion, but until this deciphering we did not know that it had the same heptatonic-diatonic scale that is characteristic of contemporary Western music, and of Greek music of the firstmillennium B.C." Until now it was thought that Western music originated in Greece; now it has beenestablished that our music - as so much else of Western civilization - originated in Mesopotamia.Thisshould not be surprising, for the Greek scholar Philo had already stilted that the Mesopotamians were known to "seek world-wide harmony and unison through the musical tones"There can be no doubt that music and song must also be claimed as a Sumerian "first." Indeed,.ProfessorCrocker could play the ancient tune only by constructing a lyre like those which had been found in theruins of Ur.Texts from the second millennium B.C.indicate the existence of musical "key numbers" anda coherent musical theory; and Professor Kilmer herself wrote earlier (The Strings of MusicalInstruments: Their Names, Numbers and Significance) that many Sumerian hymnal texts had "whatappear to be musical notations in the margins." "The Sumerians and their successors had a full musicallife," she concluded.No wonder, then, that we find a great variety of musical instruments - as well as ofsingers and dancers performing - depicted on cylinder seals and clay tablets.Like so many other Sumerian achievements, music and song also originated in the temples.But,beginning in the service of the gods, these performing arts soon were also prevalent outside the temples.Employing the favorite Sumerian play on words, a popular saying commented on the fees charged bysingers: "A singer whose voice is not sweet is a 'poor' singer indeed."Many Sumerian love songs have been found; they were undoubtedly sung to musical accompaniment [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]