Hi
Is it correct to talk of early Egyptians and Sumerian culture in the same breath?
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Gold.html#b
“…early Egyptians (the Sumerian culture of Mesopotamia)”
I look forward to your feedback
davidmich
Well, it would depend what you were saying about them, but they were quite different cultures in quite widely separated places, and the first paragraph at your link is certainly entirely wrong to imply that Egyptians were part of “the Sumerian culture of Mesopotamia”.
If it had said something like “early Egyptians (like the Sumerian culture of Mesopotamia) used mined gold to craft elaborate jewelry …”, (the word “like” inserted) it would have been fine. Perhaps that is what was intended.
No, it isn’t. That sentence is an abomination.
No, the land between them was mostly inhospitable. Most migration happened in a large upside-down U shape that went up and around the Arabian desert. Even then, you need to sneak through a small tunnel of vegetation along the North side of the Sinai Peninsula.
They definitely knew about one another, and probably did influence one another to some extent, but not significantly.
The closest that I can think of to Sumerian culture dominating Egyptian is the Hyksos, who took over the Northern chunk of the Nile for a while. It’s plausible that they were descended from the Amorites, who migrated from Sumeria into the Northern Levant pretty soon before the Hyksos rushed over the Sinai to claim Egypt. But even though the Amorites lived in the region of Sumeria, they were Semites, not Sumerian.
I tend to agree. It is a botched sentence in every respect. Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations had their similarities through cultural contact but also stark differences: cosmology, cosmogony, governmental hierarchy and administration, writing, dress and te concept of kingship.
I checked to see if it made sense in context.
No. it makes no sense at all.
Thank you all. Very helpful.
davidmich
You might check out this new book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline. A lot of info on early civilizations.
Tank you bunyupp. I’ll have a look at it.
davidmich
very ancient cultures did have some broad similarities, guys. And the cultures of mesopotamia were even more similar to each other than that, though still different
for one thing, their religions were sex-positive, and mesmerized by the concept of fertility. Lots of metaphors between water/rain and semen and fertility and sex. That’s where stories like Onan come from, and other similar Bible verses. They all had primitive agriculture, missing a lot of crops that we have nowadays, since they hadn’t been brought yet. Even the chicken hadn’t made it there yet. They had simplistic monarchies with brutal enforcement of laws, and the laws dealt with cultural life as much as civic life. No concept of civil rights or democracy. They all had marriage, and I think polygymist marriage.
they were loosely similar and very primitive by modern standards. Civilization was just starting
Consider the actual statement in the link
The writer is stating that the predynastic Naqada culturein the middle of Egypt were a pre Sumerian (Uruk period) culture.
No one here is arguing that similar environments and pressure don’t lead to similar approaches but to say that pre-dynastic Egypt was a Sumerian cultural offshoot is nuts.
To be generous maybe the author meant the Naqada were the Egyptian region’s Sumerian parallel.