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Ethnogenesis
Cf. supra 6.8: [nomi delle città nel quarto millennio legato alla questione delle origini
più decisiva che non il rapporto fra città sumeriche che costituiscono una] TEXT TO BE COMPLETED.
The language of the early cuneiform texts, and of the personal names contained therein, is Sumerian. However, these same texts give evidence of an earlier language, which may be linked with the ethnic group which was responsible for the agricultural revolution. This language, which would be the oldest for which we possess any evidence, has been postulated by Landsberger (MANE 1/2, on reserve) on the basis of evidence which is only circumstantial, but convincing. The words for certain types of activities which would have first arisen at the time of the agricultural revolution (e.g., farmer, potter, carpenter), as well as the words for certain types of early plants (e.g., wheat) were all of a uniform phonological structure, foreign to Sumerian (e.g., egar, pahar, nagar, lahar, respectively for the words mentioned above). Other words which are similar in phonological structure may also belong to this linguistic layer (e.g., digir “god”). Similarly, proper names that share similar phonological traits and are not explained as either Sumerian or Semitic may belong to this stage (e.g. Banana, Pazuzu, Huwawa, ‘Igigi). This may imply the existence of an early, pre-Sumerian ethnic group, which Landsberger called “Proto-Tigridians,” assuming that they lived in the piedmont area to the Northeast where some of the early transformations took place.
At what point the Sumerians arrived, and from where, is not known - this is the so-called Sumerian problem. Some scholars have argued that the early city-names are not Sumerian, and that therefore the Sumerians arrived even after the establishment of urban civilization (geographical names are by nature conservative, whereas onomastics tends to change); however, it has been objected (Jacobsen) that some, at least, of the names may be explained as belonging to an archaic form of Sumerian, and that the others too may reflect the same tradition. In favor of a late arrival of the Sumerians it has on the other hand been observed (Kramer) that early Sumerian literature reflects a heroic state which may be linked with a period of Sumerian invasions into Mesopotamia. This, however, is a tenuous argument: heroic style cannot be exclusively linked with invasions, nor can one assume that all Sumerian epic literature issues from a single group of invading Sumerians. Finally, there is a certain break of continuity in the artistic style of artifacts dated just before the urban revolution, and specifically at the transition from what is known, in archaeological parlance, as the Halaf period to Ubaid: however, the differences between artefactual assemblages would have to be very sharp for it to be validly attributed to external factors, and in this particular case the evidence is not sufficient.
All in all, then, there is no conclusive evidence that the Sumerians were not in Southern Mesopotamia for a long time before the urban revolution, and were responsible for its maturation and implementation. While the issue cannot be resolved in a clear cut way, it is certain that a non-Sumerian component was present next to Sumerian, and may conceivably have been present from before their arrival as a substratum. Besides “Proto-Tigridians,” the most commonly used term to refer to them is “Subarian,” from the name Subartu used in the Mesopotamian sources to refer to the North.
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