The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).[75]. COVID-19 Update: Please consider making payments or gifts on our secure online store. The early inhabitants of this region were predominantly Semitic, and their speech is called Akkadian. As early as 1849 Hincks had also concluded that the language of the inventors of cuneiform was not in fact Akkadian and that the system of writing derived from a people who spoke a non-Semitic language. The gods were said to have created human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. Thorkild Jacobsen has argued that there is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semitic vs. Sumerian" conflict. Our accumulated body of knowledge, most notably, suggests that these writings are scientifically grounded and authentic and their content is clear. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects, like statues or bricks, are also very common. [93], The Indus Valley Civilization only flourished in its most developed form between 2400 and 1800 BC, but at the time of these exchanges, it was a much larger entity than the Mesopotamian civilization, covering an area of 1.2 million square meters with thousands of settlements, compared to an area of only about 65.000 square meters for the occupied area of Mesopotamia, while the largest cities were comparable in size at about 3040,000 inhabitants. [62]:9192, From the earliest records, the Sumerians had very relaxed attitudes toward sex[63] and their sexual mores were determined not by whether a sexual act was deemed immoral, but rather by whether or not it made a person ritually unclean. Genders, man and woman wear straight skirts and shawls in Babylon. His empire collapsed shortly after his death. They wrapped around the body and tied with a belt at the waist to hold the skirts up. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Series IV 16. Sumerian princess of the time of Gudea c. 2150 BC. [14] The Akkadians also called the Sumerians 'black-headed people', or almat-qaqqadi, in the Semitic Akkadian language. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians may have been the people living in the Persian Gulf region before it flooded at the end of the last Ice Age. Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement, "The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary: sagiga[humankind]", "Ancient Mesopotamia. By the Ur III period, farmers had switched from wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley as their principal crop. Summary. Sumerian speakers were among the earliest people to record their beliefs in writing, and were a major inspiration in later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology. By the late nineteenth century, culture and civilization were being thought of as biologically determined by race. Eighty-two years later (1526), Spanish explorers brought the first African slaves to settlements in what would become the United Statesa fact the Times gets wrong. 77 The mortals were indeed the Sumerians, a non-Semitic racial type that conquered southern Babylonia, and the deities were Semitic, taken over by the newly arrived Sumerians from the indigenous Semites. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. There is also anecdotal evidence the Sumerians may have used a type of slide rule in astronomical calculations. These early chariots functioned less effectively in combat than did later designs, and some have suggested that these chariots served primarily as transports, though the crew carried battle-axes and lances. In Kessler, Herbert L.; Simpson, Marianna Shreve. The Sumerians' cuneiform script is the oldest (or second oldest after the Egyptian hieroglyphs) which has been deciphered (the status of even older inscriptions such as the Jiahu symbols and Tartaria tablets is controversial). Edward Hincks (1792-1866), oil on canvas, copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford. [22][23] Alternatively, a recent (2013) genetic analysis of four ancient Mesopotamian skeletal DNA samples suggests an association of the Sumerians with Indus Valley Civilization, possibly as a result of ancient Indus-Mesopotamia relations. Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted as vernacular languages for about one thousand years, but by around 1800 BC, Sumerian was becoming more of a literary language familiar mainly only to scholars and scribes. Their descendants are the African Diaspora of North and South America [105] Ki is the Sumerian word for earth, and she was personified as a goddess and female counterpart to An (the heaven god). When You Breathe In Your Diaphragm Does What. [59]:78 These marriages became legal as soon as the groom delivered a bridal gift to his bride's father. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. While it can be read, making sense of things requires understanding how Sumerians used metaphors. WebSemite, name given in the 19th century to a member of any people who speak one of the Semitic languages, a family of languages spoken primarily in parts of western Asia and Africa. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}32N 46E / 32N 46E / 32; 46, (Shamshi-Adad dynasty18081736 BCE)(Amorites)Shamshi-Adad I Ishme-Dagan I Mut-Ashkur Rimush Asinum Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi [25][26][27], A prehistoric people who lived in the region before the Sumerians have been termed the "Proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[28] and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. How did the Sumerians know about human DNA over 5000 years ago? A woman (munus) went from being a daughter (dumu-mi), to a wife (dam), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (numasu) and she could then remarry another man who was from the same tribe. 2001. It was their literary compositions that were used by twentieth century scholars to maintain a compelling picture of the Sumerians as a distinct people. This pattern continued to influence regional Mesopotamian myths. During the Akkadian and Ur III phases, there was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley, but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three-fifths. Mirroring the way that muddy islands emerge from the confluence of fresh and salty water at the mouth of the Euphrates, where the river deposits its load of silt, a second hieros gamos supposedly resulted in the creation of Anshar and Kishar, the "sky-pivot" (or axle), and the "earth pivot", parents in turn of Anu (the sky) and Ki (the earth). Mud-brick buildings eventually deteriorate, so they were periodically destroyed, leveled, and rebuilt on the same spot. This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward the north. Credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing and the wheel, they hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. While Shuruppaks fatherly wisdom is one of the most ancient examples of written literature, historys oldest known fictional story is probably the Epic of Gilgamesh, a mythic poem that first appeared as early as the third millennium B.C. Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef, (Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser Shalmaneser Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon Sennacherib Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II, Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes. Wall plaque showing libations to a seated god and a temple. (Adaside dynasty1700722 BCE)Bel-bani Libaya Sharma-Adad I Iptar-Sin Bazaya Lullaya Shu-Ninua Sharma-Adad II Erishum III Shamshi-Adad II Ishme-Dagan II Shamshi-Adad III Ashur-nirari I Puzur-Ashur III Enlil-nasir I Nur-ili Ashur-shaduni Ashur-rabi I Ashur-nadin-ahhe I Enlil-Nasir II Ashur-nirari II Ashur-bel-nisheshu Ashur-rim-nisheshu Ashur-nadin-ahhe II, Second Intermediate PeriodSixteenthDynasty As for the Atlantic slave trade, this began in 1444 A.D., when Portuguese traders brought the first large number of slaves from Africa to Europe. [106] They were denominated in barley or other crops and the interest rate was typically much higher than for commercial loans and could amount to 1/3 to 1/2 of the loan principal. The Nodites, a race that started about 200,000 years ago, had black hair. Although the writing system was first hieroglyphic using ideograms, logosyllabic cuneiform soon followed. [65]:151. For other uses, see. [35], The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is considered to have been one of the oldest cities, where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.[35]. [6][9][10], The origin of the Sumerians is not known, but the people of Sumer referred to themselves as "Black Headed Ones" or "Black-Headed People"[6][11][12][13] ( , sag-gg, lit. This is consistent with Andonite genetic heritage, which gave rise 500,000 years ago to the six Sangik races. Most historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke WebThe Sumerians are said to have originated in the Middle East and their descendants are the modern Assyrians, Mandaeans, Iraqi Arabs and the Marsh Arabs. Some archaeologists have speculated that the original speakers of ancient Sumerian may have been farmers, who moved down from the north of Mesopotamia after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. Another important Sumerian hieros gamos was that between Ki, here known as Ninhursag or "Lady of the Mountains", and Enki of Eridu, the god of fresh water which brought forth greenery and pasture. [77] Human sacrifice was found in the death pits at the Ur royal cemetery where Queen Puabi was accompanied in death by her servants. Sumer, located in Mesopotamia, is the first known complex civilization, having developed the first city-states in the 4th millennium BCE. Each of these cities was like an independent country. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. This made it a melting pot of languages and cultures that stimulated a lasting impact on writing, technology, language, trade, religion, and law. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple, though they could avoid it by a payment of silver. The world population at this time has been estimated at 27 million.[54]. Winter, Irene J. The Best Technical and Innovative Podcasts you should Listen, Essay Writing Service: The Best Solution for Busy Students, 6 The Best Alternatives for WhatsApp for Android, The Best Solar Street Light Manufacturers Across the World, Ultimate packing list while travelling with your dog. Conjointly with the spread of writing, the first formal schools were established, usually under the auspices of a city-state's primary temple. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force. Sumerian masons and jewelers knew and made use of alabaster (calcite), ivory, iron, gold, silver, carnelian, and lapis lazuli. The decipherment of cuneiform in the mid nineteenth century revealed that a majority of the known inscriptions recorded a Semitic language that would come to be termed Akkadian. It ended in the face of Amorite incursions at the beginning of the second millennium BC. A problem was therefore created around determining the supposed original homeland of the Sumerians and the exact point in time at which they had arrived in Mesopotamia. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. The cart was composed of a woven basket and the wheels had a solid three-piece design. WebWho were the ancestors of the Sumerians? This period saw the occupation of Mesopotamia by the British Empire during and after the First World War, leading to the establishment of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1921. Not a Friend of ASOR yet? Sumerian cities were surrounded by defensive walls. Others have suggested that the Sumerians descended from the mountains of the northeast. Sumerian religion seems to have been founded upon two separate cosmogenic myths. After a time the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the Ziggurat style.[79]. The temples organized the mass labour projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Sumerians believed in anthropomorphic The reconstruction of the Sumerian world as a story of racial conflict remained in place throughout much of the first half of the twentieth century. What was the race of Sumerians? Full libraries of clay tablets have been found. Unfortunately, the high evaporation rate resulted in a gradual increase in the salinity of the fields. The interest rate was set at 1/60 a month (one shekel per mina) some time before 2000 BC and it remained at that level for about two thousand years. Sign up here to receive ANE Today in your inbox weekly! The first set of names on the list is of kings said to have reigned before a major flood occurred. Next they made oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. [15], Most historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a non-Semitic and non-Indo-European agglutinative language isolate. For example, Imports to Ur came from many parts of the world. It was laid out on several clay tablets and is thought to be the earliest known surviving example of fictional literature. and became expansive and sang with joy!"[80]. During the great drought, two waves of marauding nomads descended upon the region, sacking the capital city of Ur. [34], Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. "[56], The Sumerians were one of the first known beer-drinking societies. [citation needed], Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerians, from the indigenous hunter-fisherfolk traditions, associated with the bifacial assemblages found on the Arabian littoral. drought The beginning of the tablet is lost, but the surviving portion begins by recounting how the gods An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursanga created the Sumerians and comfortable conditions for the animals to live and procreate. The black headed people that built the first WebBy about 2000 BCE, the Sumerians were speaking Akkadian and the Sumerian and Akkadian civilizations were regarded as a single people; there is no evidence in any [88], Evidence for imports from the Indus to Ur can be found from around 2350 BC. The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it was flooded at the end of the Ice Age. The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries are summarized as the "Dynasty of Isin" in the Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1800 BC. [citation needed], In the early Sumerian period, the primitive pictograms suggest[56] that, There is considerable evidence concerning Sumerian music. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian to other language families. They were made by a technique developed by the Harappan civilization", For a full list of discoveries of Indus seals in Mesopotamia, see. Sumerian artifacts show great detail and ornamentation, with fine semi-precious stones imported from other lands, such as lapis lazuli, marble, and diorite, and precious metals like hammered gold, incorporated into the design. The resultant hills, known as tells, are found throughout the ancient Near East. Examples of Sumerian technology include: the wheel, cuneiform script, arithmetic and geometry, irrigation systems, Sumerian boats, lunisolar calendar, bronze, leather, saws, chisels, hammers, braces, bits, nails, pins, rings, hoes, axes, knives, lancepoints, arrowheads, swords, glue, daggers, waterskins, bags, harnesses, armor, quivers, war chariots, scabbards, boots, sandals, harpoons and beer. Ancient Mesopotamia Through 7 Key Artifacts. The king-priest and his acolyte feeding the sacred herd. [49] However, it is certain that Akkadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were previously conquered, by Sargon. Their religious system was a complex one comprised of hundreds of gods. Customarily, rulers did it at the beginning of the first full year of their reign, but they could also be proclaimed at times of military conflict or crop failure. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, this period was associated with increased war. Proto-cuneiform tablet accounting for the distribution of fields, from Jemdet Nasr, Iraq, about 3100-2900 BC. Rather, it was farmers who built the pyramids during flooding, when they could not work in their lands. The Akkadians lived in northern Mesopotamia while the Sumerians lived in the south. [63] The Sumerians did not regard anal sex as taboo either. A large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in the Sumerian language have survived, including personal and business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, and daily records. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment. Uruk) era suggest that "Stone was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals. The credit for this must go to the Reverend Edward Hincks (1792-1866). 'head' + 'black', or , sag-gg-ga phonetically /sa i a/, lit. In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian uppu(m) ?) Discoveries of obsidian from far-away locations in Anatolia and lapis lazuli from Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan, beads from Dilmun (modern Bahrain), and several seals inscribed with the Indus Valley script suggest a remarkably wide-ranging network of ancient trade centered on the Persian Gulf. Naked priest offering libations to a Sumerian temple (detail), "The area in question (the extreme south of Mesopotamia) may now be called Sumer, and its inhabitants Sumerians, although these names are only English approximations of the Akkadian designations; the Sumerians themselves called their land Kengir, their language Emegir, and themselves Sag-giga, "black-headed ones." [93] Various inscriptions also mention the presence of Meluhha traders and interpreters in Mesopotamia. Although short-lived, one of the first empires known to history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur, and Larsa, and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma, arch-rival of Lagash. [48] Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures depicts vultures pecking at the severed heads and other body parts of his enemies. The Sumerians spoke a language isolate, but a number of linguists have claimed to be able to detect a substrate language of unknown classification beneath Sumerian because names of some of Sumer's major cities are not Sumerian, revealing influences of earlier inhabitants. [107] The first war recorded in any detail was between Lagash and Umma in c. 2450 BC on a stele called the Stele of the Vultures. The previous Lagash dynasty, Gudea and his descendants also promoted artistic development and left a large number of archaeological artifacts. Following the downfall of the Akkadian Empire at the hands of Gutians, another native Sumerian ruler, Gudea of Lagash, rose to local prominence and continued the practices of the Sargonic kings' claims to divinity. This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 06:54. After Mesopotamia was occupied by the Amorites and Babylonians in the early second millennium B.C., the Sumerians gradually lost their cultural identity and ceased to exist as a political force. Cities became walled, and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared. It shows the king of Lagash leading a Sumerian army consisting mostly of infantry. 1. According to Hudson, the purpose of these decrees was to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened the fighting force, which could happen if peasants lost their subsistence land or became bondservants due to inability to repay their debt. Later, the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu and Shulgi (c. 21122004 BC, middle chronology), whose power extended as far as southern Assyria, has been erroneously called a "Sumerian renaissance" in the past. The Sumerians developed a complex system of metrology c. 4000 BC. Large-scale excavations led by British and American archaeologists were made possible by the colonial administration and discoveries at sites like Ur and in the region of the Diyala River were fundamental in shaping how the Sumerians were imagined. At a basic level, the Sumerians can be defined by their language, which is recognisable in cuneiform texts dating from around 2800 BCE to the early centuries CE. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period. Examples of racial types from D.M MacKenzie, Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, 1915. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts. Small stones of all kinds, including more precious stones such as lapis lazuli, alabaster, and serpentine, were used for cylinder seals. Apparently there were at least 30,000 slaves in Egypt at different times of the nineteenth century, and probably many more. [105], The almost constant wars among the Sumerian city-states for 2000 years helped to develop the military technology and techniques of Sumer to a high level. Mesopotamia is a region of southwest Asia in the Tigris and Euphrates river system that benefitted from the areas climate and geography to host the beginnings of human civilization. [96][97], Several Indus seals with Harappan script have also been found in Mesopotamia, particularly in Ur, Babylon and Kish. The text usually referred to as the Sumerian King List (SKL) is a composition somewhere between a literary text and a list proper, which deals with the history of kingship in Babylonia from the beginning of time to the early centuries of the second millennium BCE. Sumerian was afterwards preserved in scribal schools as a prestigious written language, thereby creating a Sumero-Akkadian culture mastered by a small royal and scribal elite who were sufficiently privileged to receive a formal education. Sumer (/sumr/) is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Your email address will not be published. Relatively simple axes, saws, shovels, and picks made of stone and bronze were used regularly as part of a slaves work. When they came to the Earth, there was much work to be done and these gods toiled the soil, digging to make it habitable and mining its minerals. 'un-deflowered', or gi nunzua, 'never having known a penis'. [51] Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. Although the idea of the Sumerians as a distinct people was initially challenged (in a very acrimonious scholarly debate informed by anti-Semitic prejudice), a historical framework was established in which they were thought to have arrived from outside Mesopotamia, introducing civilization to the region. The Standing Male Worshipper is a simple but significant artifact which is a testament to the Mesopotamians deep religious convictions that their pantheon of gods WebAncient Mesopotamia proved that fertile land and the knowledge to cultivate it was a fortuitous recipe for wealth and civilization. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. If you already receive ANE Today in your email, you do not need to enter your email address here. ", clinker-built sailboats stitched together with hair, featuring, skin boats constructed from animal skins and reeds, wooden-oared ships, sometimes pulled upstream by people and animals walking along the nearby banks. What is the media tool used in Mesopotamia in 2400 BC? The story relates the fictional adventures of Gilgamesh and his companion, Enkidu. [68], Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC,[69] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Babylonia and Assyria until the 1st century AD. By around 2100 BCE Sumerian was dying as a spoken language but because it was associated with ancient royal and religious authority and learning, it was adopted by the Third Dynasty of Ur for the administration of their extensive Mesopotamian kingdom. The Sumerians progressively lost control to Semitic states from the northwest. The Akkadian Empire was the first state that successfully united larger parts of Mesopotamia in the 23rd century BC. The obligations, loans and prices in general were usually denominated in one of them. General location on a modern map, and main cities of Sumer with ancient coastline. Print. Rev. Many transactions involved debt, for example goods consigned to merchants by temple and beer advanced by "ale women". The Sumerian chariot comprised a four or two-wheeled device manned by a crew of two and harnessed to four onagers. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. Home | About | Contact | Copyright | Privacy | Cookie Policy | Terms & Conditions | Sitemap. There are texts written entirely in Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BC. [62]:9193 It is unclear whether terms such as iitu in Akkadian medical texts indicate the hymen, but it appears that the intactness of the hymen was much less relevant to assessing a woman's virginity than in later cultures of the Near East, and most assessments of virginity depended on the woman's own account. WebIt demonstrates that Sumerian was genetically related to the Niger-Congo languages of West Africa. The ancient name of this language was controversial until 1889 when a bilingual cuneiform text noted that the term, 2023 Call for Member-Organized Sessions and Workshops, ASOR-AFFILIATED RESEARCH CENTERS FELLOWSHIPS, The Sumerian King List or the History of Kingship in Early Mesopotamia, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is one of the cradles of civilization in the world, along with ancient Egypt, Elam, the Caral-Supe civilization, Mesoamerica, the Indus Valley civilisation, and ancient China. The Sumerians were among the first astronomers, mapping the stars into sets of constellations, many of which survived in the zodiac and were also recognized by the ancient Greeks. All knowledge of their history, language and technologyeven their namewas eventually forgotten. Ancient sculpture was used to distinguish Sumerian men (identified as clean shaven with round heads) from their Semitic counterparts (with beards and long heads). Perhaps it is time to abandon them as a coherent ethnic and linguistic entity a people we would like to believe existed, but possibly never did. 77 The mortals were indeed the Sumerians, a non-Semitic racial type that conquered southern Babylonia, and the deities Standing Male Worshipper. Bottro, Jean, Andr Finet, Bertrand Lafont, and George Roux. [50] Already, however, the region was becoming more Semitic than Sumerian, with the resurgence of the Akkadian-speaking Semites in Assyria and elsewhere, and the influx of waves of Semitic Martu (Amorites), who were to found several competing local powers in the south, including Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna and later, Babylonia.