Sumerians - Lost Civilizations

The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the worlds earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BC. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? Paul Collins reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from the archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last 150 years. Reconstructed through the biases of those who unearthed them, the Sumerians were never simply lost and found, but reinvented a number of times, both in antiquity and in the more recent past.

About the author

Paul Collins is Keeper of the Middle East Department at the British Museum. Specializing in the art and archaeology of Mesopotamia and Iran, his books include Assyrian Palace Sculptures (2008) and Mountains and Lowlands: Ancient Iran and Mesopotamia (2016).

Summary

The loss, discovery and reinvention of the world's earliest civilization, the Sumerians.

Product details

• Authors: Paul Collins
• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2021
• EAN: 9781789144154
• ISBN: 978-1-78914-415-4
• No. of pages: 208
• Series: Lost Civilizations
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; HISTORY / General, HISTORY / Ancient / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology, Middle East, Ancient History, Archaeology by period / region, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Middle & Near Eastern archaeology