“With respect to building, construction, industry, and agriculture, the Sumerian civilization unquestionably represents a leap of civilization when compared to the history preceding its existence. It indicates a leap in intellect and consciousness among the Sumerians, the beginning of which cannot be scientifically determined with accuracy. Nevertheless, their civilization certainly started long before recorded history, perhaps by tens of thousands of years, and places them at our level of intellect and consciousness today. However, with respect to urban civilization, for example, we will need to investigate, give examples, and make comparisons in order to arrive at the result we seek.
With respect to literary texts, I believe that any person who reads say, the Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance, will see it as a work of literature worthy of being placed at the height of human literature (for those who think it is a product of humans). Therefore, they will conclude that humanity underwent a leap of culture and civilization in Sumer and Akkad within the historical timespan of the tens of thousands of years to which Sumer and Akkad are linked. This leap of culture and civilization can be construed using the tools of consciousness available to the average person. This clearly means that something new entered the equation of the Homo sapiens that changed him from a simple, primitive being controlled by the selfishness of survival, to an intellectual, conscious human who tried to be altruistic in this life and turn his desire for survival into a desire for immortality in a different, ideal world, free of evil and filled with goodness, and with good morals.
Sumerians, or Akkadians, have the world’s oldest recorded civilization and culture, as well as the oldest organized and known religion to date. If we consider religion to be only a cultural history, then the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, would be mere carriers of the Sumerian Akkadian religion, and nothing more than reflections of it. The stories of the creation, the flood, and Noah; the stories, examples, high moral values and exalted behavior of certain individuals; the worship, prayer, and invocation of God; all of this exists in the Sumerian religion.
In addition, the origin of all three Abrahamic religions traces back to Abraham, who came from Sumer.
Since the Sumerians have the oldest civilization and culture of known value on earth, the ancient Sumerians, or the people from whom Sumerians descended, can be considered to represent the origin from which the children of Adam and their culture spread throughout the remainder of the earth. In the clay tablets, the Sumerians described their ancestors as the “blackheaded people”. This agrees with what has recently been proven scientifically: that the origins of the Homo sapiens of today, who has spread throughout the earth, are African.
The first civilizations that emerged sometime after the Sumerians are ones that surrounded the land of the Sumerians, with the Sumerians representing the center of these civilizations. This unequivocally means that they spread to surrounding countries and established cultures therein, or at the very least, it means that their culture and civilization spread.
Therefore, the culture of the Sumerians (Akkadians) appeared suddenly—without preliminaries—and it was very sophisticated and distinct. This stark cultural and civilizational leap made by the Sumerians represents a clear indicator of something new entering the equation, causing man to not only build a material civilization, but to also move from selfish, animal, oppressive behavior to seeking moral, fair, altruistic, humane behavior.
The only reasonable explanation, supported by archeological findings, is that religion entered the equation. The religious explanation for this shift of civilization is the only one that is correct, factual, and supported by artifacts that confirm the introduction of these values through religion—or Adam and the prophets. When the soul of Adam connected to a material body of selfish biology, this soul entered the equation, and this benevolent soul transmitted moral values, such as altruism, from God. People then believed that these moral values were truths, due to indicators that they sensed within themselves. They then started fighting their “I” with altruism, achieving a benevolent and blessed result, the beauty of which has stunned even atheists. The atheists then began advocating altruism, which is all they could do, despite the fact that its pioneer and the one who introduced it is the worst of enemies to the atheists: divine religion.
If we combine the history of the Sumerian clay tablets and artifacts with their religious text, the only conclusion that can be reached regarding the Sumerians—or the inhabitants of Mesopotamia—is that they are the inheritors of the civilization and culture of Adam and Noah (Utnapishtim), even if it occurred in a historical time period long before the history we know of from artifacts and clay tablets.
