Biological relationships of the Mesopotamians

[brandonsp]

I am a student of biological anthropology who is interested in the relationships between ancient human populations. Although the area I've studied the most is Egypt in relation to the rest of Africa, I've also wondered about the biological affinities of the Mesopotamians.

To whom were Mesopotamian peoples most closely related to? I tend to imagine them as being olive-skinned, dark-haired Arabians, but I've encountered people claiming that they were either dark-skinned like tropical Africans or pale and fair-haired like Europeans. What do studies on Mesopotamian remains say about their genetic relations?

[enkur]

Interesting question. Though stylized, the images of the so called "Royal Standard of Ur" could give you some notion about what the Sumerians were like.
There was a time when I mistook the images of the Akkadian cylinder seals for Sumerian, and now I see that many people make the same mistake. It's interesting also to see some imagery from the last period of Sumer - the 3d Dynasty of Ur when both Sumerians and Akkadians were already mingled. Yet I think the Akkadian style (as well as the Akkadian genotype) dominated during this period though the rulers were still of Sumerian bloodlines.

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[enkur]

the war side

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[us4-he2-gal2]

Brandonsp:





Well this is a worthy question for sure.. not one I'll be able to satisfy I'm afraid but something I can address in so far as indicating the complexity here.



While the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians are clearly Semitic speaking peoples, and in early time the land can in certain simplistic definitions be divided into a Semitic north and a Sumerian south, more recent and inclusive studies find a high level of multi-culturalism throughout the various stages of Mesopotamian history; Unfortunately, that the material culture, literary conventions and even architectural styles were shared and transfered from one area to another (usually the influence is most obvious when the culture of the Sumerian south is adopted by those in the north) means that the textual and archaeological records we now have to work with are no reliable indicator of the ethnicity of a given group.



Here is a brief comment on the subject by A. Leo Oppenheim, an accomplished and concise commentator on Mesopotamia (whose often pessimistic view fits the situation in this case I believe). In his 1976 work p. 49 he states: ".... it should be stressed that our knowledge is based almost exclusively on documentary evidence and that the groups we are able to single out and to differentiate are characterized as such only by their use of a specific language that happens to have been preserved in writing. We cannot define and describe the racial or ethnic groups. The relation between these three categories, linguistic, racial and ethnic, is exceedingly complex in Mesopotamia and still far from being sufficiently investigated."



While I generally think of the the figures on the Standard of Ur (posted above) as being representations of the Sumerians and their physical attributes, and may attempt to contrast this with Akkadian imagery such that head of Sargon/Naram-sin thats always floating around... and I still feel this seems right... we should remind ourselves not to assume to quickly the ethnic traits and features based on these art object. As an illustration I refer to the famous Sumerian Statues of Tell Asmar:








The photos of these statues are some of the most widely distributed images of Mesopotamia and occur in just about every publication attempting to treat Sumerian religion; from works as fundamental as Lloyd's "Mesopotamian Archaeology" we see these items extolled as the quintessential example of Sumerian statuary; and yet, contrary to one's natural expectation following this treatment these statues come from Tell Asmar, in actually a Semitic city far to the north of Sumer proper in a area known as the Diyala region. Again, the northerns absorbed and mirrored Sumerian material so well that researchers believe the best surviving Sumerian statues were indeed, the work of Semitic hands. This of course raises some doubts as to the statues value in divining ethnic traits.

[enkur]

I think it's not impossible for the specialists to identify the ethnic genotype of the peoples lived in Mesopotamia by the many excavated skeletons and skulls from the ancient burials. For example, this Sumerian (?) skull is supposed to have undergone a successful surgical interference...

I'm just an artist who is interested in the different styles, so I can see the difference between the pre-Sargornic Sumerian imagery and the Akkadian imagery, as well as their stylistic mixture during the 3d dynasty of Ur which was not by accident called the "Kingdom of Sumer and Akkad".

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[enkur]

Here there are some more examples from the pre-Sargonic period:

The first one is the famous plaque of Ur-Nanshe (around 2500 bce)

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[enkur]

This one is unknown to me but it bears the same style. Would be very grateful if somebody tell me who is depicted on this bas-relief? There is an inscription, can anybody read it?

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[enkur]

Here there is some sacrificial scene of the same style - it's dated around 2000 bce but I doubt if it's correct:

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[enkur]

Here there are some Sumerian ladies:

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[enkur]

Here there is some prisoner of war in the same style, and so on, and so on...

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[enkur]

Some cheese-producing Sumerians...

Anyway, if not directly indicating the biologic genotype, the style bears the spirit, and the spirit is what shapes the genotype after all (within the generations). However, don't ask me what is spirit - I'm a sorcerer, not a theosophist, and for me the spirit is tangible by its carnal manifestation only

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[enkur]

At last, by giving examples of what I call Sumerian style, I cannot miss the Stele of Vultures (after around 2500 b.c.e., celebrating the victory of Eannatum, the grandson of Ur-Nanshe) where the Sumerian infantry is the forerunner of the Roman legionaries of the distant future...

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[enkur]

As an example of the Akkadian imagery, I'm applying here my favorite cylinder seal of Adda. The Akkadian figures are somehow more elegant, the male ones are always bearded and mustached while the beards in the Sumerian images are more rare, usually beards without mustaches.

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[enkur]

As another Akkadian image I'm applying here the Stele of Naram-Sin (around 2160 bce).

[enkur]

Here it is:

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[enkur]

At last some imagery from the Kingdom of Sumer and Akkad (the 3d Dynasty of Ur) ordered by Ur-Nammu (around 2100 bce). The predominance of the Akkadian style is more than obvious though Ur-Nammu claimed to be of the bloodline of Gilgamesh.

Again, the style doesn't directly indicates the genotype but the style is an expression of the spirit, and it's the spirit which shapes the genotype within the generations, a mysterious process which neither the religion, nor the science have been able to define till now.

I suppose the contemporary science has the precise means to identify the Mesopotamian genotypes by the many human remnants found in the excavated ancient burials, but till now I haven't found any publications on this matter.

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[enkur]

By the way, us4-he2-gal2, how can I manage to post more than one picture in a time?