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200-year-long drought may have killed Sumerian language
MSNBC ^ | 12-4-2012 | Tia Ghose

Posted on 12/05/2012 6:09:59 AM PST by Renfield

A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian language, one geologist says.

Because no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues. But several pieces of archaeological and geological evidence tie the gradual decline of the Sumerian civilization to a drought.

The findings, which were presented Monday here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, show how vulnerable human society may be to climate change, including human-caused change....

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: archaeology; catastrophism; cuneiform; curseofagade; drought; droughts; epigraphyandlanguage; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; greennewdeal; history; sumer; sumerian; sumerians
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To: fattigermaster
Some interpreters of ancient texts would have it that Sumer ended after fallout from a nuclear exchange during a civil war between the Annunaki.

Did you mean between the Annunaki and the Atom Ant people?


21 posted on 12/05/2012 8:22:56 AM PST by null and void (Going Galt: The won't of the people)
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To: Sherman Logan
He didn't even go to the Missouri Bootheel ~ he crossed the Great River ~ which takes a hard right at Cairo Illinois ~ and the first EASY crossing point where you could take a wagon over without a lot of trouble is Levenworth Indiana.

Did you read what I said ~ depending on how you read it.......

There's an older view that has him cross South of the Ohio ~ but at that time *(1541) that wasn't separately named.

Note, big note too ~ 90% of the main flow of the Mississippi at Cairo comes from the Ohio. The Northern branch is of little more significance than the Wabash!

His diary clearly describes the fish pens at Terre Haute, the surface iron pyrite in SE Indiana, the Indian village at Angel Mounds at Evansville.

What more could you want?

22 posted on 12/05/2012 8:37:10 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Renfield

ObamaCare ruined their economy. Once the social programs collapsed they fought each other over the remaining food, gold and weapons until they were no more.


23 posted on 12/05/2012 8:42:10 AM PST by BipolarBob (Riding my stick horse yelling "Woop woop whopm Gangnam Style" & grinning like an idiot.)
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To: SgtHooper
Uh, Mesopotamia is in the middle of a desert right at the latitude where cold dry air pours down constantly ~ life exists along the margins of the rivers ~ and here are two big ones ~ the Tigris and the Euphrates.

To the South there are two other rivers, one of them was observable in ancient times and was discovered only in modern times through the use of powerful space radar systems.

I know a guy who was present when that happened ~ yes, the other guys did that peculiar Jewish dance at the unveiling..... it is named in Genesis.

The Sumerians were herdsmen ~ and, if that tablet is correct, they raised grain as well ~ so they were doing some irrigation from the Euphrates. It could stop raining further North with no effort at all ~ in fact, during the LAST interglacial before this one (circa 120,000 years ago) that area was also desert. We are fortunate that this time the desert is smaller.

24 posted on 12/05/2012 8:42:40 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Boogieman

Why, that’d mean they musta’ been eaten, or run off somewhur’s else!


25 posted on 12/05/2012 8:45:01 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: SgtHooper

The Sahara is in a drought that’s lasted thousands of years. The Grand Sonora has been desert for the most part for MILLIONS OF YEARS.


26 posted on 12/05/2012 8:48:59 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Cronos

Indeed. Sahara was once home to a lake, and a sea before that. It amazes me that earths climate is as stable as it is
given the dynamics of solar flares and the effects on air and sea currents.


27 posted on 12/05/2012 9:36:53 AM PST by RitchieAprile (the obsteperous gentleman..)
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To: SunkenCiv

Ping


28 posted on 12/05/2012 9:41:19 AM PST by Renfield (Turning apples into venison since 1999!)
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To: Lazamataz

...Who does your taxes?


29 posted on 12/05/2012 9:46:08 AM PST by VRW Conspirator (We were the tea party before there was a tea party. - Jim Robinson)
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To: RightOnline
Didn't you know that SUV originally stood for "SUmerian Vehicle"??

After the onset of drought, the Sumerians changed their vehicles from internal combustion to horse-drawn, but alas! -- it was too late for their "green" technology to affect the weather and the solid pollution was a misery to those who still walked in sandals. Yea, verily, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

30 posted on 12/05/2012 9:54:21 AM PST by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves)
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Some parts of the Atacama Desert of Chile have never had rain in recorded history.


31 posted on 12/05/2012 9:58:25 AM PST by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%)
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To: fattigermaster

Or, maybe God destroyed the tower at Babel and confused their languages, so there simply wasn’t anyone left who could speak Sumerian anymore. The Sumerians were a cosmopolitan people composed of various racial groups, centered around the correct geographical area, around the same time as described in that Biblical story.


32 posted on 12/05/2012 10:27:38 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman; blam; SunkenCiv
The Sumerians were a cosmopolitan people composed of various racial groups, centered around the correct geographical area,

Where did you get that?

Sumerian creation myts in the Enuma Elisha place their Eden as Dilmun (or modern day Bahrain)

About their racial background hmmm... there doesn't seem to be enough dna evidence one way or the other.

33 posted on 12/05/2012 11:48:06 AM PST by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
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To: Cronos
Their language could be a cognate of the Dravidian languages. Or, maybe it just picked up a lot of words from wandering Dravidians ~ or Hungarians ~ or whatever.

It's non-indo-european.

34 posted on 12/05/2012 12:28:28 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Cronos

“Where did you get that?”

Well, as to the racial aspect, if I remember correctly, I read about in the Pelican History of the World. There were at least two distinct races in Sumeria, because they’ve found caucasoid and negroid remains there.

“Sumerian creation myts in the Enuma Elisha place their Eden as Dilmun (or modern day Bahrain)”

I really don’t care where they thought Eden was, they were living in the correct area that corresponds to the Tower of Babel story.


35 posted on 12/05/2012 12:29:23 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: OB1kNOb

No one can just talk about the weather that is to boring. We need a chicken little


36 posted on 12/05/2012 12:49:12 PM PST by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric Cartman voice* 'I love you, guys')
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To: Renfield

wasn’t that - 2,200 N.C. - about the same era in which Abraham left what was then part of Sumeria/now part of Iraq?


37 posted on 12/05/2012 12:51:31 PM PST by Wuli
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To: muawiyah

That takes the meaning of drought to a whole new level. A drought actually infers that the event is temporary. 200 years is not temporary. That’s actually misrepresented, let alone thousands to millions of year.


38 posted on 12/05/2012 1:07:47 PM PST by SgtHooper (The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.)
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To: SgtHooper
Just looked up a bunch of definitions ~ nothing temporary about a drought ~ simply that it is prolonged.

I think you are looking for the term "prolonged", which a drought can be ~ some definitions suggest it's a prolonged period of abnormally low precipitation ~ but unless prolonged is defined, the Sahara is in a drought ~ a very long one in fact. Goes on for 100,005 years, with a 5,000 year break.

An 80 year drought cycle is pretty normal for the US ~ and it would be wrong to suggest that just because that's "normal" that no drought exists!

39 posted on 12/05/2012 1:24:44 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

I guess my point is, when does a drought become subsumed as a principal part of the climate change cycle. Anyway, good points and info. I just cant get my mind around a 100,000 year drought; however, climate change over that period, seems more reasonable.


40 posted on 12/05/2012 2:25:41 PM PST by SgtHooper (The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.)
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