Maps

Maps

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Uruna’s Sumer

To get an idea of distances and directions, I put together this map showing mostly known cities and towns, as well as a few I invented for the story.

Note the legend dashed line showing a person’s daily walking trek over paths and highways. Remember, Sumerians hadn’t invented the wheel yet. If anything, it might have lived as a potter’s wheel, but they hadn’t applied it to carts, so the overland trek from Nippur to Uruk, for example, would have consumed around three days.

Ancient Nippur

The map of Nippur below is derived from the Akkadian clay rendering below it, ca. 1,800 BC. It’s possible the Idsha-Uru was in a prior time the Euphrates river course.

Quite likely Nippur in Uruna’s time 1,400 years earlier would have looked different. But the gate locations, temple position, and overall scale helped me as I wrote her story. I hope readers find it useful as well.

Clay Artifact

Early map of Nippur from an archaeological find.

Delta Growth

Over the past 5,000 years the silt brought down by Tigris and Euphrates has filled in the green area which once was open sea, or what we now call the Persian Gulf.

Uruna’s Childhood Journey

From Eden’s Promise. Shows Uruna’s childhood travels as Misha, starting from high in the Zagros Mountains and proceeding down to Susa and across the Sumerian plain to Euphrates and Nippur.

2 Comments:

  1. Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You obviously know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something informative to read?

    • Your compliments are very kind. It’s rare to find another Sumerian enthusiast, and I welcome your remarks and interest.

      The original thrust of the blog was to add context for readers of my Sumerian Chronicles fiction. As far as writing nonfiction on Sumerian history, or a website compilation of Sumerian facts, I feel others are more qualified or have already done a better job.

      The research needed for my early efforts was a fun journey, and timed well with the concurrent publication and release of several books included in the bibliography. Believe it or not, most of my study took place in the late 1990s. It took nearly 20 years for me to finish the first book.

      Another point I should make: my brother-in-law and his wife are university professors of anthropology. I have a deep respect for their lifelong dedication to fact as opposed to conjecture. Thus, I will happily defer to Iraqi scholars and others at Chicago Institute, UPenn, the British Museum, and elsewhere.

      I wish I could follow up on more Sumerian insights, but it’s rather late in the game for me. Even so, thank you for your encouragement.

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