Thursday, December 16, 2021 @ 6:00 pm-7:30 pm
This talk reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last 150 years.
By Ali Khadr
The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world’s earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BC. They have been credited with cities, the invention of writing and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? This talk will reveal how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from 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.
, Virtual
BISI works to advance research and public education about Iraq in all of the arts, humanities and social sciences subjects, and enables exchange and collaboration between UK and Iraqi academics. Our grants and scholarships have helped the fund the following research projects.