FAMILY LIFE IN ANCIENT SUMERIA

Sumerian Family Life—The Family Structure

Marriage

The daily life of Sumerians is well documented, thanks to the invention of writing. The many relief carvings and statuettes put some color to the texts and help bring this vibrant culture to life. In the homes of the poor and rich alike, the husband and father is the master of the household. He has the right to divorce a barren wife and to take concubines. He is even allowed, under certain circumstances, to sell his wife and children into slavery. Such a situation could arise from getting into debt to a man wealthier than himself, who would then take the debtor’s family as slaves into his own household. In some cases, this fate may actually improve their lives.

Despite the husband’s position, a woman of the upper class has considerable freedom. She has the right to own property and have an income separate from that of her husband. She is also allowed to offer evidence in a lawcourt case. But men make the major family decisions, such as arranging marriages for sons and daughters. For the aristocrat, daily life is a round of organizing and planning his business ventures, tending to religious rites, and entertaining guests and visitors from other cities. At times of crisis, he is expected to serve as a military official and provide the city-state with produce and manpower from his farming estates.

A School for Future Officials

School

Boys of wealthy families attend school, while girls are educated at home.The school is located next to the royal palace, and is a part of the complex because the main object of education is to provide the king with more government officials. During the morning lessons, the boys practice their writing exercises.This involves copying words on a damp clay tablet from a list the teacher has prepared. As they do so, they must learn the meanings of the signs they are making.

Slovenly work earns a light blow with a wooden rod from the teacher across the pupil’s shoulders.This is a common occurrence because pressing the reed stylus into the damp clay to make the wedgeshaped marks is tiring work—and mistakes are frequent.

The schoolboys are allowed a short break for lunch, probably of bread and figs that they have brought with them from home. Then it is time for the afternoon session of oral tests in language and arithmetic. In the Sumerian world there is no safety net for failures, so—despite being very typical boys when it comes to school lessons—they take their work seriously. To be admitted into the palace bureaucracy when they are older will be the best possible start to their adult lives.

Death and Burial

And when life comes to an end, Sumerians take the burial of the dead as seriously as any culture, though there are no cemeteries except for the king and his most important nobles. In Sumer the body is most often buried within the house in the family tomb. It may be laid to rest curled up and placed in a large jar, or extended in a casket, stone sarcophagus, or ordinary cloth wrapping.

The lavishness of the burial depends greatly on the economic status of the deceased, but Sumerians are usually buried surrounded by those possessions they most treasured in life. Some of the wealthiest men even have such grave goods specially made for their funeral, ensuring that everything they will need in the afterlife goes into their coffin with them.

Sumerian Family Life—Clothing and Adornment

Men's Clothing

The Sumerians use the natural resources available to them to make their clothing.The two main sources are sheep’s wool and flax. Flax is a plant with blue flowers that grows well in a variety of conditions. Its tough stalk yields strong fibers, which can be processed and woven into cloth. Careful selection results in both coarse and fine fibers—better quality cloth is made from only the finest flax.

Men and women’s clothing

In the early days, Sumerian men went barechested and barefooted through town, wearing only the traditional ringed kilt made from sheep’s wool. Now they wear a long one-piece garment from shoulder to calf made from finely spun wool in the cooler season or at night, or from fine flax in the hotter periods.

Sometimes it has a decorative fringed shawl and a long fringed hem. On formal occasions priests still wear the traditional woolen kilt, and their long, trimmed beards usually distinguish them from lay nobles, those who serve the temple but aren’t priests. Women wear a full-length draped garment, which is typically worn with the right shoulder and arm free, or a fitted shoulder-to-ankle dress. Hair is worn in a wide variety of styles, in braids or coiled around the head, free-flowing with a decorative headband, or topped by a short, helmetlike hat.The hair is almost always perfumed.

Jewelry and Adornment

The Sumerian smiths can make fabulously elegant jewelry for adornment, and both men and women wear some, especially during religious festivals. Gold, silver and semi-precious stones are used to create necklaces, earrings, tiaras, finger rings, and bracelets. Beads of bright azure-blue lapis lazuli contrasting with the red carnelian are favorites. Sumerian jewelers have discovered glass, made from heating soda with sand and limestone, and use it as a spectacular addition to gemstone jewelry. By adding different minerals to the glass, a rainbow of bright colors is achieved.

Black Eyes and Cosmetics

Men and women alike share a passion for cosmetics, and the height of beauty is considered to be heavily made-up eyes, faces, and hands—with an emphasis on the eyes. A bluish-black antimony—a brittle, crystalline metal compound—is used to line and highlight the eyes, and to blacken the eyebrows and eyelashe Sumerian women smooth their skin with a pumice stone and then contrast the eye make-up by painting their faces with white lead.This gives the face a mask-like appearance, and makes a base for the brightred henna added to cheeks and lips. Henna is also painted on finger- and toenails, and sometimes on the palms of their hands.

Sumerians like to take regular baths in perfumed water, every day if possible, though the poor must make do with the nearby river or canal. After bathing, it’s customary for a slave to rub his master’s body with a perfumed oil (anointing), which serves a dual purpose—to make him smell pleasant in the company of others, but more importantly to repel the numerous insects flying and crawling around.

Men and women have many toilet articles, such as gold cosmetic cases, metal toothpicks, manicure kits, and eyebrow tweezers.The cosmetic cases, sometimes of shell as well as gold, contain the cakes of face paint in such colors as charcoal, brown, and blue for eye makeup.

Sumerian Family Life—Daily Food

Evening Meal

Early Mesopotamians ate anything they could catch in order to survive, and ate whenever they were hungry. But by this period food in Sumer is eaten as much for enjoyment as for nourishment. Evening meals—normally taken by most people before sunset, to make the most of the dwindling daylight—have become a form of entertainment for all except the poorest peasants.

Breakfast and Lunch

With the huge grain harvests, the Sumerians’ staple diet is of unleavened bread—a loaf similar to modern pita bread, baked without any rising agent such as yeast.Wheat and barley are partly ground to make a kind of porridge, which might be sweetened with dates or honey. These ingredients make up the lesser meals of the day, breakfast and lunch, though lunch may be accompanied by dried or fresh fish and a variety of vegetables.

Varied Fare

Common food for the ordinary Sumerian’s evening meal consists of fish mixed with cucumber, onions, apples, spices, cheese, and eggs.The diet of wealthier people is much more varied.The livestock provide beef and mutton, while fish and wild fowl from the river are popular, especially ducks. Hunters provide wild boar and venison. Fish is so plentiful that the city has many fish sellers and even restaurants where people can buy ready-cooked meals. From the cattle, goats, and sheep comes milk, butter, and cheese, while the numerous palms provide dates.These are eaten fresh from the tree, dried, or pressed into a syrup.

The Importance of Honey

Honey is one of the most important ingredients for Sumerians—apart from the fig syrup, it is the only sweetener to add to food. In fact, honey is held in such esteem that it is used in religious ceremonies. It is poured over shrine thresholds and stones as a commemorative offering, and door bolts of sacred buildings are anointed with a mixture of honey and wine.

Honey has another important use—in making beer.This is the great Sumerian drink.There are 19 different kinds of beer, depending on the type of grain used in fermenting, the aromatic plants used for flavoring, and the variety of honey and malt added.

Wine made from dates is also available, but not much is made, so it is expensive and restricted to the wealthy. Poorer people only have water taken from the rivers to drink.This is kept in a long-spouted kettle that helps to filter out the muddy sediment.

After-Meal Entertainment

The Sumerians are a hospitable people who enjoy dining with friends or entertaining in their own homes. It is customary after a meal to relax while musicians, singers, and dancers perform for the guests.The city has many groups of entertainers for hire, but some of the richest families employ their own musicians and singers. Poets declaim the heroic deeds of mythical heroes and past kings, while music is played on the harp, lyre, and drum. And if the guests have any energy left after the meal, they can enjoy a board game.

Boxes

Buying a Slave

Slaves are prisoners of war or people hopelessly in debt in their community. In Mesopotamia, those most sought after for servitude are the men and women from the mountains to the north and northeast, the regions of Urartu and Lullu. It is usually the task of wives to go to the market to purchase household slaves.The cost of a slave differs from city to city and from time to time, but averages between 30 and 40 shekels of silver, which is as much as the cost of three or four oxen.The best slave market in Sumer is at Eshnunna, between the important cities in the south and the hill country of Lullu.

The Royal Tombs of Ur

These 16 tombs are the most celebrated yet uncovered. Located close to the palace, they date to about 2600 BCE. Grave robbers had stolen many of the grave goods, but the untouched tomb of Queen Pu-Abi revealed some beautiful objects.These included gold ribbon headdresses, gold vessels, bead pendants, lapis lazuli necklaces, a wooden lyre, a richly decorated royal sled, and precious jewels.There were also many bodies of sacrificed servants and slaves to accompany the queen on her journey and to serve her in the afterlife. Queen Pu-Abi’s body was covered with beads of precious metal, her fingers with rings, and the head adorned by a floral crown of metal and golden leaves.


By Norman Bancroft Hunt (Series consultant editor) in the book 'Living in Ancient Mesopotamia', Chelsea House (An imprint of Infobase Publishing), New York, 2009, p.34-39. Digitized and edited to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.