Everyone talks about Sumer being the first or one of the first civilizations in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people thought they were the original as they…
…had a very close connection with the ancestral Land of Ararat and considered it as their ancestral homeland (many historians and archaeologists are convinced that the Sumerians initially lived in Northern Mesopotamia and Armenian Highland) (source)
In fact, they considered themselves a specific race of people who…
Mt. Ararat is sacred to the Armenians, who believe themselves to be the first race of humans to appear in the world after the Deluge (source)
This thinking is understandable as their memories would connect them to their ancestors who lived before Babel but after the flood. They may have forgotten about all the people groups that were created at Babel and maintained that they were the first, even though some contemporaries may disagree with them.
One of those civilizations would be the Uruk and Ubaid civilizations. The Uruk period is said to precede the Sumer civilization by roughly 2000 years, give or take 400 years. prior to that, archaeologists claim that the Ubaid civilization preceded the Uruk by 900 years (source).
This evidence points us to the concept that both the Ubaid and Uruk people were part of the post-flood population starting with Noah and his family, descending down to the one-world civilization we know lived at Babel. There is evidence supporting this thought
In Shemitic (from Noah’s son, Shem), the place where Noah dwelt was also called Dilmun which means “the abode of the dangling (dried-up),” a fitting epithet for those left high and dry on the mountain after the world-wide Flood. Both names, Mesha and Dilmun, attest to Noah’s salvation from the Flood at this location…
Mesha-Naxuan was the very first city of our post-Flood civilization, built by Noah and his sons and their sons, from materials scavenged from the ark, long lost to the world but mentioned in many historical accounts.
In a footnote in Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, translator William Whiston says that Noah’s landing and dwelling spot was called “Naxuan, the place of the first descent.” Here he quoted Armenian historian, Moses of Chronensis. This phrase “place of first descent,” implies a second descent, and that is exactly what the evidence on the mountain itself is telling us. (source)
We would not expect to find many material remains from these people as they developed into the Ubaid culture. There were probably too few of them to leave any remarkable footprint. Archaeologists also know little about this era:
The earliest era in Mesopotamian history is the Ubaid Period (c. 5000-4100 BCE) about which little is known. The origins of the Ubaid people (so called because of the modern-day site, Tell al’Ubaid, where the major finds of the culture were located) are obscure, and as they left no written records, the little information archaeologists have on them comes from their pottery and artwork (source)
What we do know about this initial period after the flood is that this was not a diverse era with multiple nations vying for land in the area:
In the period 5500–4000 B.C., much of Mesopotamia shared a common culture, called Ubaid after the site where evidence for it was first found. Characterized by a distinctive type of pottery, this culture originated on the flat alluvial plains of southern Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) around 6200 B.C. Indeed, it was during this period that the first identifiable villages developed in the region, where people farmed the land using irrigation and fished the rivers and sea (Persian Gulf) (source)
This development would fit in with the biblical text when it talks about Nimrod and his accomplishments:
8 Now Cush fathered Nimrod; he [d]became a mighty one on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was [e]Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city (Gen. 10)
The names may not line up exactly but that is due to language and translation, not errors. The timeline is very similar thus we can draw the hypothesis that the Ubaid and Uruk eras were the eras starting with Noah after the flood and ended with the one world civilization that was divided at Babel.
God divided the language, he did not destroy memories or cities in this act. The cities that Nimrod built went on to fame with Sumer, Akkad, and more ancient nations.
Since the Bible states that Nimrod built his kingdom, we would have to challenge scholars’ and archaeologists’ conclusions that the early cities were independent of each other and were actually ruled by one king (source).
It is possible that they divided after Nimrod died but we are not privy to that information at this time. There may be some manuscript written in Sumerian somewhere that provides those details but so far, none have surfaced.
Another reason we find so little about the Ubaid and Uruk eras is that the unified people may have been nomadic in nature. The Bible tells us:
Now all the earth used the same language and the same words. 2 And it came about, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.(Gen. 11)
The biblical record does not say that they came from their original home and traveled east. The way the Bible is worded, it sounds like the people were traveling in search of a place to call home.
The area mentioned in an earlier quote about Noah’s new home, may not have had the resources for everyone, thus they traveled far and wide in search of a new homeland.
Since they all descended from Noah’s sons and their wives, they would speak the same language and have the same culture.
Most or all of Noah’s offspring abandoned Mesha-Naxuan and built a new settlement where the ark came to rest. This second town built after the Flood was originally called Seron because of the Tsar or sharp out-cropping that penetrated and arrested the downhill slide of the ark hull remains. The “sar” part of the name remained in the later place names: Ni-sar and Na-sar. The Babylonians referred to the town as Nisir…
…The remnants of many ancient habitations discovered by Deal in 1996-1997 at the upper landing site (Mesha-Naxuan) and the “wall of heaven” written of in the Epic of Gilgamesh convincingly add to the evidence (source)
This is all possible and would strengthen the idea that the area became too small or dangerous to raise a family, thus the people moved to Shinar (eventually). Or those ancient settlements were built at any time in the ancient world.
Dating backward is impossible to do and mistakes are easily made. But it is food for thought. The parallels between the ancient evidence and the Biblical record are significant and cannot be ignored.
We know there was a unified culture at the time before Sumer, both from the biblical and extra-biblical records. We know that new cities were built and part of a new kingdom, from the same sources and we know that Sumer was not the first civilization.
Their memory of their ancestors is accurate and they would have descended from wherever Noah and his family settled when they left the ark. Sumer merely inherited the area and was the lucky people group not having to move after God divided the language and the people.
They got to remain in those pre-built cities and had a head start in creating their great civilization. The Bible does help research if one has an open mind. The information it contains helps archaeologists and other scholars understand the initial post-flood world or very early human history.
The evidence supporting the biblical account can be found in those excavations that have unearthed the Ubaid and Uruk cultures. One just has to be honest when one reviews the information and compares it to the biblical record.
Believe it or not, archaeologists claim to have found an even earlier culture than the Ubaid and the Uruk. They call it the Halaf culture and it is supposed to have existed as early as 6500 BC to 5500 BC or the start of the Ubaid era.
However, our suspicion is that the archaeologists confuse the evidence and may simply be looking at Ubaid and Uruk cultural remains and not a new culture. They may have even discovered pottery from the pre-flood world.
But that will never be verified. A theory that can be created with this discovery is that they found the pottery that was on the ark and brought to the post-flood world by Noah and his fmaily.
theoarch 