Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • An ancient country of southern Mesopotamia in present-day southern Iraq. Archaeological evidence dates the beginnings of Sumer to the fifth millennium BC. By 3000 a flourishing civilization existed, which gradually exerted power over the surrounding area and culminated in the Akkadian dynasty, founded c. 2300 by Sargon I. Sumer declined after 2000 and was later absorbed by Babylonia and Assyria. The Sumerians are believed to have invented the cuneiform system of writing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun Earliest known civilization of the ancient Near East (4th to 3rd millennia BC), located in lower Mesopotamia.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an area in the southern region of Babylonia in present-day Iraq; site of the Sumerian civilization of city-states that flowered during the third millennium BC

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Akkadian Šumer, in Assyriology since the 1870s (French sumérien since 1872). Compare Shumer, Sumir.

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Examples

  • However, Lothal was a port that traded in those days with what we refer to as Sumer or Mesopotamia and people from Lothal migrated to all places including Middle East and what is now known as Sri Lanka.

    WN.com - Articles related to NASA technology detects ruins under rainforest 2010

  • However, Lothal was a port that traded in those days with what we refer to as Sumer or Mesopotamia and people from Lothal migrated to all places including Middle East and what is now known as Sri Lanka.

    WN.com - Articles related to NASA technology detects ruins under rainforest 2010

  • So herewith, "Sumer is Ycomen In" played by some border pipes, medieval pipes, Scottish small pipes, a couple of Cornish double chanter pipes, a Leicestershire small pipe, a bass clarinet (or two?) and heaven knows what else.

    Some Piping for the Weekend John 2009

  • So herewith, "Sumer is Ycomen In" played by some border pipes, medieval pipes, Scottish small pipes, a couple of Cornish double chanter pipes, a Leicestershire small pipe, a bass clarinet (or two?) and heaven knows what else.

    Ss Petri & Pauli John 2009

  • The writing is just a metaphor, mind; imagine that turning of a page represents the telling of a tale, the act of spoken recitation, beginning not in Sumer but long before.

    Archive 2009-02-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • The writing is just a metaphor, mind; imagine that turning of a page represents the telling of a tale, the act of spoken recitation, beginning not in Sumer but long before.

    Creative Control - Part 4 Hal Duncan 2009

  • A FEW WEEKS AFTER we arrived, our Lebanese friend Rebecca took us to dinner at the hotel where she was staying, which was called the Sumer Land.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

  • A FEW WEEKS AFTER we arrived, our Lebanese friend Rebecca took us to dinner at the hotel where she was staying, which was called the Sumer Land.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

  • I would suggest you look to the transitions between federation and empire in Sumer and its reflection in the mythology of ownership and control of the me, in which we can see, laid out for us, a story of the gradual usurpation of the Law and its subordination to the Will of the King of Gods (of which Marduk is probably the prime example).

    A Response to a Response Hal Duncan 2007

  • I would suggest you look to the transitions between federation and empire in Sumer and its reflection in the mythology of ownership and control of the me, in which we can see, laid out for us, a story of the gradual usurpation of the Law and its subordination to the Will of the King of Gods (of which Marduk is probably the prime example).

    Archive 2007-04-01 Hal Duncan 2007

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