I came across some interesting reading the other day, in relation to your post about Mesopotamia, the Arabs and Abraham (pbuh).


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The land of the Arabs historically was in Arabian peninsula south of Mesopotamia, that's why Sumerian texts refer to Arabs as foreigners and invaders.

According to many experts on the origins of Semitic speaking peoples, they all originated from the Arabian peninsula:


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The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas. Around 3500 BC, Semitic-speaking peoples of Arabian origin migrated into the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, supplanted the Summerians, as the Akkadians (see Babylonia and Assyria). Some archeologists argue that another group of Semites left Arabia around 2500 BC during the Early Bronze Age Amorites and settled along the Levant mixing in with the local populations there. These Amorites eventually became the Arameans and Canaanites of later times Bernard Lewis mentions in his book The Arabs in History:    "According to this, Arabia was originally a land of great fertility and the first home of the Semitic peoples. Through the millennia it has been undergoing a process of steady desiccation, a drying up of wealth and waterways and a spread of the desert at the expense of the cultivable land. The declining productivity of the peninsula, together with the increase in the number of the inhabitants, led to a series of crises of overpopulation and consequently to a recurring cycle of invasions of the neighbouring countries by the Semitic peoples of the peninsula. It was these crises that carried the Assyrians, Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians), and finally the Arabs themselves into the Fertile Crescent."

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The Winckler-Caetani theory , named after its two most distinguished proponents, Hugo Winckler and Leone Caetani, which claims that Arabia was originally a land of great fertility and the first home of the semitic peoples. Through the millennia it has been undergoing a process of steady desiccation, a drying up of wealth and waterways and spread of the desert at the expenses of the cultivable land. The declining productivity of the peninsula, together with the increase in the number of the inhabitants, led to a series of crises of overpopulation and consequently to a recurring cycle of invasions of the neighbouring countries by the semitic peoples of the peninsula. It was these crises that carried the Assyrians, the Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and Hebrews), and finally the Arabs themselves into the Fertile Crescent. The Arabs of history would thus be the undifferentiated residue after the great invasion of ancient history had taken place.

What caused the desertification? Climate change or agriculture?

I don't buy desertification as a cause of population crises. These happen anyway due to the natural tendency of humans to breed.

freediver,


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What caused the desertification? Climate change or agriculture?

Apparently there was a massive climatic crisis in 6200 B.C.E that led to the dessertification. What exactly that was, I'm not sure.


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I don't buy desertification as a cause of population crises.

Well it could've contributed to it. Apparently there were many waves of migration out of the Arabian peninsula into the wider middle east, not just one single migration.

This is very interesting (for me) topic. I always was fascinated by history of Fertile Crescent as The Bridge and origins of human civilisation.

Before we start I would like anybody who likes to seriously discuss this to have a look at this website.
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/
Though I don't subscribe to everything that is presented there I choose it to be my prologue and broad definition of study domain of narrower theme of history of The Bridge. Please use the time scale provided for reference to events and evaluation of ideas.

mod: pointless and off topic. let's try and keep things on topic please.

I would like to point out three periods:
1 135000-11500 years ago
2 90000-85000 years ago
3 4500-40000 years ago

IMHO, they are relevant to who and when were the invaders.

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This is very interesting (for me) topic. I always was fascinated by history of Fertile Crescent as The Bridge and origins of human civilisation.

Same here, it seems that all trails of civilisation lead back to that area, and if these theories are correct, back beyond that into a fertile peninsula (garden?) from which all our recorded history originates.


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Before we start I would like anybody who likes to seriously discuss this to have a look at this website

Just watched it, interesting. However, as a believer in creation, I'd suggest there was no actual section prior to the arrival in the Middle East (The point at which they say all non-Africans descended from these people, when they supposedly crossed the Red Sea), and that human kind was most likely actually first created in that fertile peninsula, and all civilisation grew out of there, up into the fertile crescent and beyond.

abu_rashid wrote on Nov 4^th, 2008 at 8:50pm:

Just watched it, interesting. However, as a believer in creation, I'd suggest there was no actual section prior to the arrival in the Middle East (The point at which they say all non-Africans descended from these people, when they supposedly crossed the Red Sea), and that human kind was most likely actually first created in that fertile peninsula, and all civilisation grew out of there, up into the fertile crescent and beyond.

I think that the story of Eden can be interpreted as garden from which recorded history originates as it also coincides with archaeological conclusions that written language first appears in there as well as agriculture and settled style of life as opposite to nomadic wanderings following all other animals.

Well that's agreeable with my statements I think.

Now since the Arabian peninsula was most likely the origin of the Semitic peoples of the Middle East, and since Arabic is the Semitic language that more closely resembles the hypothesised proto-Semitic language, I'd suggest that therefore Abraham (pbuh) was actually descended from Arabs, and his offspring through Ishamel (pbuh) then went on to actually father many huge tribes of Arabs, since he re-integrated with the Arabs, rather than remaining seperate as the other Hebrews did. Btw, Ishamel's (pbuh) mother was not Arab, she was an Egyptian.

abu_rashid wrote on Nov 4^th, 2008 at 9:49pm:

Well that's agreeable with my statements I think. Now since the Arabian peninsula was most likely the origin of the Semitic peoples of the Middle East, and since Arabic is the Semitic language that more closely resembles the hypothesised proto-Semitic language, I'd suggest that therefore Abraham (pbuh) was actually descended from Arabs, and his offspring through Ishamel (pbuh) then went on to actually father many huge tribes of Arabs, since he re-integrated with the Arabs, rather than remaining seperate as the other Hebrews did. Btw, Ishamel's (pbuh) mother was not Arab, she was an Egyptian.

Ok. so here is where we differ. Abraham was from Ur, which was Sumerian city state. It also was gateway port to Arabian peninsula trade so Semitic language influence is not surprising.
Sumerian city states were at constant war with each other as well as in war with never ending waves of newcomers and politics of it all made Abraham's extended family-tribe Hebrews to be exiled. Summers had many gods as different gods of different family-tribes and when exiled Abraham took His God with him, similar to how later Aeneas took with him his Gods when he fled from Troy. They started to live as nomads amongst nomads and Hebrew language gradually become Semitic language, which wasn't too hard considering what I've written about Ur. Abraham fathered many children who founded other tribes but original Hebrew tribe was hold relatively genetically pure because of cohesive force of tribal religion. That's why ancient Hebrews and Arabs had different but not 100% "racial" futures but similar languages.

Of course all above is IMHO.

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Abraham was from Ur, which was Sumerian city state.

So he was Sumerian in ethnicity/language? Which were themselves just descendants of Arabs who'd previously migrated out of the Arabian peninsula anyway.


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war with never ending waves of newcomers and politics of it all made Abraham's extended family-tribe Hebrews

Or he was a Hebrew? Had Hebrews, as a seperate and distinct ethno-lingual entity actually even come into existence by his time? It's a bit like the claim he was a Jew, even though Judaism is named after one of his great grand children, and most of it's known practises didn't come into existence until many centuries after his time.

I would suggest that he lived further back in a time when the Semitic peoples and languages were less distinct from one another. Hence the story of the tower of Babel, how all the languages became differentiated from one another. In Abraham's (pbuh) time, the Semitic languages would've probably just been like the different dialects of Arabic today. Merely regional varieties of the same one language.


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They started to live as nomads amongst nomads and Hebrew language gradually become Semitic language

So you believe Hebrew was not originally a Semitic language? But gradually became "Semiticised"?


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That's why ancient Hebrews and Arabs had different but not 100% "racial" futures but similar languages.

Actually the Bible suggests that for many generations after Ishmael (pbuh), the Arabs and Jews were still inter-marrying. Don't forget also that Ishmael (pbuh), and presumably his children/progeny, also practised the religion of Abraham (pbuh), hence the reason the Israelites were permitted to still inter-marry with them.

I have made three distinctions from beginning. Hebrew as ethnicity, Judaism as religion and language as language.
As for Sumerians nobody really knows where they come from or where they gone, which makes it very intriguing about people who invented written records. There are some archaeological finds in Kazakhstan that point to their culture. I've talked about it to some kazah immigrants in Sydney and they told me that unfortunately those diggings are not looked after since disintegration of USSR and probably soon will be destroy by weather and negligence.
I'll expand on this later.
Goodnight for now.

Population of Sumer


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The Sumerians were a non-Semitic people and were at one time believed to have been invaders, as a number of linguists believed they could detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian. However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the Early Ubaid period (5300 – 4700 BC C-14) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Despite the lack of corroborating written records, it is generally agreed that Sumerian speakers were farmers who moved down from the north, after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami Transitional ware to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700 – 4900 BC C-14) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where 8 levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. Farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.

I'd be more inclined to accept they came from the south than the north, since they were originally called sag-giga, literally meaning "the black-headed people", due to the fact they were black skinned.

abu_rashid wrote on Nov 8^th, 2008 at 4:07pm:

I'd be more inclined to accept they came from the south than the north, since they were originally called sag-giga, literally meaning "the black-headed people", due to the fact they were black skinned.

Sag-giga also may mean the colour of the hair or the colour of some head gear. But even if they were black skinned it doesn't contradict probability of their origin from northern Mesopotamia as they could have been original African migrants who settled there much early and did not lost their anti melanoma chromosome set like tribes who moved further north to Europe and Asia.