mostly-history:Excavation of the Sumerian temple at Nippur, photographed by JohnHenry Haynes (1893).
mostly-history:Excavation of the Sumerian temple at Nippur, photographed by JohnHenry Haynes (1893).Sumer was unknown until the mid-1800s AD, when excavations inMesopotamia unearthed the Sumerian civilization and discovered theircontributions.Before the rediscovery of Sumer, references to it in ancient workswere misunderstood by scholars, as there was no context for them. The land of Shinar in the biblical book of Genesis was thought torefer to some region in Mesopotamia, but that was as far as they’dgot.In the mid-1800s, Western institutions and societies began sendingexpeditions to the Middle and Near East. They were looking forBiblical sites like Babylon, Nineveh and Shinar, and for physicalevidence to back up the Bible. At this time, the Bible (especiallythe Old Testament stories) was considered to be the oldest book inthe world, and completely original. The expeditions were supposed tosupport this, but what happened was actually the opposite. -- source link