Sumeria & Gor

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May 2012

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[Julliette Bade]

I am taking some art history courses at a noob level and was learning today about the ancient Sumerian culture of the near-east, and I kept thinking of Gor as I saw pictures of the architecture and heard about the culture.  Apparently they were the first people who started to specialize occupations and trades, which made me think of Castes of course and then the ringer~ each Sumerian city-state was lead by a religious figure they called a Priest-King.  Each one in each city was said to represent a different god, and there is some discrepancy as to their existence.

Anyone know more about this?  I also have noticed that many of the names in gor are of Eastern or Middle Eastern origins.

Just curious and wondering.

CHeerio,

JB

[Delaynie Barbosa]

John Norman loves roman influences, which of course were directly influenced by proceeding cultures. So no surprise Sumeria has made an appearance. Now we know where the name Priest Kings came from. Thank you for sharing!

[Aphris Myoo]

I studied some of this.

As far as I know Sumerians had no castes. Castes are a typical Indo European thing, which you see most clearly in India, but also in the class of the nobles in Europe.

Most Asian cultures had a king, which they gave religious and even god power too. Quite contrary with Gor which was mostly ruled by councils, or by an Ubar. Gor had separation of religious and worldly power. Sumerians probably had much less division between them. But i am not an expert on Sumeria.

[Loredana Varonia]

i think norman took many aspects from many ancient earthern cultures and mixed them in his books.
i found quite a lot of them, even linguistic phenomena, clothing ecc. but imo most was taken from ancient rome and/or the greek city states, especially sparta.

he might have taken the priest kings (ensi) from sumeria, why not! we cannot know what he had read before writing his books.

[Sahiela Lavendel]

When I read JN's novels, I often see where he got his ideas from. Quite often his research was spot-on, other times, very vague.

Sumeria was an early culture, and Priest-Kings were not uncommon. Siwa, also a very early culture, was ruled by a Cahina, a priestess. Scythians were ruled by a king/queen, but there also, the priests & priestesses carried high power. Often the position of King/Queen and Priest/Priestess were interchangable with them.

John Norman uses the word "caste", but every time that kind of irritates me. He describes a Roman/Medieval guild system almost to dotting the I's and crossing the T's.

The Indo-Aryans who settled in northern India may have started that caste system. However, it was based then on its Scytho Royal Tribe origins. Both from Iranian traditions and also Herodotus we know that the Scythian had a very strong & religious caste system in place. They had a Royal tribe who consisted of rulers & religious persons, a warrior caste, and a peasant caste. They also had outcasts who could be called serfs, or lawless. JN's caste system does not exclude castes from contact with each other, and even inter-marrying, such as the Indian and Indo-European/ Indo-Iranian did.

Sumeria however, had a cultured based on its grain production. It was basically a farm culture, with noble classes of priests and warriors. Tradesmen were still very rare. The guild system JN describes began first in the Roman Republic and peaked in the Middle Ages. JN's castes are socially and economically motivated in the same way that Roman and Medieval guilds were. They are there to protect & educate their members. 

[Loredana Varonia]

Well, Norman has taken many aspects from many ancient terrestrian cultures and mixed them, the took some aspects out of thsi mix and attributed them to the various gorean cultures of to "the" gorean culture in general.

sumeria, imo even egypt as per the important status of the scribes, rome, sparta... even when looking at various things like black wine you can find traces on earth (the original meaning of "mocca" was black/dark wine if I remember well), grammatical items of gorean words and thassa! which makes me think of thalassa/thalatta = sea (even thalassaemia, med.)

I think reading about this various sources is much more interesting than just roleplaying without knowint it, because this offers you great possibilities of rp, too.

[Aphris Myoo]

I think reading about this various sources is much more interesting than just roleplaying without knowint it, because this offers you great possibilities of rp, too.

I fully agree