Table of Contents
This imineo documentary sets Sumer in the heat of southern Iraq, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. What it says about gardens is the film’s account, not a site chronology of ages. It opens from a biblical picture of a watered garden and four rivers, then shows hunting communities already living on these soils long before the cities. Farmers later made cereals their wealth, seeded furrows with a funnel, and cut canals, reservoirs, and dams until irrigation held a fragile balance. Palm groves along those canals are the gardens on screen. To get wood, bitumen, and lapis lazuli, the narration says, Sumerians ranged far, and it calls that effort the making of their own Eden. Temples honored powers such as Enki at Eridu and Inanna at Uruk, while Gilgamesh is told as a builder king who fought in a distant cedar forest. The decline, in this telling, came when floodwater left salt in the fields and wheat failed. A Babel image closes the film, with the people scattering as their wealth returned to dust.
Key points
- The film places early settlement, then Sumerian cities, on the Iraqi plain between two rivers.
- Cereals, seeding tools, and a network of canals and dams are presented as the basis of wealth.
- Palm groves beside those canals are the gardens the camera actually shows.
- Far trade in timber, bitumen, and blue stone is narrated as the building of their Eden.
- City gods and the Gilgamesh adventures stand in for temple life and royal story.
- Salt left behind by irrigation, not a sudden loss of skill, is the film’s reason for decline.
- A Babel picture is the closing comparison when the population scatters.
Short quotes
3500 years before Sumer, men had settled on these fertile soils.
imineo, Sumer and the filmed gardens
The film puts farmers on this plain long before the famous cities. Watch at 9:30
Irrigation became the cornerstone of their civilization.
imineo, Sumer and the filmed gardens
Controlled water is presented as the foundation of Sumerian life. Watch at 14:32
Archaeologists have established that the lapis lazuli trade originated with the Sumerian civilization 3500 years BC.
imineo, Sumer and the filmed gardens
Blue stone from distant mountains is offered as proof of very early trade. Watch at 28:59
To build their Garden of Eden, the Sumerians scoured the world in search of commodities they didn't possess.
imineo, Sumer and the filmed gardens
The narration uses an Eden image for the search for goods the plain lacked. Watch at 31:45
How can we believe that a people who had developed such advanced techniques were unable to halt this decline in their resources?
imineo, Sumer and the filmed gardens
The film poses decline as a puzzle, then points toward a failing landscape. Watch at 46:32
Video by imineo Documentaires. Watch on YouTube.