Sumerians and Nigerian Shared Many Cultural Traits
There is documented evidence that ancient Sumerians shared cultural, traditional and occupational traits with rural Nigerians. People of both nations were farmers, merchants, metallurgists. Both were adept in bronze alloy making. They lived in mud houses of reed, worshipped tutelary gods in small shrines, drank palm wine, wore wrappers and loin cloths, ground grains on stone querns and used hoes in farming. Their kings used the same instruments of power used by Nigerian kings to this very day. In a portrait of king Sargon’s grandson, King Narmer (Enzu) located in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Turkey, he is wearing a wrapper, Nigeria-style with one shoulder bare “and carries a club in the right hand and a whip in the left and wears bracelets on both arms and a tall Phrygian hat.” The Phrygian hat (Santa Claus hat) is the traditional Hat of Igbo initiates and Chiefs of Eri. Among Sumerian emblems and inscriptions, it is called Eri. Narmer’s “club” is the Igbo traditional wooden club-like emblem of divine authority called Ofo. The whip is the traditional Igbo/Black African horse-tail found in all Black Africa, borne by elders. Like Igbo people, Sumerian people of high rank were buried in their private houses which they had inhabited while they lived. Their priests were called Shangu, a name derived from the Yoruba god of thunder Shango, whose equivalent in Sumer was Utu. Like native Yoruba, Benin and Igbo priests Sumerian priests wore white wrapper while performing rituals in their shrines. The list of similarities is endless…