Scientists Prepare To Solve Mystery Of Sumerian Origins By Extracting DNA From Recently Found Noah's Teeth
The ancient Sumerians, builders of the world’s first known civilization, are a mystery to us. Settling in what we would now call southern Iraq from about 5400 BCE on, they produced a written language, a complex system of mythology, impressive architecture, and a lost world that held regional hegemony for thousands of years. We don’t know where their language came from; we don’t even know where their genes came from. We have no idea who their modern descendants would be, and we’ve never been able to test the DNA of Sumerian remains.Well, not until now. A complete skeleton from the Sumerian capital of Ur, dating back to about 4,500 BCE, was recently rediscovered in the Penn Museum—and its intact teeth may include enough soft tissue to allow DNA testing. Nicknamed “Noah,” the skeleton appears to have survived an ancient flood and everything that followed...