The Sumerians

1. The Sumerians City States Religion Writing System Legacy

2. Background • They were the first civilization of the Middle East settling in the Tigris and Euphrates delta. • They raised crops like grains and dates. • They drained the swamps, and built dykes and canals to control flooding.

3. City States • By 3500 B.C. the most successful farming settlements had grown into powerful city states. • Each had its own ruler, as well as its own god, goddess, laws, and army. • Rival city-states like Erech, Ur, and Kish often battled each other.

4. Religion • They believed their gods controlled everything. • Therefore the Priests were very important because they knew the prayers and hymns to keep the gods content. • The most important building then was the Ziggurat, a many tiered temple. • Taxes were collected in the form of crops & grain. • Scribes were the young men who learned to read and write at temple schools and kept the government records.

5. Writing System • The Sumerians developed a system to read and write. • They had taken a reed, sharpened it, making it a stylus, and when pressed into moist clay tablets, it created wedge shaped designs. • At first, it was simple designs that represented things, they would draw an ox head for ox. It was known as pictographs. • Then later pictographs evolved into ideas being displayed. They became ideograms. (Imagine a pic of a guy with quotes around his feet to display running.) • The wet clay tablets then were dried and when later found by the Romans, it was labeled as cuneiform, Latin for wedge.

6. Achievements • The Sumerians were the first to use the wheel and are credited with inventing the sail. • They invented the plow and developed an accurate calendar. • They used geometry to survey fields based on the number 60, which ends up giving us the 360 degree circle. • We also have the 60 second minute, and 60 minute hour.