As we discussed in our last lesson, agriculture and the domestication of animals began a little more than 10,000 years ago. In hunter-gatherer societies, everybody had to spend almost all of their time trying to get food. By developing agriculture, people could grow more food than they could eat. They used their surplus food to pay for other things, such as labor, tools, and works of art. This system of providing food or goods for services is called a barter economy. For thousands of years this system was used in trade and paying taxes. All early great civilizations operated without a system of money.

Social Hierarchy

Societies developed something called a hierarchy. A person’s place in society was determined by his place within the hierarchy. Most hierarchies had four levels. Everybody fit into one of those four levels. At the top was the nobility, or royal class. This group enjoyed the most privileges, had the most wealth, and was the smallest of the four groups. The only way to become a noble was to be the son or daughter of a noble or to marry a noble. Below the nobility was the priestly class. This class had many privileges and was respected, as they served their culture’s religion, and only they could determine the will of the gods. Because people back then believed sickness was punishment from the gods, priests were also the doctors and healers. People could become a priest by dedicating their life to their religion and going to special schools. Below the clergy was the class of free men and women. This class was made up of all men and women who were neither of noble blood or bonded slaves. It included artisans, farmers, workers, merchants, warriors, and so forth. At the bottom of the hierarchy were the slaves. Slaves had very few rights and were not very well thought of. A slave was considered a piece of property, like a truck or a tractor. A person became a slave by either being born to slave parents, or being taken captive in war. Sometimes, if a person owed too much money, they would sell themselves or members of their family into slavery.

Culture and Civilization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
 
In our last lesson, we defined culture as the way people adapt to their environment, and use their environment to meet their needs. Civilization takes culture to a higher level. Early civilizations had certain things in common: large urban centers (cities), monumental buildings and other works of architecture, bureaucracies, militaries, systems of religious leadership, and trade networks .

Eventually, most civilizations developed some system of writing. Mathematics was developed during this time, as was astronomy, although the field of astronomy of that era was more closely related to astrology than what modern day astronomers do.
 

The River Civilizations
http://web.syr.edu/~clmitche/River.htm
 
The earliest civilizations emerged near large rivers, where the population was provided with fertile land and a plentiful supply of fresh water.

The three river valleys where the first great civilizations began were: The Tigris-Euphrates Valley (Iraq), the Nile Valley (Northeast Africa / Egypt), the Indus Valley (India / Pakistan) http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/fall97/2chd.htm 

The earliest known civilization developed in Mesopotamia, which includes most of what is today the nation of Iraq. Much of Mesopotamia is in a part of the world called the Fertile Crescent, a semi-arid hilly area in the Near East where cereal grasses (wheat, barley and rye) grew.
(Click here to learn more about the Fertile Crescent: http://www.mrdowling.com/603mesopotamia.html  )

 
 
Mesopotamia (Sumeria)
 http://www.mrdowling.com/603-sumerians.html
 
At first, artisans made tools and weapons out of copper. However, copper is soft and bends easily. Anything made out of copper will break easily. About 3100 BCE, metal workers discovered that copper could be made stronger by adding tin. The result was bronze, which is strong and has a sharp cutting edge.

Agriculture saw technological  improvements. Huge fields were cultivated by plows pulled by oxen, and farmers harvested crops with bronze sickles. The world’s first fishing and trading boats traveled up and down the two rivers bringing food and trade goods to towns and cities in the region.

Although the Sumerians probably did not invent the wheel, they were the first society to make extensive use of it. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/ancienttech/chariotmaking.html  By turning the wheel on its side, Sumerian potters were able to make cooking and storage pots faster and of better quality than before.

Both the potters' wheel and wheeled carts and chariots eventually reached both the Nile and Indus Valley civilizations.

(To learn more about Sumerian technology, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeria#Technology )

Although Sumerians shared the same culture, the land was not unified. By 3100 BC, the people of Sumer were living in at least 12 independent city-states. A city-state is a region where a central city is surrounded by farms, ranches, villages, quarries, mines, and burial grounds.

These city-states were frequently in conflict with one another. Although the city-state of Kish (with its canals) was significant, the most important city-state in Sumer was Ur.

Daily Life in Sumeria

 Ur had a population of about 40,000 inhabitants. Most of the people were free men and women. They lived in family groups in one-story mud-brick houses built along narrow alleyways.

Men worked as architects, scribes, merchants, farmers, cattlemen, and fishermen.
Sons learned their job skills from their fathers. Sons almost always went into the same line of work as their fathers. Women often worked in supporting roles to their husbands, fathers, and brothers, and also were the household cooks and housekeepers.

The society was patriarchal, meaning that the father was the most important person in the family and typically made all of the important decisions. However, the mother of a family was also very important, because she ran the household and took care of the children.

Most men shaved their heads and wore skirts. Women braided their hair and wore loose fitting dresses fastened at the shoulder. Marriages were always arranged by fathers, and children were expected to obey their parents without question. Parents sold disobedient children into slavery.

Sumerians did not enjoy entertainment the way that we do today. Although they did have some games and do things to entertain themselves and others, Sumerians were gloomy and seem to have enjoyed feeling sad.
(To learn more about the daily lives of Sumerians, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeria#Culture)

Barley was the main food crop, and people ate cereal cakes made from barley. The Sumerians were the first people to use barley to make beer. They also ate vegetables like chickpeas, lentils, onions, lettuce, and turnips. Dates and honey satisfied their cravings for something sweet. In Sumerian society, common people could not afford meat except for rare occasions. Only the wealthiest Sumerians ate meat or fish often.
(To learn more about Sumerian agriculture, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeria#Agriculture_and_hunting )

 

The Temple of the Gods
 

In the center of each Sumerian city there was a ziggurat, a terraced tower about six or seven stories high. This Ziggurat was the home (the temple) of the gods.

 The most impressive part of the city was the land around this temple. Here skilled craftsmen, such as carpenters and jewelers, lived and had their workshops. Priests and city officials also lived nearby.
(To learn more about Sumerian architecture, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeria#Architecture  )

The Sumerians had many gods. Many were simply forces of nature that took human form. Sumerian deities included gods of the sky, sun, earth, and water. Statues of these gods were worshipped both in the temples and in private homes. Each city-state also had its own chief local god who was considered the real ruler of the community. Only the High Priest could actually communicate with him.

Sumerians believe in life after death. However, this afterlife was not a happy one. After a person died, he or she would spend eternity as a ghost, roaming a barren land and suffering endless torment. The Sumerians had a pessimistic outlook on life and the afterlife.

We know a lot about Sumerian beliefs from the epic tales of Gilgamesh, who was kind of a Sumerian version of Hercules. Gilgamesh was a demigod, being 2/3 god and 1/3 man. He had many adventures, including surviving an event like Noah's Flood. Through these adventures, Gilgamesh explored the complicated relationship between the gods and man. The story of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest known works of literature.
(To learn more about Sumerian religion, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeria#Religion )

The Oldest Known Writing System

The Sumerians created the world's oldest known writing system. At first, it was mostly pictures. For example, to show a sheep, the person drew a picture of a sheep. Eventually, some of the pictures came to represent ideas. A picture of a foot was used to represent the idea of walking, or a mouth and water to represent drinking. Gradually the pictures evolved into stylized symbols, where each symbol represented a sound instead of a word.

Those people whose job it was to write down things for other people were called scribes. The Sumerians had a strong sense of private property. Every contract or transaction was carefully recorded. They left literally hundreds-of-thousands of records that archaeologists have found all over Mesopotamia.

Scribes made notations on wet clay tablets with a reed that had a three-cornered end. This reed made wedge-shaped marks. The word that we use to describe this kind of writing is Cuneiform, from cuneus, which in Latin means “wedge.” When they were baked, these tablets got very strong.

As the system became more and more elaborate, it became harder to learn. Only a small portion of the Sumerian population could read or write. Those who did master the language had to spend a long time at the temple school. When they graduated, they became scribes. Scribes sat at the gates of the city, selling their services to whoever needed something written that day. Cuneiform writing gradually spread throughout the entire Near East.
(To learn more about Cuneiform, click here: http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Games/cuneiform.html )

Conclusion

Looking at the Sumerians we see some aspects of our modern civilization, and several differences as well. The Sumerians helped create several things that have been very important to world history and civilization: the wheel, pottery, agriculture, trade, writing, religion, and government. Although their civilization vanished more than 3000 years ago, things that their civilization gave to humanity are still with us. Do you think that thousands of years from now that people will look back on our civilization and talk about what our contributions have been? If so, what do you think those contributions are?
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/mesopotamia.htm 

 

Now let's do Practice Exercise 2-1 (top). Choose printer friendly or online exercises. Printer friendly version requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader 5. Click HERE to obtain a free copy.