SUMERIAN

CIVILIZATION
BASS 1A
 SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION
Sumer was an ancient civilization founded in the Mesopotamia region
of the Fertile Crescent situated between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers. Known for their innovations in language, governance,
architecture and more, Sumerians are considered the creators of
civilization as modern humans understand it. Their control of the region
lasted for short of 2,000 years before the Babylonians took charge in
2004 B.C.
The people known as Sumerians were in control of the area
by 3000 B.C. Their culture was comprised of a group of
city-states, including Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Kish, Ur and
the very first true city, Uruk. At its peak around 2800 BC,
the city had a population between 40,000 and 80,000
people living between its six miles of defensive walls,
making it a contender for the largest city in the world. Each
city-state of Sumer was surrounded by a wall, with villages
settled just outside and distinguished by the worship of
local deities.
LAND OF FIRSTS
Many of the things we take for granted today were invented in ancient
Sumer. Even, for example, a thing as fundamental as time. The
Sumerians devised the concept of a 24-hour cycle marking one day with
two 12-hour periods.

After structuring their lives around time, they became

the first people to live in cities.

And, in the ancient world, when great cities were

within close proximity of one another, war almost
always resulted. Ancient Sumer holds another
‘first’ for engaging in the first recorded war with
its eastern neighbors, the Elamites.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE SUMERIAN
CIVILIZATION
SUMERIAN SCIENCE
Sumerians had a system of medicine that was based in magic and herbalism, but they
were also familiar with processes of removing chemical parts from natural substances.
They are considered to have had an advanced knowledge of anatomy, and surgical
instruments have been found in archeological sites.

Their skill at engineering and architecture both point to the sophistication of their
understanding of math. The structure of modern time keeping, with sixty seconds in a
minute and sixty minutes in an hour, is attributed to the Sumerians.
SUMERIAN CULTURE
Schools were common in Sumerian culture, marking the world’s first mass effort to pass
along knowledge in order to keep a society running and building on itself.

Sumerians left behind scores of written records, but they are more renowned for their
epic poetry, which influenced later works in Greece and Rome and sections of the Bible,
most notably the story of the Great Flood, the Garden of Eden, and the Tower of Babel.
The Sumerians were musically inclined and a Sumerian hymn, “Hurrian Hymn No. 6,” is
considered the world’s oldest musically notated song.
SUMERIAN ART
AND ARCHITECTURE
Architecture on a grand scale is generally credited to have begun under the
Sumerians, with religious structures dating back to 3400 B.C.

Elaborate construction, such as terra cotta ornamentation with bronze accents,

complicated mosaics, imposing brick columns and sophisticated mural paintings all
reveal the society’s technical sophistication.
SUMERIAN LANGUAGE
The Sumerian language is the oldest linguistic record. It first appeared in archaeological
records around 3100 B.C. and dominated Mesopotamia for the next thousand years. It
was mostly replaced by Akkadian around 2000 B.C. but held on as a written language in
cuneiform for another 2,000 years.
Cuneiform, which is used in pictographic tablets, appeared as far back as 4000 B.C., but
was later adapted into Akkadian, and expanded even further outside of Mesopotamia
beginning in 3000 B.C.
Writing remains one of the most important cultural achievements of the Sumerians,
allowing for meticulous record keeping from rulers down to farmers and ranchers.
 ANCIENT SUMERIAN
INVENTIONS THAT
CHANGED THE WORLD

 WRITING
Though not entirely certain, it’s likely that the Sumerians were the first
to develop a writing system. By 2,800 BC, they were using written
communication to keep record of the goods they were making and
trading – the earliest records of their texts are simply numbers and
commodities, rather than great works of prose.

Initially, pictographs were used, which were essentially drawings of

different objects. Pictographs then evolved into symbols that stood for
words and sounds. Scribes used sharpened reeds to scratch the
symbols into wet clay, which then dried to form tablets. This writing
An early writing sample
from Mesopotamia using system became known as cuneiform, which was then borrowed by
pictographs to create a other civilisations and used across the Middle East for some 2,000
record of food supplies.
years and was only replaced during the Roman era when alphabetical
forms were introduced.
 MATHEMATICS
Primitive people counted using simple methods, such as
putting notches on bones, but it was the Sumerians who
developed a formal numbering system based on units of
60, according to Robert E. and Carolyn Krebs’ book,
Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and
Discoveries of the Ancient World. At first, they used reeds
to keep track of the units, but eventually, with the
Cuneiform script,
developed by the development of cuneiform, they used vertical marks on the
Sumerians.
clay tablets. Their system helped lay the groundwork for
the mathematical calculations of civilizations that followed.

 A COUNTING SYSTEM
The earliest humans counted using simple methods, such as carving
notches into bones. However, the Sumerians developed a formal
number system based upon units of 60 known as the sexagesimal
system, which evolved out of a need to create a trade and taxation
policy. A small clay cone was used to denote 1, a ball for 10 and a large
clay cone for 60. An early version of the abacus was invented by the
Sumerians between 2,700 and 2,300 BC. With the development of
cuneiform, vertical marks were used on the clay tablets.

Cuneiform script,
developed by the
Assigning symbols to large numbers was further necessitated by the
Sumerians. night sky, which the Sumerians tracked in order to prepare the lunar
calendar.
 HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
One of the Sumerians greatest advances was in the area of hydraulic
engineering. Early in their history they created a system of ditches to
control flooding, and were also the inventors of irrigation, harnessing
the power of the Tigris and Euphrates for farming. Canals were
consistently maintained from dynasty to dynasty.

The Sumerians figured out how to collect and channel the overflow
of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—and the rich silt that it contained—
and then use it to water and fertilize their farm fields. They designed
A Mesopotamian relief complex systems of canals, with dams constructed of reeds, palm
showing the agricultural
importance of the rivers.
trunks and mud whose gates could be opened or closed to regulate
the flow of water.
 CHARIOT
They didn’t invent wheeled vehicles, but did likely develop
the first two-wheeled chariot by drilling a hole through the
frame of the cart to create an axle, which then connected
the wheels to form a chariot. These chariots were most
likely used in ceremonies or by the military, or as a means to
get around the rough terrain of the countryside.

A depiction of an

onager-drawn cart on
the Sumerian “War”
panel of the Standard of
Ur (c. 2500 BCE)
 PLOW
According to Kramer, the Sumerians invented the plow, a
vital technology in farming. They even produced a manual
that gave farmers detailed instructions on how to use
various types of plows. And they specified the prayer that
should be recited to pay homage to Ninkilim, the goddess
of field rodents, in order to protect the grain from being
eaten.
Imitation of a Sumerian

plow.

 MASS PRODUCED BRIKS

To make up for a shortage of stones and timber for building
houses and temples, the Sumerians created molds for
making bricks out of clay, according to Kramer. While they
weren’t the first to use clay as a building material, “the
innovation is the ability to produce bricks in large amounts,
and put them together on a large scale,” Jones explains.
Their buildings might not have been as durable as stone
An archaeological site in ones, but they were able to build more of them, and create
Mari, Syria (modern Tell
Hariri) that was an larger cities.
ancient Sumerian city
on the western bank of

Euphrates river.

 CONCLUSION
What was the impact of the Sumerians?
In what the Greeks later called Mesopotamia, Sumerians invented
new technologies and perfected the large-scale use of existing
ones. In the process, they transformed how humans cultivated food,
built dwellings, communicated and kept track of
information and time.
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