Sumerian Civilization - W.H. Presentation

8/3/2019 Sumerian Civilization - W.H. Presentation

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Hunter-gatherers had roamed that part of the Middle Eastcalled the Fertile Crescent, and they had planted gardens. By7000 BCE the crops they planted became a major source offood. They had begun farming, which required permanentsettlement.

It was around 4000 BCE that a people called Sumeriansmoved into Mesopotamia, perhaps from around the CaspianSea. By 3800 BCE the Sumerians had supplanted theUbaidians and Semites in southern Mesopotamia. They builtbetter canals for irrigating crops and for transporting crops byboat to village centers. They improved their roads, over which

their donkeys trod, some of their donkeys pulling wheeledcarts. And the Sumerians grew in number, the increase inpopulation the key element in creating what we callcivilization -- a word derived from an ancient word forcity.


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Sumerian writing is the oldest full-fledgedwriting that archaeologists have discovered.The Ubaidians may have introduced theSumerians to the rudiments of writing andrecorded numerical calculation, which the

Sumerians used with the rise in trade and tocalculate and to keep records of supplies andgoods exchanged. The Sumerians wrotearithmetic based on units of ten -- thenumber of fingers on both hands. Concernedabout their star-gods, they mapped the starsand divided a circle into units of sixty, fromwhich our own system of numbers, andseconds and minutes, are derived.


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Early in Sumerian civilization, schooling wasassociated with the priesthood and took place intemples. But this changed. Education apart fromthe temples arose for the children of affluentfamilies, which these families paid for. Most if not

all students were males. The students were obligedto work hard at their studies, from sun up to sundown. Not believing in change, there was noprobing into the potentials of humankind or studyof the humanities. Their study was "practical." It

was rote learning of complex grammar andpractice at writing. Students were encouraged withpraise while their inadequacies and failures werepunished with lashes from a stick or cane.


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Sumerian kings sent men out to plunderpeople in hill country, and they acquiredslaves. The Sumerian name for a female slavewas mountain girl, and a male slave was

called mountain man. The Sumerians usedtheir slaves mainly as domestics andconcubines. And they justified their slavery aswould others: that their gods had given them

victory over an inferior people.


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Accompanying divisions in wealth was a divisionin power, and power among the Sumerians passedto an elite. Sumerian priests had once worked thefields alongside others, but now they wereseparated from commoners. A corporation run bypriests became the greatest landowners among theSumerians. The priests hired the poor to worktheir land and claimed that land was reallyowned by the gods. Priests had become skilled asscribes, and in some cities they sat with the city'scouncil of elders. These councils wielded greatinfluence, sometimes in conflict with a city's king.And the priests told commoners that theirdrudgery was necessary to allow the gods their justleisure.


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The Sumerians believed they had beencreated to serve their gods, and they served

their gods with sacrificial offerings andsupplications. They believed that the gods

controlled the past and the future, that thegods had revealed to them the skills thatthey possessed, including writing, and thatthe gods had provided them with all theyneeded to know. They had no vision of

their civilization having developed bytheir own efforts. They had no vision oftechnological or social progress.

Sumerian Civilization - W.H. Presentation

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