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An Advanced Society, the First of its Kind: Ancient Mesopotamia
The rise of Sumerian city-states began around 3500 BCE. Until about 150 years
ago, archaeologists had no idea that the Sumerian people had lived at all. In the mid19th century, archaeologists began finding artifacts in the area of the Fertile Crescent
that we call Mesopotamia. They uncovered tablets, pottery and the ruins of cities. They
were surprised to find writing in a language they had never seen before. It is now known
that the Sumerians had a complex society. Some of the things they invented, like the
plow and writing, are still in use today.
Civilizations need a stable food supply. A complex society can thrive only if its
members have the food they need to survive. The Sumerians invented two key things to
help them create a stable food supply. One of these inventions was their complex
irrigation systems. The Sumerians built networks (an interconnected system of channels
or lines) of canals, dams and reservoirs to provide their crops with a regular supply of
water. Their second invention was the plow. A plow is a tool used for tilling, or turning,
the soil to prepare it for planting. The Sumerians made the first plow out of wood. One
end of the plow was bent for cutting into the ground to turn the soil. Farmers themselves
pushed and pulled the plow along the ground, or they used animals such as oxen to pull
it. This allowed farmers to plant crops much more rapidly.
The Sumerians made several technological advances. The most important was
the wheel. It was first used as a surface for shaping clay into pots. Potters’ wheels spun,
flat side up, on an axle. The Sumerians discovered that if it was flipped onto its edge,
the wheel could be rolled forward. They used this discovery to create wheeled carts for
farmers, and chariots for the army. Another technological advance was the arch.
Sumerian arches were inverted (upside-down) U- or V- shaped structures built above
doorways. To build arches, the Sumerians stacked bricks, made of clay and straw, to
rise from the walls in steps until they met in the center. Arches added strength and
beauty to Sumerian buildings. They became a common feature of temple entrances and
some historians say it is the Sumerians’ greatest architectural achievement.
The Sumerians were able to maintain a highly developed culture, including the
arts. There were many kinds of artists and artisans in ancient Sumer. Metalworkers
made objects, like weapons and cups. They made items such as mirrors and jewelry,
too. Architects designed temples and ziggurats. These large structures contained
towers with platforms made of mud bricks, and were so large that they could be seen
from 20 miles away. Some were as high as 8 stories and as wide as 200 feet. Music
was also an important art form in Ancient Sumer. Sumerians valued music as an art
form. They developed a variety of instruments, including drums and pipes. One favorite
was a small harp called a lyre. Lyres were wooden instruments made of a sound box
and strings. A wooden bar held the strings in place at the top. Lyre makers often
decorated their instruments with precious stones and carvings made of horn. These
decorations show how much the Sumerians valued music.
The Sumerians created a highly developed written language called cuneiform.
The name comes from the Latin word for “wedge.” The Sumerians used a wedge-
shaped stylus (a sharp, pointed tool) to etch their writing in clay tablets. The earliest
examples of cuneiform show that it was used to record information about the goods
people exchanged with one another. At first, cuneiform writing may have contained as
many as 2,000 symbols to stand for ideas and sounds. Cuneiform was based on an
earlier, simpler form of writing that used pictographs (a symbol that stands for an
object). Pictographs are symbols that stand for real objects, such as a snake or water.
Scribes used a sharpened reed to draw the symbols on wet clay. When the clay dried,
the marks became a permanent record.
Out of the Sumerian city-states rose several empires with centralized authority.
During this time large sums of money went into military expeditions and weapons,
developing a written set of laws, and expanding on art and architecture. During times of
peace, in the Neo-Babylonian Empire, exceptional advances were made in astronomy
and mathematics. They created the first sundial, a device that uses the sun to tell time.
They made discoveries that led to our present-day system of a 60-minute hour and a 7
day week. These developments have established the roots for civilizations throughout
the world.
Through the development of necessary advancements in society, Ancient
Sumerians were able to create one of the first highly developed cultures that included
an advanced system of writing, organized social structure, government and religion, a
stable food supply and highly advanced technology. The Sumerians were no doubt a
force to be reckoned with.
On the moist, muddy banks of the Nile River, the people of ancient Egypt farmed and
prospered. Around 5,000 years ago, they began to build a remarkably modern way of
life. They created great cities, and amazing tombs and temples. They wrote down their
language and measured time with clocks and calendars.
The ingenious Egyptians were a practical people. Many of their inventions were
connected with their precious river and the farming it made possible. They learned to
trap and raise its waters to grow their crops taller. By irrigating (watering) their fields,
farmers doubled their harvests. They built dykes (earth walls) to keep their fields wet
when the floods drained away. In the dry season, they added onto the Mesopotamian
irrigation system by using a bucket-lifting technique, called a shaduf, to raise the water
to their fields. Egyptians even learned to measure the height of the Nile’s floodwaters.
They used this information to predict the harvest- and set the taxes for the next year.
Egyptians tilled Egypt’s black mud with plows pulled by cattle. An ox would pull the tool
in order to plant more crops at a much quicker pace.
The Egyptians developed sailing ships to travel quickly up and down the Nile. Using the
Nile as a highway, the Egyptians learned that the wind blew south and the river flowed
north. They discovered that if they spread sheets of cloth above their boats, the steady
breeze would allow them to sail smoothly from north to south.
Egyptians did not just use science and technology for practical reasons. A lot of their
inventions aimed to glorify gods, kings and the dead. Though they lived in mud-brick
houses, they cut and hauled huge stone blocks to build palaces and pyramids. Within
stone temples, priests watched the stars, timing their movement to plan their prayers.
To measure time, priests watched how the sun moved and made the first shadow
clocks from stone. When the sun set, they measured the movement of the stars. Time
would be determined by the angle of the shadow. The deeply religious Egyptian people
found ways to preserve dead bodies, using minerals and resources around them,
believing people would live again after they had died.
Ancient Egyptians needed to be aware of how they dressed because of the hot, dry
climate. They learned to make fabric by pulling threads across each other in an overunder-over-under pattern. This process was called weaving and it is still used widely
today. The ingenious Egyptians also mixed the world’s first cosmetics, or makeup, and
polished up metal disks to make mirrors that they could hold in their hands. Both men
and women painted their faces with makeup, although women tended to use more of
the bright colors, which came from copper minerals. Recent medical research has
shown that these can kill germs. The minerals in black makeup were disinfectants and
kept flies away.
Egypt’s dry climate stopped workers’ tools, kings’ treasures and scribes’ writings from
rotting away to dust. Today, these objects tell a remarkable story of an ancient people
who used their skills to make life easier and richer.