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Social Studies Notes
Chapter 4: Lesson 1
The Sumerians
Learning Targets: I will be able to explain what it was like to live in Sumer. I can describe the Sumerian ideas and inventions that
have been passed on to other civilizations.
Questions answered by notes
Why did people settle in
Mesopotamia?
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What was life like in Sumer?
Civilizations1st developed around 3,000 BC in the river
valleys of Mesopotamia
People needed water and their crops needed water
Mesopotamia means “The land between the river”
Rivers were the Tigris and Euphrates
Mesopotamia was located within the Fertile Crescent
Flooding sometimes – the positive about the flooding
was that it brought silt = small particles of soil
Silt was good soil for farming
Irrigation = method of watering crops
Surpluses = extra amounts which allowed specialization
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They formed city-states = a city with political and
economic control over the lands around them
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Polytheism = worship of many gods
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Ziggurat = a large temple
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Priests were the original rulers – later the city-states
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became monarchies
What ideas and inventions did
Sumerians pass on to other
civilizations?
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Social Classes
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“Traditional” roles for men and women
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If you lived in Sumer, you were probably a farmer
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Trade was important because they did not have all the
goods they needed
Kings, Priests, warriors,
Government officials
Merchants
Farmers
Fishers
Artisans
(Largest Class)
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Mesopotamia has been called “the cradle of civilization”
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Their Inventions include:
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The writing system they developed was the earliest know
system in the world
They created a way of writing called cuneiform
Only a few people – mostly wealthy boys – learned how
to read and write
Some became scribes = official record keepers
The world’s oldest known story is from Sumer= Epic of
Gilgamesh
Epic = a long poem that tells the story of a hero
Sumerians were the first people to use the wheel (cart
and potters’ wheel)
1st to make bronze out of copper and tin
Place-value system of numbers
Tables for calculating division and multiplication
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Slaves
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60-minute hour, 60 second minute
360 degree circle
12 month calendar (based on cycles of the moon)
Sailboat
Wooden plow
Questions answered by notes
Notes
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