Transcript City-States of Ancient Sumer

City-States of Ancient
Sumer
Chapter 2 Section 3
Geography
Geography
 Mesopotamia
– means
land between two rivers.
(Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers)
 Fertile land attracted
Stone Age farmers.
 Flat lands and constantly
fought over
Euphrates
Tigris
Floods and Irrigation
 Terrifying
 People
floods
were forced to
cooperate to build dams
to hold back floods and
irrigation to carry water
to their fields
The First Cities
 First
civilizations emerge in southern
part of Mesopotamia.
 Few building materials
– No rocks or wood built with mud.
Government and Society
 People
turned to war leaders and
these leaders evolved into hereditary
rulers
 Leaders were responsible for
maintaining the city walls and
irrigation systems
– Later employed scribes to collect taxes
and keep records
Government continued

Each Sumerian
city-state had
distinct social
hierarchy – system
of ranks
Priest
Farmers, merchants,
artisans
Slaves
Role of women
 The
role of women
changed over time
 Earth mother goddesses
was replaced by male
gods.
 Wives of rulers could
supervise workshops and
rule when the king was
absent
Sumerian head dress
Religion
Polytheistic
 Gods behaved like
normal people.

– Favored truth and
justice but were
responsible for violence
and suffering
Marduk

Each city build a
ziggurat
– Pyramids with a shrine
on top to the chief god.
ziggurats
Afterlife

Believed in the
afterlife
– Seen as a grim
place where people
sat in dark places
and ate clay
Advances in Learning
 Invented
the earliest form of writing.
– Cuneiform – wedge shaped writing
made in clay tablets
 Grew
out of a system of pictographs.
Contributions
 Developed
basic algebra and
geometry
 Made accurate calendars by studying
astronomy
 Also credited for the first wheeled
vehicles