Ancient Civilizations: The Sumerian Civilization

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Sumer was the homeland of the Sumerians, the first group of people to build a civilization. Sumer lies in the southern part of Mesopotamia, which was near the Persian Gulf. Sumer was not the typical type where there are several cities under control of one person. A funny thing about this first civilization is that many of the cities fought one another. Basically, Sumer consisted of many cities with different rules that happened to live in a similar way with a similar culture. A civilization is a very complicated type of culture that the Sumerians were able to accomplish. They were also the very first group of people to become a civilization, setting them apart from every single other group. There were many things that set them apart from …show more content…
People specialized in the art of writing. The Sumerians were the first people to invent writing, which is why they are the first group of people to become a civilization. The writing they invented was called cuneiform, and was written by drawing symbols onto a wet clay tablet and then letting it dry out in the sun. Writing was necessary to keep track of many things. Priests needed a way to keep track of the temple’s merchandise to ensure nothing was stolen without their knowledge. Merchants needed a way to keep track of what they sold and what their dept was with someone. Therefore, the first symbols invented symbolized trade items. Eventually, the symbols started to have ideas interpreted into it. After that, symbols started to have sounds that it represented. Writing became more and more efficient as time passed, changing from 2000 symbols to 800 symbols that both mean the same …show more content…
The Sumerians were quite intelligent for their time The Sumerians developed many technologies that we still use to this day, like the wheel, the plow, and the sailboat. They are simple things now-a-days, but back then they were amazing inventions. The wheel allowed them to move goods easier and simpler than by carrying everything by hand. The plow made farming easier, and therefore made les people focus on farming, leading to more people specializing. The sailboat allowed people to go to islands they have never seen before and to trade overseas. The Sumerians also started to work with copper. Although others started working with copper way before the Sumerians did, the Sumerians invented bronze, a copper and tin mixture that was harder and therefore more useful metal. After several years to the times of 2500 B.C., bronze became a common metal developed and used throughout

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