Sumer's Achievements

As early as 3200 BCE, civilizations began to develop. These civilizations grew over time and became the basis for civilization today. One of the earliest civilizations known is Sumer, which was located in modern day southern Iraq. Sumer developed from small towns and eventually turned into one of the most influential civilizations. Many factors played a role in the rise and rule of Sumer, until its fall in 1900 BCE. Sumer was located in Mesopotamia, which was in modern day Iraq. Mesopotamia, which in Greek means ‘between two rivers’, was a river valley that fell in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Mesopotamia was located in an area called the Fertile Crescent, which got its name from the fertile soil that was in that area due …show more content…
Cuneiform was a series of characters that each represented a whole word or phrase. It was written by scribes making indents into clay tablets. Cuneiform was first made as a way to keep track of financial records such as trade receipts and tax histories. As cuneiform developed and became more complex, it began to be used to remember thoughts and prayers and to record laws. This helped people preserve their culture and remember important things. Learning cuneiform was very difficult because it was such a complex idea, so most of the people who knew it were scribes because it was part of their job to write it. Cuneiform helped the government of Sumer by allowing law codes to be written and displayed for everyone to see. One of the most famous documents written in cuneiform was the Code of Hammurabi in 1758 …show more content…
The higher social group was made up of nobles, priests, scribes,and the royal family. The lower level of society consisted of craft workers, laborers, merchants, and pesaants. The classes were separated by location, with the higher class living in bigger houses close to temples. The lower class lived in smaller houses towards the outskirts of the community. Other than their location and house size, these groups were also separated by their quality of life. Higher class citizens benefitted from this, because their quality of live was higher than that of a lower class citizen. The poor people’s houses were only one story and about six feet wide. If a poor man became more wealthy, he was allowed to take over a room from his neighbor’s house and claim it as his own. This left some people with only a single room to live in. As these people continues to get higher in economic status, they would be able to move to a better part of the