Bellringer KEEP YOUR HOMEWORK FOR NOW 1 In

Bellringer KEEP YOUR HOMEWORK FOR NOW 1. In your Glossary, define river valley 2. On your Bellringer sheet: Does Sumer have all of STAIR? Give examples for each letter.

STAIR Specialized workers Technology Advanced cities Institutions Record keeping

Agenda 1. 2. 3. 4. Problems in Sumer Review Fall of the Sumerians Mesopotamian Empires

Objectives Students will be able to… 12. Summarize key aspects Sumerian civilization. 13. Describe the fall of Sumerian civilization. 14. Define empire.

Objective #12 Problems in Sumer • In groups, discuss the three problems Sumerians faced and try to identify the solution that will keep your society alive! (We will fill in the chart at the end together)

Problems in Sumer PROBLEM SOLUTION 1. Unpredictable flooding Irrigation Cooperation (institutions) 2. No natural resources Trade 3. No natural barriers Defensive walls (of mud) Organize armies

Sumer GRAPES

Sumer: Geography • Southern Mesopotamia • Part of the Fertile Crescent Aleppo Jericho

Physical Geography • Two rivers, lots of fertile land • Flat • Mountains and deserts beyond the flat land • Neighbors were nomads in the desert and northern Mesopotamia…we’ll meet them soon

Sumer: Religion • Polytheism – many gods – What were their gods? • Ziggurat – temple and city-center – Animal sacrifices and offerings • Why are priests so important in Sumer?

Temple to Nanna, Ur This large temple, dedicated to the god Nanna, was built around 2100 B. C. by King Ur-Nammu, in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur. (Michael S. Yamashita/Corbis; ABC-CLIO)

Offerings to the Gods King Ur-Nammu makes an offering to the moon god Nanna. Ur-Nammu reigned over the Sumerian city of Ur from about 2112 to 2095 B. C. The stela dates to around 2060 B. C. (Bettmann/Corbis; ABC-CLIO)

Sumer: Achievements • Inventions –Wheel –Sail –Plow –Base-60 math

Achievements • Architecture (ziggurat) • Writing – cuneiform –Earliest writing used pictograms, pictures that stand for words –Later evolved into a set of symbols representing about 300 sounds

Early Cuneiform Clay tablet with pictograms from Mesopotamia. (Multimedia Library; ABC-CLIO)

Sumerian inscription, detail of a diorite statue of Gudea of Lagash, 22 nd century BC (Brittannica)

Detail from an Assyrian tablet with cuneiform writing. The Assyrian alphabet contained 19 simple letters and approximately 300 cuneiform symbols. (Shutterstock; ABC-CLIO) Ancient Sumerian tablet with cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing. This tablet, from 2039 BC, tracks disbursements of wages to supervisors of day laborers. (Library of Congress; ABC-CLIO)

Arts Sumerian figurine of a woman sitting and holding a small vase. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource; ABCCLIO)

Standard of Ur – War

Standard of Ur – Peace

Sumer: Political • Priests ruled in peace, military leaders during wars • Eventually, a military leader made himself king and created a dynasty

Sumer: Political • Each city-state had its own king –Ur, Uruk, Umma, Lagash, Kish • Leaders collected taxes and organized labor (for, say, irrigation)

Sumer: Economic • Agriculture-based • Trade very important –Traded food for stone, wood, and metal –Then made tools and traded them for more stuff

Sumer: Social • Social classes (from top to bottom) –Priests and kings –Wealthy merchants –Workers and farmers –Slaves • Why were merchants so respected?

Women’s Rights • Women could –Own property –Be educated –Have important jobs • Women could not –Rule the city or be the head priest

Objective #13 Fall of Sumer

NOT a Country • Sumer is not a country! –Individual city-states with their own leaders and laws –Not united…fought each other often –Linked by similar cultures • Cultural diffusion

Sumer’s Neighbors • Northern Mesopotamia was not as fertile, many nomads lived there • Why might they cause problems for the Sumerians? • Why were the Sumerians unable to defend themselves from invasion?

Rules of World History Rule #1: Divided, you fall

Sargon of Akkad

Sargon of Akkad [Time Life Pictures/Getty Images]; ABC-CLIO

Sargon • “In my old age of 55, all the lands revolted against me, and they besieged me in Agade ‘but the old lion still had teeth and claws’, I went forth to battle and defeated them: I knocked them over and destroyed their vast army. Now, any king who wants to call himself my equal, wherever I went, let him go!”

Political Units • • City-state Kingdom Empire

Nomads Invade • Akkad declines – Famine – Internal fighting – Invasions • Nomads from the west invade – Found new empire in the city of Babylon

Rules of World History Rule #2: Beware the nomads

Babylon • Babylon, on the Euphrates and near the Tigris, controls all trade on both rivers • Dominates Mesopotamia for 300 years • Why did Babylon last, while Akkad did not?

Rules of World History Rule #3: He who controls trade, controls the world

Sumer’s Legacy • Cuneiform and ziggurats used throughout Mesopotamian history for thousands of years after the fall of the Sumerian city-states CULTURAL DIFFUSION!

Post-Sumerian Ziggurat View of the Mesopotamian ziggurat at Choga Zanbil in present-day western Iran, 13 th century BC. (Diego Lezama Orezzoli/Corbis; ABC-CLIO)