Chapter 3 Section 3 Sumerian Achievements Section 3

Chapter 3 Section 3 Sumerian Achievements

Section 3: Sumerian Achievements The Big Idea The Sumerians made many advances that helped their society develop. Main Ideas • The Sumerians invented the world’s first writing system. • Advances and inventions changed Sumerian lives. • Many types of art developed in Sumer.

Sumerian Writing and Education

The Invention of Writing • The Sumerians made one of the greatest cultural advances in history. • They developed cuneiform. • Cuneiform-the world’s first system of writing

The Invention of Writing • Sumerians used sharp tools called styluses, instead of pencils and pens, to make wedgeshaped symbols on clay tablets. • The oldest inscriptions are on stone 3600 BC. • Clay tablets appear around 3200 BC. • Sumerian writing reads from right to left.

History of Cuneiform • But in cuneiform, symbols could also represent syllables, or basic parts of words. • As a result, Sumerian writers could combine symbols to express more complex ideas such as “joy” or “powerful. ” • Sumerian writing reads from right to left. • Cuneiform ended around 330 BC.

History of Cuneiform • Earlier written communication had used pictographs, or picture symbols. • Each pictograph represented an object, such as a tree or an animal.

Scribes • The Sumerians first used cuneiform to keep business records. • A scribe, or writer, would be hired to keep track of the items people traded. • Government officials and temples hired scribes to keep their records. • Becoming a scribe was a way to move up in social class.

Schools • Sumerian students went to school to learn to read and write. • The priests were the primary teachers of the children. • To most temples were attached schools with clergy instructed boys and girls.

Schools • They instructed in writing and arithmetic, formed their habits into patriotism and piety, and prepared some for the profession of scribes. • School tablets survive, encrusted with tables of multiplication and division, square and cube roots, and exercise in applied geometry.

Schools • But, like today, some students did not want to study. • “Go to school, stand before your school-father, recite your assignment, open your school bag, write your tablet…After you have finished your assignment and reported to your monitor(teacher), come to me, and do not wander about in the street. • Link to A Sumerian Essay for Schoolboys

Literature • In time, Sumerians put their writing skills to new uses. • It was first used for commerce, and then religious record. • They wrote works on history, law, grammar, and math. • They also created works of literature such as stories, proverbs, and songs. • They wrote poems about the gods and about military victories.

Epics • Some literature include epics. • Epics are long poems that tell the stories of heroes. • The most famous poem being the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of a legendary Sumerian King.

Epic of Gilgamesh • The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. • After an initial fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. Together, they go on a journey to the defeat monsters. • Later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. • As a punishment for these actions, the gods sentence Enkidu to death.

Epic of Gilgamesh • In the second half of the epic, depressed about Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. • He summons his dead friend Enkidu, who describes the miseries of death, and then the epic ends.

Who is Gilgamesh Two thirds of him is god, One third of him is man, There’s none can match the form of his body… All things he saw, even to the ends of the earth, He underwent all, learned to know all; He peered through all secrets, Through wisdoms mantle that veils all What was hidden he saw, What was cover he undid; Of times before the storm flood be brought report. He went on a long far way, Giving himself toil and distress; Wrote then on a stone table the whole of his labor

Sumerian Technology and Science

Evolution of the wheel • The Sumerians were the first to development of the wheel • It was used for carts and wagons

The Plow • The plow increased farm production. The plow was pulled by oxen and broke through the hard clay soil for planting.

Potters Wheel • Invented the Potter’s wheel-a device that spins clay as a craftsperson shapes it into bowls.

Advances and Inventions • They made advances in daily life • They also invented a clock that used falling water to measure time. • They added sails to their boats to make sailboats. • Sumerians built sewers under the city streets • First to manufacture bronze to make stronger tools and weapons • They even produced makeup and glass jewelry.

Math • Commerce created mathematics, and united with religion to beget astronomy. • The Mesopotamians even developed π as the number 3 • They developed math system based on the number 60. • Based on this system, they divided a circle into 360 degrees. • Divided a calendar into 12 months • with a total of 354 days. • The divisions of our months (12), (24)days, hours, and (60) minutes came from the Mesopotamians • They calculated the areas of rectangles and triangles

Science • They wrote long list to record their study of the natural world • These tablets included the names of thousands of animals, plants, and minerals. • Sumerians would use ashes of ox hooves, egg shells, and pumice as tooth paste • They would also use animal fat, wood, and ash as soap.

Astronomy • Mesopotamians study the stars to divine the future fates of men, more astrologers then astronomers. • Every celestial movement had a terrestrial event. • If the moon was crescent, then the king would overcome an enemy. • They made the first distinction between a planet and a star. • They plotted the orbits of the sun and moon and dated the seasons.

Medicine • They used ingredients from animals, plants, and minerals to produce healing drugs. • Some included milk, turtle shells, fig, and salt • They catalogued their medical knowledge, listing treatments according to symptoms and body parts.

Medicine • A regular profession of physician had been established, with fees and penalties fixed by laws • A patient could know the fee before treatment, and the poor could pay less. • Doctors had to pay damages for misdiagnoses, they could even lose a finger in extreme cases.

Medicine • Strange Medicine: Sumerians would sleep next to skulls or even kiss/lick them to cure ailments. • Sorcerers were more popular then physicians amongst the populace. • Possession was considered a disease, caused by sin. • Drugs were used to terrify the demons rather then heal the patients. • People were given disgusting drinks consisting of raw meat, snake-flesh, wood shavings, wine or oil, rotten food, crushed bones, fat, dirt, and animal or human urine or excrement to convince the demon to leave.

Sumerian Art and Culture

The Arts of Sumer • The Sumerians skills in the fields of art, metalwork, and architecture • Architecture-the science of building • Sumerian kings lived in palaces • The rich lived in two story homes with a dozen rooms, made mud bricks. • The poor lived in small one story homes, most even made of reeds. • Roads were unpaved

Architecture • City Centers were dominated by their temples called ziggurats, a pyramid-shaped temple tower. • Outdoor staircases led to a platform and a shrine at the top. • Cities had a storage granaries and water cisterns, as well as accommodations for visiting envoys from other cities. • Towns also had a strictly regulated open market and licensed traders.

Oval Temple of Khafaji

Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu

The Arts • Sumerians were famous for making sculptures, jewelry, cylinder seals, pottery, music, and dance. • Sumerian sculptors produced many fine works. • Among them are the statues of gods for temples. • Sumerian pottery is known for its quantity but not quality.

The Arts • Jewelry was popular • Jewelers made many beautiful works out imported gold, silver, and gems. • Cylinder seals could be used to sign documents, battle scenes, worship rituals, and mark property. • They were stone cylinders engraved with designs, when rolled over clay, they left an imprint.

Music • Kings and temples hired musicians to play on special occasions for entertainment. • They used reed pipes, drums, tambourines, and stringed instruments called lyres. • Children learned songs in school. • People sang hymns to gods and kings. • Music and dance provided entertainment in marketplaces and homes.

Summary of Sumerian Civilization Sumerian civilization may be summed up in this contrast between crude pottery and consummate jewelry; it was a synthesis of rough beginnings and occasional but brilliant mastery. Here are the first states and empires, the first irrigation, the first use of gold and silver as standards of value, the first business contracts, the credit first system, the first code of law, the first writing, the first stories of Creation, the first libraries and schools, the first literature and poetry, the first cosmetics and jewelry, ornamental metal and decorative themes, the first arch, column, vault, and dome. Here appears some of the sins of civilization: slavery, despotism, and imperialistic war. It was a life differentiated and subtle, abundant and complex.

Questions (pages 65 -69) 1. 2. 3. 4. What did the Sumerians use to write in cuneiform? Why were scribes important? How was cuneiform used to express complex ideas? What was one of the most important technical developments of Sumer 5. What Sumerian advance in mathematics do we use every day when we look at a calendar? 6. What was at the center of most Sumerian cities? 7. What different types of art did the Sumerians create?

Invention of Writing. Copy and Fill in the Graphic Organizer Cuneiform Arts Technology 1. 2. 3. Architecture 1. 2. 3.

Many types of art developed in Sumer. Copy and Fill in the Graphic Organizer Cuneiform • World’s first system of writing • Cuneiform symbols could represent syllables. Earlier pictographs had represented only objects. • The Sumerians wrote on clay tablets with a stylus. Technology Architecture The Arts • • The Wheel • Rulers lived in large palaces. • The Plow • Mud bricks were • the houses’ main building blocks. • A ziggurat, or pyramid-shaped • temple tower, rose above each city. • The Sail • Bronze weapons Sculptors produced many statues of the gods for their temples. Jewelry was a popular item made from imported gold, silver, and gems. Engraved cylinder seals are one of Sumer’s most famous types of art.