applying the eight to sumer

Applying the eight characteristics of civilization:

Graphic organizer note-taking from pp.35-37 and 38-44

Sumerians / Cities

• Ur

• Erech

Sumerians / Well-organized central government

• Ruler responsible for maintaining infrastructure.

• Armies fought wars; led by ruler.

• Scribes collected taxes and kept records, such as grain harvests, laws, treaties, and business contracts.

Sumerians / Public works

• City walls maintenance.

• Irrigation systems maintenance.

Sumerians / Complex religion

• Ruler was chief servant of the gods; conducted ceremonies to appease gods.

• Mother-goddess at one point reflected the honored role of mother in farming communities.

• Warrior-leaders replaced goddesses of the hearth with domineering male-figure gods.

• Polytheistic: worshipped many gods, believed to control all aspects of life including forces of nature. These gods and goddesses behaved like humans, eating, drinking, marrying, bearing children.

• Responsible for truth and justice AND violence and suffering.

Sumerians / MORE Complex religion

• Ziggurat: a pyramid-temple soaring toward the sky.

• Shrine at top to honor chief god or goddess; sacrifices there to appease gods.

• Chief priests recorded prayers and myths.• Ceremonies on holy days.• Inanna, goddess of love: “marriage” ritual

promised prosperous new year. Doesn’t the same hedonistic festival occur every year at Times Square?

Sumerians / MORE Complex religion

• Belief in afterlife.• Underworld is a grim (bad) place.• The Epic of Gilgamesh gives an account of their

understanding of hell.• Sumerians developed a pessimistic worldview

due to ill effects of flooding. The CONJECTURE of the author demonstrates God-less bias. All religion is man-made is the premise! Good historiography would have ended with the Epic quote (p.36).

Sumerians / Social classes

• Social hierachy:– Ruling family, leading officials, high priests– Then, lesser priests and scribes, merchants

and artisans– Then, peasant farmers, the majority of the

society’s population– Slavery was common, too.– Women held legal rights to trade and own

property, but remained subservient to men.

Sumerians / Written language

• Cunieform (3200 B.C. – there’s that date again!) is “wedge” writing (reed pen to shape wedge marks on clay tablet).

• Scribes attended years of schooling to learn their trade.

Sumerians / Art and architecture

• Schooling for scribes was very rigorous.• Best and brightest learned further about

religion, medicine, mathematics, geography, astronomy, literature.

• Mathematicians developed basic algebra and geometry; number six system. The sixty-minute hour and 360-degree circle.

• Calendars.• The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Sumerians / Job specialization

• Rulers, leading officials, high priests.

• Merchants, artisans, lesser priests, scribes.

• Doctors, mathematicians, geographers, astronomers, writers.