Ancient Mesopotamia and the Sumerians Show The word Mesopotamia comes from Greek words meaning "land between the rivers." The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates. The first settlers to this region did not speak Greek, it was only thousands of years later that the Greek-speaking Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, conquered this land and carried with him his culture.
Mesopotamia is considered the cradle, or beginning, of civilization. Here large cities lined the rivers and many advances took place. Mesopotamia at first glance does not look like an ideal place for a civilization to flourish. It is hot and very dry. There is very little rainfall in Lower Mesopotamia. However, snow, melting in the mountains at the source of these two rivers, created annual flooding. The flooding deposited silt, which is fertile, rich, soil, on the banks of the rivers every year. This is why Mesopotamia is part of the fertile crescent, an area of land in the Middle East that is rich in fertile soil and crescent-shaped. The Sumerians were the first people to migrate to Mesopotamia, they created a great civilization. Beginning around 5,500 years ago, the Sumerians built cities along the rivers in Lower Mesopotamia, specialized, cooperated, and made many advances in technology. The wheel, plow, and writing (a system that we call cuneiform) are examples of their achievements. The farmers in Sumer created levees to hold back the floods from their fields and cut canals to channel river water to the fields. The use of levees and canals is called irrigation, another Sumerian invention. (You can play an irrigation simulation game at the British Museum Mesopotamia website by opening the link at the bottom of this page.)
The Sumerians had a common language and believed in the same gods and goddesses. The belief in more than one god is called polytheism. There were seven great city-states, each with its own king and a building called a ziggurat, a large pyramid-shaped building with a temple at the top, dedicated to a Sumerian deity. Although the Sumerian city-states had much in common, they fought for control of the river water, a valuable resource. Each city-state needed an army to protect itself from its neighbors. Watch the video clip below from Discovery Education, as Nissaba, a young Sumerian girl, talks about her people's accomplishments. (By clicking on any links the user is leaving the Penfield School District website, the district is not responsible for any information associated with these links.) In 1922, English archaeologist, C. Leonard Woolley went to Southern Iraq in hopes of finding the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Woolley learned archaeology from some of the best of his day, and now he was ready to strike off on his own. Many people felt that Ur was only a myth, but Woolley, the son of a clergyman, was fascinated by the stories his father told about Ur, which, according to the Bible, was the birthplace of Abraham. Abraham is a central figure of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, three monotheistic religions. Woolley decided to excavate near the ruins of a ziggurat and began to dig two trenches. Here, Woolley confirmed that the site was the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur. Woolley's discovery of Ur along with the artifacts and burials there gives us a glimpse of life in Sumer 4,500 years ago. Woolley discovered graves of common people, but also royal graves, including that of a Sumerian queen named Pu-Abi.
Around 2,300 BC, the independent city-states of Sumer were conquered by a man called Sargon the Great of Akkad, who had once ruled the city-state of Kish. Sargon was an Akkadian, a Semitic group of desert nomads who eventually settled in Mesopotamia just north of Sumer. The Sumerian king, Lugal-Zaggisi, tried to form a coalition of Sumerian city-states against Sargon, but he was defeated by the Akkadian. Sargon is considered the first empire builder. Sargon made Agade the capital city of his empire. Sargon's daughter, Enheduanna, was first world's first credited author because she signed her name to a set of poems she wrote about her gods and goddesses. Sargon's son and grandson ruled after him, but eventually, the Akkadian Empire fell and was replaced by the Old Babylonian Empire. We will learn more about the Babylonians in the next chapter.
The Sumerians Java Games Mr. Giotto's Site What were the major cultural achievements of the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent?The Fertile Crescent is the boomerang-shaped region of the Middle East that was home to some of the earliest human civilizations. Also known as the “Cradle of Civilization,” this area was the birthplace of a number of technological innovations, including writing, the wheel, agriculture, and the use of irrigation.
What are 4 cultures in the Fertile Crescent?The ancient countries of the Fertile Crescent, such as Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, and Phoenicia, are regarded as some of the world's earliest complex societies.
What are the 3 civilizations that developed in the Fertile Crescent?Far from a monolithic region, the Fertile Crescent was home to many ancient civilizations including Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia.
What are four contributions of Mesopotamia civilizations?In the present day, these innovations such as writing, time, the wheel, and mathematics are so integral to one's daily life that their origin is rarely considered, but at one point, long ago, none of these existed until they were invented by the people of ancient Mesopotamia.
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What were four major cultural achievements of the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent?
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