Slide 2 It happened first... At Sumer Slide 3 What does it take
to build a City? Slide 4 The First Urban Revolution Mesopotamia,
between the two rivers The Tigris & Euphrates, modern day Iraq
It is called the Fertile Crescent because of its high agricultural
productivity Also has high temperatures and unpredictable floods To
succeed anyone who lived here would need to construct irrigation
ditches and canals Slide 5 Ubaidians Semitic speaking people who
pre-date the Sumerians in the fertile crescent region Approx. 4500
BCE they drain marshes and develop an irrigation system Eventually,
they were supplanted by the Sumerians who built better irrigation
systems and roads Slide 6 Sumer By 3300 BCE Sumer had emerged as
one of the oldest urban centers in the world New methods of
irrigation and farming technology led to a SURPLUS of food And
that, leads to a lot of other very important things Slide 7 Surplus
Slide 8 Surplus allows so many things to happen The population
skyrocketed Increase the amount of job specialization (scientists,
priests, traders, builders, farmers, military) Needed to build
large storage buildings, and buildings for religious rituals and
government too! Slide 9 A City Slide 10 Cities are unprecedented in
scale Uruk (city of the god king Gilgamesh) Stretched to 6 miles
wide Population 50,000 (2700 BCE) In comparison Limerick twp. Has a
population of about 14,300 (2000 census) By 2500 BCE the Region of
Sumer had a population of 500,000 and 4/5 people lived in a city.
Slide 11 Government Slide 12 Organization & Development Without
a well structured and developed system of government Sumer would
not have been able to function Construction and maintenance of
public works required the organization of large work groups In
turn, it helped to form Civic Identity, or a sense of citizenship,
based on shared space Slide 13 Power is Centralized Originally,
aristocratic elders worked with and appointed temporary leader By
2000 BCE hereditary kings worked in conjunction with temple priests
Slide 14 Centralized Religion Centralized Religion Slide 15
Religion & Rituals Priests have enormous power & prestige
Urban ritual practice is far more elaborate than rural The king
maintained his right to rule through his religious standing On New
Years the King of Ur would be married to Inanna in a special
ceremony which signified both his heavenly and earthly importance
Slide 16 Grave from Ur excavated in the 1920s Six men servants
carrying knives or axes lay near the entrance lined up against the
wall; in front of them stood a great copper basin, and by it were
the bodies of four women harpists, one with her hands still on the
strings of her instrument. Over the rest of the pits area there lay
in ordered rows the bodies of sixty-four ladies of the court. All
of them wore some sort of ceremonial dressClearly these people were
not wretched slaves killed as oxen might be killed, but persons
held in honor, wearing their robes of office and coming, one hopes,
voluntarily to a rite which would in their belief be but a passing
from one world to another, from the service of a god on earth to
that of the same god in another place. In contrast most commoners
were buried in the basement vaults of their own homes. Slide 17
Specialized Jobs Slide 18 Social Classes Slide 19 Class Hierarchy
Priests Political Leaders Military Rulers Managers, Surveyors,
Artisans, Astronomers, Brewers, Warriors, traders & scribes
Farmers Slide 20 Art & Architecture Slide 21 Function &
Beauty Monumental architecture could be found in the center of
every Sumerian city-state in the form of a Ziggurat, they
functioned as Temple complexes-cementing the centrality and
importance of religious life in Sumer Temples also employed and fed
multitudes. Ex. 3000 BCE the Lagash temple fed about 1200
people/day Slide 22 Cylinder Seal, Hunting Scene 2200 BCE Small
cylinders of stone for stamping clay tablets and sealing jars were
ornately decorated to demonstrate status and position as well as
identify the sender and could be worn as a type of amulet Slide 23
Public Works Slide 24 Writing Slide 25 Token to Tablet At first
writing was simple pictures, tokens and seals Eventually a new
method of record keeping was developed to keep track of business,
proclamations, rituals and legends Cuneiform will progress from
symbols for words to phonetic sounds based on words Occupations to
follow, scribe and School Teacher! Slide 26 Sumer has all the
hallmarks of a great civilization Sumer is actually a network of
city-states which share the same culture and language These cities
(which include Ur, Uruk, Kish, Nippur and Lagash) thrive for a full
millennium Each is extremely powerful, at one point Lagash controls
1200 sq. miles surrounding it. City-states frequently war with each
other Slide 27 Long distance Trade Slide 28 Sumer traded by land,
river & sea They are responsible for the development of both
the wheel and the sail boat They traded all the way from the
Arabian Sea Coast and the Indus River Valley bringing back wood,
stone, metal, copper, tin, ivory and ceramics Slide 29 Invention
& Innovation Astronomers establish an accurate calendar
Musician create the lyre Metallurgists smelt copper & tin,
ushering in the Bronze Age New technology for weapons and farming
can be createdthe oxen pulled plow!
