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Sumerian DBQ
Have you ever thought about the story behind some of the simplest inventions. Well, the fact is that most of those inventions were made by Mesopotamia or other ancient civilizations. They were around in about 3500 B.C. In this paragraph we explore the story behind some of the most basic things that you have probably never thought about. For example mathematics or the concept of time. Now here are two contributions by the Mesopotamians.
First of all, the Sumerians invented Cuneiform which paved the way for the languages of today. (doc 1) Cuneiform was the very first written language and started simple.(oi) Cuneiform progressed over the years, at first it looked like pictures but it slowly progressed to be more like symbols.(doc
Cuneiform was the first ever form of writing. The Sumerians were the main inventors of this writing. The symbol as we know them now consist of lines and wedges. One of the
Written language was an important milestone in human history. It enabled the recording of history, dreams and tragedy. It allowed for commercial and historical record keeping. It allowed human beings to imprint thoughts on paper, for sharing, later review or just for fun. What about societies that never developed a written language? Could such a society rival one with that has? When advances of Sumerian city-states are compared to that of Teotihuacan there are a few instances where the Mesoamerican city appears to be more advanced. However, if ranked these appearances do not place Teotihuacan ahead of any one of Sumer's Mesopotamian city-states.
"If a man has knocked out the eye of a free man, his eye shall be knocked out." This is one of the most well-known laws of Hammurabi. Hammurabi's code was made in Babylon, Iraq in the 18th century B.C. His code contained 282 written laws that he wrote by the command of Shamash, to protect his people. So even though a god commanded him to create the law, Was Hammurabi's code just? There are three areas of law where Hammurabi's code can be shown to be unjust. These are Personal Law, Family Law, and Property Law.
The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt began to develop circa 3,000 B.C. Located near rivers, the lands offered fertile soil and an excess of crops that drew in many people. As more people arrived, the small settlements flourished into large, thriving civilizations. Many aspects of Mesopotamia and Egypt, such as their cities, their strongly organized government, and their religion, greatly contributed to the success of these two civilizations.
Writing is perhaps the most important building block of communication - after verbal speech, of course. Writing, like most of human civilization, has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The first writing systems began in a style known as cuneiform (Cuneiform, 2013). These wedge-shaped markings have their roots in Sumerian culture and were used predominantly for record keeping and accounting. At the archaeological site of Uruk in what is modern day Iraq, a great wealth of knowledge has been gained from the artifacts located there. Uruk was a ceremonial site and is home to the world’s oldest known documented written documents (Price and Feinman, 2013). The documents discovered list quantities of goods that may have been stored at Uruk, leading archaeologists to believe that writing in this part of the world was developed primarily to keep lists of transactions and stockpiled quantities of goods located at the site.
4000BC, long before Egypt, Greece, or Rome were known to have sophisticated societies. Agriculture, mathematics, literature, and the earliest forms of government were all established in this region. (1)
civilization. They started the Olympic games. Greeks come up with the idea of an alphabet
The ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt developed into successful civilizations. One civilization the Egyptians developed was in the Nile River valley. Based off the "Mesopotamia and Egypt DBQ" packet, "Ancient Egypt was an advanced civilization in many areas including religion, architecture, transportation, and trade. Ancient Mesopotamia was one of the first civilizations that developed a form of government as well as organized people in political states." Based on the documents, Egypt and Mesopotamia developed into successful and advanced civilizations by effectively using the resources that surrounded them to solve problems and live happily.
Humans have been using written language to communicate ideas with one another since as early as 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia. Since then, every great civilization has had a written language, each with its own unique characteristics. However, it was the writin...
The earliest writing in Mesopotamia was a picture writing invented by the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets using long reeds. The script the Sumerians invented and handed down to the Semitic peoples who conquered Mesopotamia in later centuries, is called cuneiform, which is derived from two Latin words: cuneus , which means "wedge," and forma , which means "shape." This picture language, similar to but more abstract than Egyptian hieroglyphics, eventually developed into a syllabic alphabet under the Semites (Assyrians and Babylonians) who eventually came to dominate the area.
Mesopotamia, which was established in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers around 4000 B.C. had made its mark on history by leaving behind a countless number of contributions, many of which are still practiced in today’s world, or at least have paved the way to further innovations. Their most important contributions would include the development of money, a system of time keeping, and
Ancient Greece, China, and India all had major contributions in the fields of science and math. All three of those ancient civilizations made such great contributions that they are still used today by many people. We use these contributions in school, work, and in our general every day lives. Although we don’t use the exact inventions that they created, we now use alterations of them every day. Greece’s discoveries have more of an influence on us today than those of India and China because we use these discoveries more often in the field of astronomy, theoretical sciences, important technology, and everyday mathematics.
Mesopotamia’s first invention was a form of writing called cuneiform which was written on clay tablets with a sharp reed called a stylus. This permitted for recording events and writing formal laws. The Sumerians, a civilization in Mesopotamia designed the wheel which was used to help transfer heavy objects to and from places. They also began constructing daggers, spears and chariots, which has led to their successful wars. The Mesopotamians were also responsible for the first laws and the discoveries of glass, sailboats, and ziggurats. With interest high in religion and mythology, Sumerians and their successors worshiped gods and goddesses just like Egyptians, Greeks, and Aegean cultures.
The Sumerians invented and developed a type of arithmetic by using different numbering systems including an alternating base of 10 and 6. Around 4000BC the Sumerians developed a method of measurement that resulted in the creation of arithmetic, geometry and algebra. They were the first to use a place value numeral system and the first to find the area of a triangle in addition how to determine the volume of a cube. Approximately 2600BC the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets with the first abacus appearing in 2300BC.
Science and Technology can be traced from the origin of human life 2 million years ago and each era has significant advancement. The earliest known form of S&T were human artefacts found during prehistoric time about 2.3 million years ago, they were roughly shaped stones used for chopping and scraping, found primarily in eastern Africa. Some of the earliest record of science came from Mesopotamian cultures around 400 BC, disease symptoms, chemical substances and astronomical observations were some of the evidence of emerging science. During the same period in the Nile Valley of Egypt information on the treatment of wounds and diseases and even some the mathematical calculations you are currently doing now in fifth form such as angles, rectangles, triangles and the volume of a portion of a pyramid have been around for thousands of years.