The earliest documented civilization is the Sumerians of Mesopotamia dating back 6000 years. Sumeria brought many important areas of science and technology both through invention and inherited knowledge back into consciousness. Perhaps the most paramount discovery was that of writing.With the invention of writing came the first recorded laws called Hammurabi's code as well as the first major piece of literature, the Epic Tale of Gilgamesh. It might seem obvious to state but there would be no scientific endeavours without the ability to write down complex data. One body of data that is featured heavily in Sumerian tablets is mathematics. The Sumerians used a number system of base 60, they divided time up by 60 which we still use today. …show more content…
To this day historians cannot figure out and justify how the Sumerians were able to make such an enormous technological and informational leap as it is taught in schools that only a couple years before Sumeria mankind was living as hunter gatherers. Historians will often tout the Theory of Evolution or the “stair step theory” when trying to justify things they can’t explain, yet doing so would only cause further confusion in the timeline. How could man go from such a primitive level of consciousness to a very advanced awareness of the world, it is simply impossible. Gobekli Tepe in modern day Turkey is at least 12,000 years old and this site clearly shows use of advanced technology as does Machu Picchu in Peru. Another example involves the rain water erosion around the Sphinx which dates it to be at least double the age of what we’re taught in school and likely to be tens of thousands of years older. This leads me to believe that the Sumerians weren’t the first advanced society and history is but another lie. There has also been a recent discovery of a skull dating humans closer to 350,000 years old or 150,000 years older than previously
Without the Mesopotamians we would not have all the luxury we have today. Could you ever imagine a world without writing? You may think, life would not be so bad without it, but without writing we would not have stories, we could not write to the bank, we could not text. Two major contributions made to society were the first forms of writing known as Cuneiform and Hammurabi’s Code.
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.
Ancient Mesopotamian societies had great shifts as cities and rulers rose and fell, rose and fell again, gaining land and enemies as they advanced The area Mesopotamia occupied is an immense, dry plain through which two rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, course. These rivers rise from tributaries in the mountain ranges to the north before flowing through Mesopotamia to the sea. As they reach the land close to the sea, the land becomes swampy, with lagoons, mud flats, and reed banks, but in ancient times the sea advanced much further inland; and they poured into it as two separate streams, whereas today they join as one before reaching the sea. A close cultural cooperation was established between the Sumerians (who spoke a language that was more isolated) and the Semitic Akkadian speakers, which included extensive bilingualism in its culture. This took place around the third millennia BC and as the fourth millennia dawned Mesopotamia saw an increase in its population. By aspiring and adjusting to the changing world around them the people of Mesopotamia created government and states. Order began to develop in the territories, and due to the efficiency of its military and political structure their authority began to spread and empires grow. One of these city states Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC. Sumer a city-state coming to power in prehistoric time, prior to the cultures ability to leave much historical record, however in the twenty- third century BC writing came into being which has given historians their first glimpse into some of the earliest Mesopotamian cultures.
This Sumerian Government Constitution begins with its preamble, which summarizes the main principles that influence the articles that follow it. There is a few references paying homage to God because of the strong Islamic presence in the country. The ideas of universal suffrage and anti-discrimination are included as a means to show the more prevalent ideas of a democracy. Language of a more unified government is added to show that the central government shall be powerful and not one that allows more power to be given to the states making them prone to disobeying federal law. This idea comes from the weakness of the U.S. central government during the time of its articles of confederation. The states were at war with each other, did not obey federal law, and as a result countries did not trust doing business with such an unorganized state. I wanted to create a sense of nationalism in the preamble that stems from the Sumerian people overthrowing an iron fist authoritarian. Civic nationalism can sometimes be an appropriate choice for binding the people together as one nation;
The school system of the Sumerians set the educational standards for Mesopotamia culture and other cultures to follow. Their studies included mathematics, botany and linguistics. Some students tha...
Why was this early civilization formed? There are many reasons as to why the Sumerians established the world’s first society. Many of the reasons evolved out of basic necessity or out of simple convenience. One of the most significant reasons was food, which until early cities evolved, finding food often meant traveling from place to place looking for food. Finding food was also usually done alone or as a group of family members. The Sumerians establishment of an early civilization helped to greatly reduce that burden, by staying in one region as a community and taking advantage of what was available nearby. This created a communal approach to finding food sources as well as significantly reducing the amount of energy consumed by constantly moving from place to place in search of food.
It has been shown throughout history that women have played a variety of roles whether it was ranging from being a piece of property to being the queen. As showed in The Epic of Gilgamesh women played many different roles some were concubines and others were said to be goddesses. As said women played a very significant role in this era due to: being very fertile, having roles of goddesses, and even a woman was the one who showed Enkidu here ways. However at times you have to look past the exterior and look at the interior of the woman to find the real significance she played.
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.
Of the first civilizations, Mesopotamia and Egypt left behind the most widely available documented look at the past (92). Interestingly enough, the basis for societal rank was comparable between these two civilizations. But despite similarities in social stratification, Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization had very dissimilar views on life and the afterlife.
Gilgamesh is introduced as knowing all things and countries including mysteries and secrets that went on a long journey and had his story engraved on stone. This gives us a little information on the writing technique in Sumeria. Sumerian art was complex. Clay was the Sumerians' most widely used material. Sumerian available because of the invention of cuneiform writing before 3000 B.C. The characters consist of wedge-like strokes, impressed on clay tablets. This system of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium B.C. in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley, probably by the Sumerians The history of the script is strikingly like that of the Egyptian hieroglyphic. This must have been the technique that Gilgamesh uses in order to transcribe his story onto these clay tablets. It was reinforced in the story by mentioning it at the beginning and end of the Epic.
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.
... helped the architecture to have accurate measurements . Another civilization that also developed a system of writing was China. The written language could be easily to read and understand, but when they spoke it it was difficult to understand. This civilization had a big advantage with the system of writing because all parts of china everyone could learn the language even if they already spoke a different language. This helped make a great civilization because it unifies a large and diverse land and this helped to control it easier. One disadvantage it has is that the writing system has a lot of things to memorize. So if you were a wealthy kid and went to a good school you could memorize the major part of the language, but if you were in the lower class and went to a cheap school then you had trouble learning the language because they didn’t teach the whole language
To Conclude, The Sumerians terrible answer to the terrible question is the belief the human race had been created to serve the gods. They held this belief to every aspect of their culture. The Sumerians showed this belief in their creation stories of their literature as seen in the “Atrahasis Poem”, and the “Enuma Elish” poem, the massive ziggurats of their Architecture, and their remaining artwork. The Sumerians were true believers of their gods and would have done anything for their gods. In their culture their religion was held to the highest of standards.
The first primary civilization was located in Southern Mesopotamia, known as Sumer. The Sumerians invented the first writing known as Cuneiform. We are left with tens of thousands of written records on many aspects of the Sumerians, the most notable of these being the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is an a...
Ancient Egyptian literature is believed to be the earliest written works known. Egyptians were the first to develop literary devices and religious texts. Also, they were the first to create their version of paper and ink. Hieroglyphs, a writing system used by ancient Egyptians, inspired the original alphabet, including the Romans (Budge 1).