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Clever People, those Sumerians
• In the third Millennium BC modern day Iraq was home to one of the most inventive civilisations in pre-history, the Sumerians.
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By
Urban Cowgirl, Staff Writer
Friday,
1 December, 2006
The Iraqis weren’t always the bloodthirsty religious fanatics we see nightly on our television sets.
Back in the 4th millennium BC, Mesopotamia roughly equivalent in geographical spread to modern Iraq, extending into Persia (now Iran) was home to the civilization of Sumer. The Sumerians were an educated and inventive people. Among their inventions were one of the earliest forms of writing, Cuneiform script, and the Ziggurat style of building, still in use today.
Many Ziggurats, stepped temples, still survive today in Iraq and modern Iran, and influence modern architecture. And Sumerian writing, Cuneiform, using reeds to impress pictograms on clay tablets, predates Egyptian hieroglyphics by at least 75 years.
Cuneiform was in widespread use from around 2900 BC to around 75 AD when it gave way to the use of Aramaic which became widespread under the Assyrian Empire. The last known Cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in AD 75. (Read how it was deciphered in our Science and Sci-Fi section).
Sumerian Ziggurats
One of Sumerians most lasting memorials is the Ziggurat or stepped temple. Its exact function is unknown but seems to have been religious. There are 32 known ziggurats in the old Mesopotamian region. Four are in Iran, and the rest in Iraq. The most recent to be discovered was Sialk in Iran, dating back to the 3rd MillenniumBC. One of the best preserved ziggurats is at Choqhazanbil in western Iran.
This design was popular in the Art Deco movement of the 1930s and can still be observed in some modern office buildings and universities. The headquarters of the British Secret Serivce overlooking the Thames in London is one example and there are also modern appartment blocks built in this style along the Thames. Can you tell us about any more modern ziggurats?
Sumerian inventions
Many authorities credit the Sumerians with the invention of the wheel and the potter's wheel. They also came up with the concept of dividing the hour into 60 minutes and the minute into 60 seconds.
Other inventions attributed to the Sumerians include:
- beer brewing
- the wheel (ca. 3700 BC)
- mathematics based on the numeral 60 - the basis of time in modern world
- a system of weights and measures which served the ancient world until the Roman period
- boots and sandals as footwear) - evidence exists for the use of leather by the ancient Sumerians as far back
6000 BC.
- astronomy - many of the constellations were mapped by the Sumerians
- plumbing - a complex system of sewers and flush toilets.
Perhaps most importantly, the Sumerians ushered in the age of intensive agricultural in Ancient Mesopotamia. Wheat, barley, sheep and cattle were intensively cultivated and reared for the first time by the Sumerians.
These inventions and innovations easily place the Sumerians among the most creative cultures in human pre-history and history. Sumerian scientific achievements were important to the modern world.
To find out more about ancient Sumeria visit http://www.crystalinks.com/sumer.html
What price modern Iraq?
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OntheLam 2006
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