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because they were the first to divide a circle into 60 degree sections some 4000 years ago. They used a base-12 system and a base-60 system rather than a base-10 system. The year was split into 12 segments. They used the base-60 system to divide a circle into 360 degrees.
Sumerian Empire (circa 5000-2000 BCE) predated the Akkad Empire (circa 2400-2200 BCE), the Babylonian Empire (circa 1950-1600 BCE), the Kassite Empire (circa 1550-1100 BCE), and the Assyrian Empire (circa 1400-612 BCE) in the Mesopotamian (modern day Iraq) region.
after the end of the last Ice Age in 15,000-10,000 BCE and the first evidence of agriculture, the Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia circa 5000 BCE.
Since Sumer is considered the earliest known civilization,
the Sumerians came from the north or east, settled in the southern Mesopotamia region, and were the first to completely depend on irrigation
While the cities of Ur and Uruk are considered the first Sumerian city-states, there were twelve separate city-states altogether: Kish, Erech (Uruk), Ur, Sippar, Akshak, Larak, Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa.
Although Nineveh was not a Sumerian city-state, it was however an ancient Akkadian city-state and the capital of the Assyrian Empire at its height.
Akkadian-speaking Assyrians and Babylonians were as known to history as the Persians,
There are numbers of bills of sale, receipts, and documents that, upon further investigation, reveal that the Sumerians documented their economic production using a specific pictographic writing that had more than 2,000 shapes. The sheer volume caused confusion; as a result Sumerians began to develop cuneiform script. The first written tablets in this proto-cuneiform are around 85% administrative or accounting in nature.
The abundance of exotic substances found in Sumerian graves and the discovery of seals that were manufactured in India demonstrate the success of and their dependence on foreign trade.
Trade between India and Sumer in the third millennium BCE was risky; according to Indian scholar Shareen Ratnagar, consignments of cargos between India and Mesopotamia were possibly made only once a year.
discovery of copper mines in Egypt in 5000 BCE, humans had begun to use bronze, silver and gold by 4000 BCE.
Studies that consider South Asia’s first civilization, labeled Harappa
a culture becomes a civilization when it has various combinations of elements. These can include extensive food production, codified laws and administration, form of detailed writing, complex social roles, labor specialties and monumental architecture.
Sumerian women had more rights than women in many later civilizations.
Geological evidence in a study entitled “the Geographical History of the Mesopotamian Plains” reveals that Sumer had been above water long before 4500-400 BCE.
In archeology, the Proto-Euphrateans are known as the Ubaid people, which were mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2. The Ubaid period was circa 5000-4100 BCE.
They may have come from around Anatolia, in modern day Turkey. Their city-states thrived from about 3,000 BCE.
the Bronze Age began in 3150 BCE, when they established far-ranging trade networks, and ended in the area circa 1500 BCE.
In 2350 BCE, King Sargon of Akkadia conquered all the Sumerian city-states and united them under his rule, creati...
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“As for the land of Sumer and Akkad, I collected the scattered people thereof, and I procured food and drink for them. I pastured them, and I caused them to dwell in peaceful habitation.” —Emperor Hammurabi (from
the Hittites were a Mongol tribe that was finally scattered circa the seventh century BCE and that although their language was clearly Mongol,
Sumerians realized that they were part of a larger humanity which inhabited the four ubdas (the four regions the world is divided into as a whole).
Since the symbols appeared like wedge shapes, their writing is called cuneiform, which means, quite literally, “wedge shaped.”
12-month calendar, 24-hour day, 60 minutes, 360-degree circle
We still use the Sumerian sexagesimal system when we divide a circle into 360 degrees or an hour into 60 minutes.
First to have created clay envelopes that led to the postal system –
We’d like 1 manu (18 oz.) of barley please!
One 4,000 year old seal bears a a Sumerian “Hymn to Ninkasi,” the goddess of brewing. The hymn is a recipe for making beer and it is the earliest account of (1) combining barley, baking bread, (2) crumbling it into water to form a mash, and then (3) making it into a drink. It is recorded as having made people feel “exhilarated, wonderful and blissful.”
They suggest that Sumerians were dark-skinned, dark-eyed and dark-haired. As mentioned earlier, the Sumerians referred to themselves as “the dark-haired people.”
The Sumerians thought that after the sun set, it continued its journey through the nether world at night where it turned its night into day.
The Sumerian King List proclaimed that kingship descended from heaven first to the city of Eridu and then later after the Great Flood to the city of Kish.
The first city was Eridu, widely considered the first city in the world.
Eridu was reputed to be the earliest city of all, the home of the god Enki who saved humankind from the flood.
Ur was built around 4000 BCE and was a prosperous city by 2800 BCE.
Sumerian city-states, the cities that flourished during the Early Dynastic Period include Kish, Isin, Nippur, Shuruppak, Lagash, Larsa, Ur and Eridu as well.
The average Sumerian house had several rooms with six-foot thick outside walls with no windows to keep the houses cool.
Their family life has been seen as evidence of freedom, harmony, and a sense of duty; they accepted by doing the right thing even in the case of divorces or massive familial conflicts.
almanacs,
The Edubba (Sumerian school for youth) became important and integral to Sumerian life.
There is evidence from circa 2600 BCE of a game that can be compared to field hockey called pukku-mekku (ball and stick).
The “Epic of Gilgamesh” is one of the world’s oldest surviving pieces of literature.
The rise of the Akkadian Empire occurred under the reign of Sargon the Great (2770-2215 BCE).
He was credited for creating the world’s first multinational, centrally-ruled empire, as it stretched across the majority of Mesopotamia.
By 1750 BCE, King Hammurabi, one of the kings of the Amorites, ended the Sumerian civilization and started the history of Babylonia, a Semitic state built on a Sumerian foundation.
Umman soldiers.
The Sumerian school was called an “edubba”
An “ummia”(“school father” or “expert”)
Once a student learned all the basic cuneiform signs, students went on to learn thousands of vocabulary words
Sumerians gave us the ox-drawn plough, getting food from intensive agriculture, and riding in wheeled vehicles. They were the first to build wheeled carts and wagons.
