Mesopotamia and Sumer

One of the world’s earliest civilizations grew up on the fertile plains between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in what is now Iraq. The area became known as Mesopotamia, ‘the land between the two rivers’. About 5000 BC, the Sumerians settled in southern Mesopotamia.

The fertile land of Mesopotamia was ideal for growing crops. Farmers soon learned how to build irrigation canals to bring water from the rivers to their fields. As more food was grown, the population increased, and by about 3500 BC some villages had grown into thriving towns. The towns of Ur and Uruk grew to become cities, and then independent city-states.

The cities were ruled by Councils of Elders, who appointed lugals (generals) to lead the armies in times of war. As wars between rival cities became more frequent, the lugals’ powers grew, and from about 2900 BC the lugals were kings, ruling for life.

In the centre of each city stood a temple to the city’s patron god or goddess. The Sumerians believed the gods controlled every aspect of nature and everyday life. It was vital to keep the gods happy with daily offerings, or they might send wars, floods or disease to punish the people.

The Sumerians were expert mathematicians. They had two systems of counting. One was decimal, using units of 10 like the system we use today; the other used units of 60 – the Sumerians were the first to divide an hour into 60 minutes. They also devised a calendar, a complex legal system, and used the wheel for pot-making and on carts. But their most important invention was writing.

Writing was invented in Sumer in about 3500 BC, as a way of keeping temple records and merchants’ accounts. This Sumerian clay tablet shows the cuneiform (‘wedge shaped’) symbols used to represent words.

A great ziggurat, or stepped temple, was built in the city of Ur by King Ur-Nammu in about 2100 BC.

The Sumerians may have built reed houses similar to those of the Marsh Arabs, who live on the banks of the river Tigris in southern Iraq today.

GILGAMESH

The epic of King Gilgamesh and his quest to find the secret of eternal life is the most famous of the Sumerians’ many myths and legends. He learns that a plant that gives immortality grows at the bottom of the sea, but the plant is stolen by a snake before he can use it.