Description of Sumerian cities, government, religion, occupations and trade, arts, writing and education, and advance and inventions
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Detail of the War Scene of the Standard of Ur Showing Sumerian Warriors (by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, CC BY-NC-SA)
Detail of the War Scene of the Standard of Ur Showing Sumerian Warriors
by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin (CC BY-NC-SA)
The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia whose civilization flourished between c. 4100-1750 BCE. Their name comes from the region which is frequently – and incorrectly – referred to as a “country”. Sumer was never a cohesive political entity, however, but a region of city-states each with its own king. Sumer was the southern counterpart to the northern region of Akkad whose people gave Sumer its name, meaning “land of the civilized kings”. The Sumerians themselves referred to their region simply as “the land” or “the land of the black-headed people”.
The Sumerians were responsible for many of the most important innovations, inventions, and concepts taken for granted in the present day. They essentially “invented” time by dividing day and night into 12-hour periods, hours into 60 minutes, and minutes into 60 seconds. Their other innovations and inventions include the first schools, the earliest version of the tale of the Great Flood and other biblical narratives, the oldest heroic epic, governmental bureaucracy, monumental architecture, and irrigation techniques.