Name: ________________________________________

Social  Studies  
Ancient Sumer Vocabulary  
artisan  
Why do historians classify ancient Sumer as a civilization? civilization  
culture  
Introduction cuneiform  
merchant  
The rise of Sumerian city-states began around 3500 B.C.E. Taking a closer look at life in pictograph  
Sumer will help you act like an archaeologist. You'll consider evidence to try to answer this scribe  
question about the distant past: Why do historians classify ancient Sumer as a civilization? A social  structure  
civilization is a society that has developed arts, sciences, and organization.
technology  
Until about 170 years ago, archaeologists had no idea that the Sumerian people had lived at
ziggurat  
all. Then, in the mid-19th century, archaeologists began finding artifacts in the area of the  
Fertile Crescent called Mesopotamia, uncovering tablets, pottery, and the ruins of cities. They
were surprised to find writing in a language they had never seen before.

By studying artifacts, archaeologists have been able to learn a lot about Sumer. One artifact is the Standard of Ur
(uhr), found where the ancient city of Ur once stood. The artifact is made of wood and decorated with pieces of shell
and lapis lazuli, a semiprecious blue stone from what is now Afghanistan. It shows the Sumerians in times of peace
and war. Ancient objects like this one can reveal a great deal about daily life in ancient Sumer.

Historians now know that the Sumerians had a complex society. Some of the things they developed, like the plow
and writing, are still in use today. But which characteristics of Sumer society cause historians to classify it as a
civilization? Let's take a closer look at ancient Sumer.

The Standard of Ur depicts scenes of

war and peace in ancient Sumer.
 

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1. Characteristics of Civilization
Sumer was a challenging place to live since it had hot summers, little rain, and rivers that flooded the plains in the
spring. Building complex irrigation systems and large cities allowed the Sumerians to overcome these challenges.
By 3000 B.C.E., most Sumerians lived in powerful city-states like Ur, Lagash (LAY-gash), and Uruk (UH-ruhk).
But what did the Sumerians do to create a civilization?

To answer this question, we need to examine what civilization means. What characteristics make a society into a
civilization? Historians name several such characteristics, including these:

• a stable food supply, to ensure that the people of a society have the food they need to survive
• a social structure with different social levels and jobs
• a system of government, to ensure that life in the society is orderly
• a religious system, which involves both a set of beliefs and forms of worship
• a highly developed way of life that includes the arts, such as painting, architecture, music, and literature
• advances in technology
• a highly developed written language

Did Sumer have these characteristics? Let's find out what the evidence can show.

Which  characteristics  of  a  

civilization  does  this  artifact  
represent?  How  do  we  use  objects  
like  this  one  in  modern  society?  

2. Stable Food Supply

Civilizations need a stable food supply since a complex society can only thrive if its members have the food they
need to survive. The Sumerians invented two key ideas to help them create a stable food supply.

One of these inventions was their complex irrigation systems. The Sumerians built networks of canals, dams, and
reservoirs to provide their crops with a regular water supply.

Their second invention was the plow, which is a tool used for tilling, or turning, soil to prepare it for planting. Prior
to the plow's invention, farmers used animal horns or pointed sticks to poke holes in the earth, where they would
plant seeds. This was a very time-consuming process, and farmers needed a faster way to prepare the land for
planting.

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The Sumerians made the first plow out of wood. One end of the plow was bent for cutting into the ground to turn the
soil. Farmers themselves either pushed and pulled the plow along the ground or used animals such as oxen to pull it.

The  Sumerians  invented  the  plow.  

Today,  some  people  still  use  plows  
to  farm  the  land.  

3. Social Structure
Civilizations have a complex organization, or social structure, including different jobs and social levels. People at
higher levels have greater status than others.

Archaeologists have found evidence suggesting that several classes of people lived in Sumer. At the highest level
were priests, kings, nobles, and government officials. These top members of society had the largest and most
luxurious homes near the center of the city. Evidence suggests that these mud houses had whitewashed walls and
were typically two stories high.

At the middle level were merchants and artisans. Among the artisans were skilled metalworkers, who used such
metals as gold, silver, tin, lead, copper, and bronze. Since Mesopotamian land had few minerals, Sumerians
imported these materials from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and the Elamites on the Iranian plateau. Out of these
materials, they could create swords and arrowheads for the army. They engineered tools, like plows and hoes, for
farmers, as well as luxury items, such as mirrors and jewelry, for the upper class.

The middle class also included farmers and fishers living in small, mud-brick houses at the edge of the city. Farmers
often worked to build or repair the irrigation systems.

At the bottom level of the social structure were slaves. Most slaves were enemies that the Sumerians had captured
during war.

This  man  and  child  are  standing  

in  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  city  of  
Uruk,  located  in  present-­‐day  
Iraq.  Uruk  was  one  of  many  
powerful  Sumerian  city-­‐states.  

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4. Government
All civilizations have a system of government to direct people's behavior and make life orderly. Kings ruled the
Sumerian city-states. The Sumerians believed that their gods supported these kings. This belief made kings very
powerful. It also helped to reinforce the social order because obeying the will of the gods was one of the Sumerians'
strongest beliefs.

Sumerian kings enforced the laws and collected taxes. They built temples and made sure irrigation systems were
maintained.

A king also led his city-state's army. All the city-states needed armies for various reasons. Some were defending
land boundaries and others were fighting over the use of water. Leading the army was one of the king's most
important jobs.

A Sumerian army included both professional soldiers and temporary citizen-soldiers. Some were foot soldiers,
while others drove chariots, which were wheeled vehicles pulled by oxen.

Kings appointed officials to help with certain duties. Governors ruled the outlying towns, and scribes helped record
laws as well as contracts. The Sumerians were the first people to develop a system of written laws.

Nebuchadnezzar  II  was  a  Babylonian  

king  who  ruled  over  Sumerian  lands.  
Kings  were  responsible  for  ruling  and  
maintaining  order  in  the  entire  city-­‐
state.  

5. Religion
All civilizations have some kind of religious system. A religious system includes both a set of beliefs, usually in a
god or gods, as well as various forms of worship.

In Sumer, religious beliefs influenced many parts of daily life. The Sumerians tried to please their gods in every
aspect, from growing crops to settling disputes. Religion created a common way for people to connect with one
another.

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Constructing temples and religious towers called ziggurats (ZIHG-guh-rats) was one way the ancient Sumerians
expressed their religious beliefs. It was the king's duty to build and maintain these ziggurats. The towers were
platforms made of mud bricks, with shrines on the highest tier. Ziggurats were so large that they could be seen from
miles away. Some were as high as 7 stories and as wide as 200 feet.

The Sumerians may have believed that their gods lived in the ziggurats, most likely in the special shrines at the top.
Attached to the outside walls of each ziggurat was at least one long staircase that some think was created so that the
gods could climb down to Earth. Kings and priests likely stood inside the towers to ask for the gods' blessings.

Sumerian statues also expressed religious beliefs. Many of these statues were detailed and lifelike. They showed
people worshipping the gods, often with wide-eyed gazes. The Sumerians may have believed that the gods were
pleased when people showed these signs of devotion, or love and obedience.

The Sumerians had many kinds of religious ceremonies. Often, musicians played at these events. Some ceremonies
may have involved human sacrifice, the ritual killing of a person as an offering to the gods.

This  is  a  reconstruction  of  the  

ziggurat  that  once  rose  over  the  
ancient  city  of  Ur.  Sumerians  may  
have  thought  their  gods  resided  in  
ziggurats.  

6. The Arts
All civilizations have a highly developed culture, including the arts. Arts include creative forms of expression such
as painting, architecture, and music.

There were many kinds of artists and artisans in ancient Sumer. Metalworkers made objects, like weapons and cups,
as well as decorative items, such as mirrors and jewelry. Architects designed temples and ziggurats. Sculptors
carved statues that adorned temples or were used in rituals.

Music was another influential art in Sumer. The Sumerians may have believed that music brought joy to gods and
people alike. Musicians sang and played instruments during temple ceremonies. They wrote love songs and
entertained guests at feasts.

Sumerian musicians played a variety of instruments, including drums and pipes. One favorite was a small harp
called a lyre, a wooden instrument made of a sound box and strings. A wooden bar held the strings in place at the
top. Lyre makers often decorated their instruments with precious stones and with carvings made of horn. These
decorations demonstrate how much the Sumerians valued music.

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 This  fancy  lyre  has  the  head  of  a  bull  
decorating  its  sound  box.  A  musician  
would  strum  the  strings,  seen  on  the  left  
side  of  the  image,  to  play  musical  notes.  

7. Technology
All civilizations create new forms of technology. The Sumerians made several technological advances, the most
important being the wheel.

The earliest examples of the wheel date back to 3500 B.C.E. when Sumerian potters, or pottery makers, used them
as a surface for shaping clay into pots. A potter's wheel would spin, flat side up, on an axle. The Sumerians
discovered that a wheel could be rolled forward when flipped onto its edge. They used this discovery to create
wheeled carts for farmers and chariots for the army. They constructed the wheels by clamping pieces of wood
together.

It would be hard to discover a more powerful invention than the wheel. Before its invention, people had to drag their
goods on flat-bottomed carts called sledges. Wheeled carts made it easier to move goods over long distances
because they did not get stuck in mud and could support heavy loads, unlike the earlier sledges. Oxen could pull
much more weight on wheeled carts than on sledges.

Another technological advancement was the arch, which is an inverted (upside-down) U- or V-shaped structure built
above a doorway. To build arches, the Sumerians stacked bricks, made of clay and straw, to rise from the walls in
steps until they met in the center.

Arches added strength and beauty to Sumerian buildings. They became a common feature of temple entrances.
Some historians say that the arch is the Sumerians' greatest architectural achievement.

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 The  Sumerian  invention  of  the  wheel  
helped  better  the  lives  of  later  groups  as  
well.  The  Assyrian  men  seen  here  riding  a  
wooden  chariot  were  able  to  improve  their  
military  strategies  because  of  the  wheel.  

In  ancient  Sumer,  large  chunks  

of  wood  were  tightly  clamped  
together  in  order  to  form  
wheels.  This  invention  was  key  
in  improving  Sumerian  life.  

8. Writing
A final characteristic of civilizations is a highly developed written language. The Sumerians created a written
language called cuneiform. This name comes from the Latin word for “wedge.” The Sumerians used a wedge-
shaped stylus (a sharp, pointed tool) to etch their writing in clay tablets.

Sumerians developed cuneiform around 3300 B.C.E. The earliest examples of cuneiform show that it was used to
record information about the goods people exchanged with one another. At first, cuneiform writing may have
contained as many as 2,000 symbols to stand for sounds and for words and phrases. Over time, this number was
reduced to about 700.

Cuneiform was based on an earlier, simpler form of writing that used pictographs. Pictographs are symbols that
stand for real objects, such as a snake or water. Scribes used a sharpened reed to draw the symbols on wet clay.
When the clay dried, the marks became a permanent record.

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 Shown  here  is  cuneiform  writing  
etched  in  a  clay  tablet.  Cuneiform  
was  often  used  to  record  traded  
goods.  

Lesson Summary
In this lesson, you have learned about the characteristics of Sumer society that made it a civilization.

Stable Food Supply Ancient Sumerians invented an irrigation system and the plow to help them create a stable food
supply.

Social Structure, Government, and Religion Ancient Sumer had a complex social structure with different jobs and
social levels. Kings led the government. Religious beliefs influenced every part of daily life.

Arts, Technology, and Writing Ancient Sumerians had a highly developed culture that included the creative arts of
painting, architecture, and music. The Sumerians' most important technological invention was the wheel. They also
created a written language called cuneiform that was based on pictographs.

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