Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com – Most scholars agree the ancient Sumerians were the earliest developed civilization in our recorded history. Mesopotamia is therefore often characterized as the cradle of civilization, but how exactly did Sumerians change the world?
Ancient people were familiar with art long before the birth of the Sumerian civilization and they also practiced agriculture around 8,000 B.C., but the power of Mesopotamia was that Sumerians took many aspects of human culture and transformed them into what we today call civilization.
The ancient Sumerians, the “black-headed ones,” emerged upon the flood plain of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers about 4000 B.C.in what today is modern Iraq. The Sumerians were by no means the first people on our planet, but they were the first in many areas of expertise. To understand how much we owe the ancient Sumerians, one just has to take a quick look at some objects and technology we take for granted today.
Clay Tablets Shed Light On Ancient Sumerians’ History
“They are the culture that gave us a lot of firsts: the first kingdom, and then empire, the first city-states, the first democracy, the first autocracy; they pioneered writing, schooling, organized religion, lawmaking, art, and literature.” 1
Piecing together the ancient history of this long-gone civilization has been possible because scientists discovered valuable information that sheds light on Sumerians’ daily life.
“Historians, archeologists, cultural anthropologists, and geologists have done most of the literal dirty work by unearthing an increasingly higher number of clues about the fascinating lives of the Sumerians.
Among these source materials are thousands of clay tablets, inscriptions, architectural ruins, brick molds, tools, columns, sculptures, art, metals, steles and cylinders.” 2
Writing Was Invented In Mesopotamia
From a Sumerian epic poem entitled “Inanna and Enki” we learn that the art of writing was among many basic elements of civilization, transferred from Eridu, the City of the Kings, to Uruk. The writing was dedicated to the people of earth by Enki, God of Wisdom.
“More than 5000 years ago, people living in Mesopotamia developed a form of writing to record and communicate different types of information. The early form of writing was based on pictograms, which helped to communicate basic information about crops and taxes.” 3
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