More Notes
The Earliest Cities: Mesopotamia
- the district known as Sumer occupied the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
- population increased dramatically due to new irrigation systems.
- cities and towns were founded, some with as many as forty-thousand inhabitants.
- better food storage allowed for diversity in professions; priests, tradesmen, artisans, politicians, and farmers.
- kings emerged, as did family dynasties and the concept of the "city-state."
- Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as "cuneiform."
- a pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world.
- the world's first (surviving) epic was the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh," which told of a great flood.
- Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on the moon's cycles.
- the Ziggurat was a Sumerian tempe built on top of a "mountain" of earth.
- the district known as Sumer occupied the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
- population increased dramatically due to new irrigation systems.
- cities and towns were founded, some with as many as forty-thousand inhabitants.
- better food storage allowed for diversity in professions; priests, tradesmen, artisans, politicians, and farmers.
- kings emerged, as did family dynasties and the concept of the "city-state."
- Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as "cuneiform."
- a pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world.
- the world's first (surviving) epic was the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh," which told of a great flood.
- Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on the moon's cycles.
- the Ziggurat was a Sumerian tempe built on top of a "mountain" of earth.
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