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The Sumerians
February 17, 2016
Sir Leonard Woolley
• British archaeologist who between 1924 and 1934 uncovered ancient ruins in Southern Iraq, at the Sumerian Capital, Ur
• Area called “Royal Cemetery of Ur”
• Discovered a tomb that was unique because it had been hidden and was thus untouched by grave robbers.
Lapis Lazuli
• Inside the tomb, along with the body of the Queen, Woolley found:
– 60 female skeletons
– Skeletons of armed soldiers
– Remains of oxen chained to carts
– Skeletons with instruments (lyres of Ur)
– Clay cups scattered over the floor
• What happened and how can this be explained?
The Tomb of Queen Puabi
Mesopotamian Religion
• Sumerians, like other Mesopotamian civilizations, were Polytheistic– Polytheism – Belief in many gods
– Monotheism – Belief in one god
• Different gods were in charge of different things– An - god of heaven; Enlil - god of air; Enki – god of water
and fertility
• People tried to please the gods by making offerings in Ziggurats
• Believed in an afterlife which consisted of spending eternity as a ghost in a gloomy underworld.
Ziggurat of Ur
• Made of mud brick
• Shrine at the very top
• Place for sacrifices and offerings
• Priests would perform rites and rituals
• Ziggurats were often the center of a city
US soldiers climb the Ziggurat of Ur in 2010
Sumerian Achievements
• Invented the wheel
• Developed irrigation canals for farming
• Developed cuneiform writing
• Established trade and trading routes
• Produced the world’s earliest known work of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh
Cuneiform
A reed stylus was used to scrapeCharacters into a clay tablet
Tablets could then be baked toharden