About 7,000 years ago, the Sumerians made their home in a new land and one of the first civilizations was born. Although starting out as small villages and groups of hunter-gatherers, Sumer is notable because of its development into a chain of cities.
The people of Sumer built city walls and temples and dug canals, which may be counted as some of the earlier of the world’s first engineering works of their kind. It is also of interest to note that these people from the beginning of recorded history fought over water rights and agricultural land, and irrigation were extremely vital to them.
The Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia had an unusual flair for technological invention. Even the earliest settlers had come upon the idea of irrigation, which made it possible for them to collect and channel the rich silt laden overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and use it to water and fructify their field and gardens.
The first great city of Sumer was called Eridu. The Sumerians believed that this city was given to them by a god called Enki, who they also believed created mankind. From 5400 BC to 2900 BC Eridu was the most prominent city in Sumer until there was great flood. During the 5th Millennium BCE, Sumerians began to develop large towns which became city-states. This was made by possible by their systems of cultivation of crops, including some of the world’s earliest irrigation systems.
Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics. Their religious system was a complex one comprised of hundreds of gods.
The Sumerians disappeared from history about 2000 BC as a result of military domination by various Semitic peoples.
The history of Sumerians
