SUMERIAN LIFESTYLE: PART I Ancient Sumer was encompassed by the Mesopotamian River Valley, Anything beyond that was was A) too difficult to conquer and B) did not have anything to benefit conquest, hence the chapter in :Gilgamesh about the battle with the Huwawa,,,an expedition like that would cement a source for Uruk to have a continuous flow of important timber.So, Sumer was a small place, maybe the size of modern Israel or Delaware. Initially, power was in the hads of the religious cate, with that caste controlling all economic activity. Farmer spread out for about a ten mile radius around the city state People did not live on their farms except during planting and harvest time. All residents of the city participated in these actions and the food was divided uo by the oriests based on crop yield and work put id. This led for the need for a writing system. Commerce was so active that inter and tnra city trade boomed, thus there was a necessity for two things: 10 identify private property (Grain storage jars) and receipts for all economic activity from storage to payment of wages by the temple and and ownership. Part of the harvest went to the temple, to be eaten by the sacred community, some was deemed personal property by those who grew it and some went to the palece (in the early days subordinate to the temples, although Gilgamesh broke the power of the sacred community and installed secular government in Uruk, followed suit by the rest of southern Iraq. Northern Mesopotamia was fairly undeveloped and were considered barbarians by the southern cities of Sumer. So. to compensate, three things were invented. First the cylinder seal. Rich and poor in Sumer had them...it was temple law, These seals were worn around the neck and were made of different materials,,,clay for the poor, stone for the middle class, precious metal for the nobility and religious community. Thus, for the first time in history we have objects defining caste on a larges scale. Each seal had a series of pictures unlike anyone elses in the city,,,temple recores wew kept of these designs. To designate ownership, one rolled the seal along the wet clay of a newly sealed pot, contining your personal produce and the clay hardedend, the impression then designating ownership. The san=me was true of paychecks and receipts. At the end of a weeks work you went to the priest and on a clay tablet, divide usually into six parts with a redd stylus, pictograms would indicate what work you did and for how many days, Then at the bottom, again through pictograms, your pay was listed, You then rolled your seal over the top, recognizing and accepting the above ase correct. AS commerce became more elaborate and trade expanded into the mountains, this system evolved to compensate for new ideas, plants, animals, people etc and it soon became too cumbersome. It was then that that a short hand version had to be created. The reed styluses were usd to press into the clay tabets rather abstract symbols, each representing something, like pictiogram, but much more abstract and complicated. Pressing the stylus into the clay was quick and did not leave a mess of dried ridges of crumbly clay once dry. THIS wasthe invention of writing in Sumer, We call it cuneiform, which means wedc shaped in Greek.Now humanity could express complex thoughts and although there are pseudo systems of writing evident in the Vinca Culture in the Balkans, cylinder seals in the Indus Valley, and pictograms in Egypt, they are all as yet in the birth dtages when cuneiform was invented. Those birth stages may be older, but they dont constitute, true fully fledged wriiting systems, How was cuneiform taught and to whom was it taught? The invention of schools in SUMERIAN LIFESTYLES PART II.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 05:59:07 +0000
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