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The Sumerians: Study Guides for Ancient History

We bring the basic information to study the Sumeria in a summarized and agile way.Location, time period, political organization, economy, territorial expansion and other data that will serve you when knowing this civilization of Antiquity .In the following articles we will continue with more study guides on other villages of the History Antigua .We start with the Sumer States Cities .

Geographical Zone

The Sumerian cities were located in the Lower Mesopotamia , among the rios Tigris and Euphrates , in an area of ​​flood land.

Period of Time

They were installed from about 4000 BC approximately and remained autonomous until about 2350 BC, when the Empire Ac goodbye , which dominated all the area.

Type of political organization

The Sumerian people did not form an integrated state of great territory, but rather It was developed in various State-City .The state cities comprised the space of a city and the surrounding countryside.They were managed and governed autonomously with respect to neighboring state cities.

The Sumerians: Study Guides for Ancient History

Rulers

The rulers of the Sumerian State Cities were in principle the great priests (called Patesi ).They also dedicated themselves to the worship of the gods-to organize the public works, the agricultural tasks and the tributes of the peasants, the craft workshops, etc.Later, when conflicts with other city states appeared, the military chiefs int they became transient in the government .Finally they remained in power and became princes with hereditary monarchy .

Economic Activities.

The main economic activity was the agriculture of irrigation, with cereals and dates among its main products.There was also an important artisanal activity, which reached very high artistic levels.The trade by bartering with other areas of the Near East .

Reason for decline

After a long period where you are city states they coexisted quite independently of each other, one of them, Kish imposed himself on the rest and conquered them.This way the first empire of the region was established: the Acadian empire .

We suggest you go deeper through these highlights about the Sumerians

Astronomy ia

The Sumerians were great scholars of the sky, despite (logically) the precarious tools of the time.To a large extent, they used the observation of the sky to measure time.They also knew perfectly the displacement of the Moon or Jupiter.

The Sumerians: Study Guides for Ancient History

However, there are those it goes further.There are engravings in which you can see in the background celestial bodies that would correspond to the nine planets of the solar system, with a large star in the middle (which would be the sun).This would mean that the Sumerians already had proof of what the solar system was, and even the size of the planets (the largest in reality are represented as the largest in the engravings.But how could this be possible? To answer this question there are several theories, one of them we show you in the video at the end of the article.

The development of writing

For another of the things that the people Sumerian has gone down in history because of the invention of writing.Or at least, it is the oldest town in which there is evidence that they used writing.It was called the cuneiform writing.The symbols were "carved" into tablets.of hot mud and when dry they were hard and with the engraving.The appearance of writing was a great advance for civilization.The sources and records began to exist However, trade and communication were favored.Although, yes, only a few were initially able to "write".

The ziggurats

The Sumerians: Study Guides for Ancient History

They were the sacred temples of the Sumerians, where they worshiped their gods.They were a kind of pyramids made based of clay cooked and dried in the sun.One of the most important ziggurats that are preserved is that of the City of Ur.

Video about the Sumerians

Surely some of you already know that The Sumerian civilization is also wrapped in a certain mythical halo, as it could not be otherwise in a civilization so old and at the same time so advanced.The mystery surrounding the Sumerians has to do with the Anunnaki race, which will surely sound like all those lovers of conspiracy and "unlikely" events.

These "historians" claim that the Sumerians inc Portuguese could be a kind of extraterrestrial race or deities who were summoned by the summaries and the Akkadians.The fact is that there are those who claim that they are not beings that come from the mythology of the Sumerian people, but that they were really visitors of other planets./p>

In the following video you can see more information on the subject.Eye, it is not a video of any credul talking about the subject, but a documentary of the History Channel:

Links of interest

In History Today Online we have many other articles related to ancient civilizations that you will love if you are a lover of ancient history:

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