Sumer Was a Civilization
Ancient Sumer was the world’s first civilization. A civilization is a society that has a large population, is highly organized, and has reached an advanced stage of cultural development. To be considered a civilization, society needs to have all of the following seven elements: Government, Stable food supply, Division of Labor, Hierarchy, Highly Developed Culture, Religion, and Written Language. Sumer, located in Mesopotamia met the standards to be considered a civilization. Sumerian city-states each had a government. A government is an organization that takes care of the needs of society. Some needs that they had were finding work to do so they were able to buy crucial supplies. Another need was a house-like
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A stable food supply means enough food for all people constantly. One invention the Sumerians created that improved farming is the plow. The plow was used to prepare the soil before inserting seeds into the ground. The plow helped the Sumerians to develop an advanced agricultural system, turning and planting large fields quickly. Furthermore, another invention they created was an Irrigation system. Sumerians dug ditches called canals for waterways to plant crops. Using that method the irrigation system were created. These inventions made it possible for the summaries to grow enough food and to have a stable food …show more content…
Culture means a variety of different arts, music, and literature. In their type of culture, they enjoyed art, music, and literature. The art they created was paintings and mosaics. Mosaics are patterns made out of stone, glass, or ceramics. Mosaics were used to decorate places with open spaces. Music was important in Sumer. They played lyres, harps, and lutes. They even had large gatherings with music. They would usually play music for a certain event the kings attended. Literature was used a lot by scribes. If scribes never learned by order of the king they would have never made the famous story. The story's name was Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. After a while, people read it. It inspired them to want to make their own stories. These three important cultures were very crucial to Sumer’s