By: N.S.R.F.

Grade 6 November 1st, 2012 Mesopotamia Building Project

Essay Question: Where did Sumerians get mud for their houses and how did they transform the mud into material suitable for construction? The people I am focusing on is the sumerians. I am focusing on mud houses in this essay. I am specifically focusing on where sumerians got the mud from and how they shaped the mud for their houses? The time period I am focusing on is the ancient Sumerian civilization, which existed around _______ BCE. Sumerians lived in Mesopotamia. The

Mesopotamians lived in walled cities.

Sumerians got the mud from the land around them. There was lots of mud available, whereas they did not have very much in the way of trees or stone. The ingredients of the mud bricks for mud houses was reed and mud from the river banks. The way they formed the mud was they just formed it and since the mud was so thick and because of the reed in it, it stayed in that form and then dried in the same construction.

The sumerians used to dig up the mud, mix it with some reed, let the mud dry and then stack the mud bricks on top of each other and let that dry. After that (sometimes) they would plaster over the bricks. The plaster would also, be made of mud but it was applied in a very thin layer over the thick bricks. The structure of the house was made so it would be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. In the summer, the people would usually sleep on their roofs. Ive learned that sumerians were quite smart because of something unrelated to my questions. Sumerians built levees to keep the flow of water controlled and in the dry months they poked holes in the levees to create a small stream . The sumerians were good at architecture. The wealthier people in the sumerian society would have two-story buildings while the poorer people would have 1 room houses . The houses were always very bunched together and had ladders going through the roof.

Sources
By: John Reinbold http://www.ehow.com/info_8506686_materials-sumerians-use-makebricks.html

By: Projects By Students For Students http://library.thinkquest.org/J002807/Time%20and%20Time%20Again/Time%20and%20Time %20Again/mesosumer.html

By: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudbrick By: Liliana Osses Adams http://history-world.org/sumerian_houses.htm

By: (Burak Sansal?)not sure bnid=gn6huPpWzEwU3M:&imgrefurl=http://www.allaboutturkey.com/urfa.htm&docid=XM6P2n1 gr04AOM&imgurl=http://www.allaboutturkey.com/pic/harran.jpg&w=204&h=141&ei=SMWRUM OAMPU0gH9nIG4Aw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=395&vpy=198&dur=471&hovh=112&hovw=163&tx=92 &ty=29&sig=114402396856108191679&page=1&tbnh=112&tbnw=163&start=0&ndsp=19&ved= 1t:429,i:66

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/