SUMERIANS

Ronaldi Saleh Bin Umar

 Sumerians’
• The cities – states that developed along the
rivers of southern Mesopotamia between
3500 and 2340 BCE.
• Greatest contributions and discovery,
writing systems, wheels and ziggurats
 Sumerians’
• Origins by the north but credited by many
of the 1st in inventions ie., wheel, wagon
and plow, cast object in copper and bronze
and created a system of writing – perhaps
the greatest contributions in civilizations
simultaneously with the Egyptian
 South of Uruk(Muqaiyir, Iraq)
• Birthplace of the patriarch Abraham
• Founded the Hebrew people
• White Temple was built and dedicated to
the moon god Nanna
• The mud-brick temple rectangle 190 x 130
feet with 3 sets of stairs.
Sculptures
• Associated with religion
• Marble face attach to a head
and wooden body
• High skill and carefully
rendered with characteristics
• Carved on alabaster and
gypsum.
• Dated 2900-2600 BCE
 Hieratic Scale
• Hieratic scale represent goddess dominated
• Inanna normally place at the entrance
• Votive figures dedicated and as
representative in religious practice
Votive Figures
• Simplified faces and bodies
• Emphasized on cylinder
shapes
• Stand solemnly, hands
clasped in respect
• Arch brows, dark shell,
stone or bitumen
• Huge starring eyes
Male
• Bare-chested
• Sheepskin skirts
• Stocky and mascular
• Heavy legs and feet
• Big shoulder
• Cylinder body
The Earliest Pottery
• Scarlet Ware vase
• From Tutub (modern Tell
Khafajeh, Iraq
• Dated 3000-2000 BCE.
• Ceramic Height 11 3/4”
(30cm)
• Iraq Museum, Baghdad
 Fussion
• Since 3000 BCE Sumerian
artisan worked in various metal,
ie bronze, gold combined with
other materials
• Superb example is Lyre from
the tomb of King Abargi of Ur
(2685 BCE) which combines
wood, gold, lapis lazuli from
Afghanistan and shell.
Example of Lyre (harp instrument)
Decorations on
the lyre
Stamps and Seals

• Identifying documents and establishing

property ownership
• Incised cut on one surface was first introduce
• Arround 3000 BCE temple record keepers
redesign the stamp seal in the form of
cylinder
Lagash (modern Telloh, Iraq)
• Under the ruler Gudea
• Built and restore many temple
• Made of diorite, hard stone
and difficult to work.
• Simplified form of portraits
• Strong, peaceful and worthy
• Provided cuneiform inscription
• Express intense concentration
 Babylon
• Hamurabi made his capital, Babylon
the intellectual and cultural center of
ancient Near East
• First systematic codification of
people rights, duties and punishment
• Engraved on the Stele of Hamurabi
• Susa (modern Shush, Iran) C1792-
1750 BCE. 7’(2.13m) relief
28”(71.1cm). Musee du Lourve, Paris
Details
Assyria
• A people called the Assyrians
from the northern rose to
dominance Mesopotamia after
centuries of struggle among
Sumer, Akkad, Lagash & Mari.
• Powerful by about 1400 BCE
and 1000 BCE they began
conquer neighboring regions
• By end of 9th centuries BCE
they controlled Mesopotamia
and extend as far west Egypt
• But they succumbeb to internal
weakness and external enemies,
and by 600BCE their empire
had collapsed
The Big City of Dur Sharrukin (modern
Khosabad, Iraq

• Near East bank of Tigris river

• 5 miles long and 42 feet high
mud brick walls
• Constructed canal for water
supply
• Assurnasirpal gave banquet for
69, 574 people to celebrate the
new capital back in 879 BCE.
Citadel or Fortress

• Containing 200 rooms

• 30 courtyards
• Straddled by the city walls
 The Ziggurat

• Ziggurat: a multi-storied temple tower from ancient

Mesopotamia.
• Ziggurats are, architecturally, the equivalent of the
Egyptian pyramids: large artificial square mountains
of stone.
• They are equally ancient. But there are two
differences: a ziggurat was not a tomb but a temple
• Anu Ziggurat and White Temple, Uruk (Warka,
Iraq) 3100 BCE.
The Ziggurat
Human-Headed Winged Lion (Lamassu)

• From Palace of
Assunasirpal II, Nimrud.
• 883-859 BCE, Limestone,
height 10’2” (3.11m)
• Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York
King of the Assyrians

• Palace was decorated with alabaster panel carved

with pictorial narratives in low relief
• Most show kings and his subject, ie battle, hunting
or occasional palace scene
The Ziggurat
 The Ziggurat
• Ziggurat a form of temple common to the Sumerians,
Babylonians and Assyrians. The earliest examples date
from the end of the 3000 BCE.
• The ziggur|at was a pyramidal structure, built in receding
tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, with a
shrine at the summit.
• The core of the ziggurat was of sun-baked bricks, and the
facings were of fired bricks, often glazed in different
colors, which are thought to have had cosmological
significance.
• Access to the summit shrine was provided by a series of
ramps on one side or by a continuous spiral ramp from
base to summit.
The Ziggurat of Ur
Ruthless Ruler
• King Sennacherib the
feared King of
Assyrians
• He destroyed the city
of Babylon in 689 BC
Assyrian’s Tank

• The Assyrians were feared across the ancient

world for their skills in battle
• To breach walls of cities they used wheeled
machine with battering rams tipped with iron
 System of Writing
• Greatest contribution to later civilization, though recent
discoveries indicate that writing development
simultaneously in Egypt.
• Pressed cuneiform (wedge-shaped) symbols into clay table
with a stylus (writing stick)
• Tables of documents, writing and arithmetic, as well as an
organized system of justice and world 1st epic literature
Gilgamesh.
• Apparently for
accounting and
system for good
trade at Uruk
• Stylus press rapidly
to create abstract
symbols or
characters of
cuneiform writing
• It’s difficult skills
and few people only
who mastered them
• Some boys attended
school but small
number in girls who
learned to read and
write probably were
tutored at home.
 The Cunieform
• Thus excavation in Sumer, thousand was
found, fewer than 6,000 containing 30,000
lines of text
• Recorded religious myths, heroic tales,
legendary histories, hymns, song of
mourning.
• Also a wisdom texts, essays, debates,
proverbs, and fables.
The Epic of
Gilgamesh

The so-called Flood Tablet

Tablet XI, The Epic of
Gilgamesh, 2nd millennium
BCE. The British Museum,
London

The story strike the similarity

to Hebrew Bible’s tales of
Noah and the Ark. Describing
huge boat and loading with
all the seeds of living things.
Precious Art
• Earring, crown and rosettes
• From the tomb of Queen Yabay,
Nimrud Iraq
• Late 8th century BCE. (gold)
• Iraq Museum, Baghdad
 Wheel of the world
• A wheel is a circular object
that, together with an axle,
allows low friction in motion
by rolling.
• The wheel is regarded as one
of the oldest and most
important inventions, which
is, according to most
authorities, originated in
ancient Mesopotamia,
originally in the function of
potter's wheels
• Early wheels were simple
wooden disks with a hole for
the axle. In the early Roman
empire, most horse-carts used
a design featuring two chords
across the wheel
• Depiction of onager-drawn carts on the Sumerian "battle
standard of Ur" (circa 2600 BC)
• The wheel is probably the most important mechanical
invention of all time
• From tiny watch gears to automobiles, jet engines and
computer disk drives, the principle is the same.
 Stage of Development
• The following steps and developments probably took place
to invent a functioning wheel, more or less in this order as
man realized that heavy objects could be moved easier if
something round (e.g. a tree log) was placed under it and
the object rolled over it. This could have been discovered
by accident.

• Humans also found a way to move heavy objects, with an

invention archeologists call the sledge. Logs or sticks were
placed under an object and used to drag the heavy object,
like a sled and a wedge put together
• STEP ONE: Early man placed rollers beneath heavy objects so
that they could be moved easily. Humans thought to use the
round logs and a sledge together.

• STEP TWO: Early men began to place runners under a heavy

load, which they discovered would make it easier for the load to
drag. This was the invention of the sledge.

• STEP THREE: Men began to combine the roller and the sledge.
As the sledge moved forward over the first roller, a second roller
was placed under the front end to carry the load when it moved
off the first roller. A model of a sledge with such rollers is in the
Smithsonian Institution. Humans used several logs or rollers in a
row, dragging the sledge over one roller to the next.

• STEP FOUR: Soon, men discovered that the rollers which

carried the sledge became grooved with use. They soon
discovered that these deep grooves actually allowed the sledge to
advance a greater distance before the next roller was needed, a
simple form of gearing, or mechanical advantage. In addition,
the sledge moved more easily
• STEP FIVE: The rollers were changed into wheels. In the
process of doing so, wood between the grooves of the roller were
cut away to form an axle and wooden pegs were fastened to the
runners on each side of the axle

• STEP SIX: A slight improvement was made to the cart. This

time, instead of using pegs to join the wheels to the axle, holes for
the axle were drilled through the frame of the cart. Axle and
wheels were now made separately. By this time the wheel can be
considered a complete invention.
• The wheel was furthered improved on later by the
Egyptians, who made wheels with spokes, which could be
found on Egyptian chariots of around 2000 BC.
• Over in Ancient India, chariots with spoked wheels dating
back to around 1500 B.C. were also discovered.
• The Greeks too, adopted the idea of wheel-making from
the Egyptians and made further improvements to it.