Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

1. Functions

   • Ensi
     • Ensi, written pa-te-si, was a title for the rulers of the ancient Sumerian city-states. That was the live representation of the gods for the people too, meaning that the functions of ruler and priest were mixed into the same person.
   • Scribes
     • The main function of a scribe is to record and complete all necessary documentation for the duration of the patient's stay.
   • Tasks
     • They lived in different social categories, but they had tasks such as: politicians, farmers, potters, carpenters, jewelers, militars, metalsmiths and traders.

2. Inventions

   • wheel
     • It was invented by the Sumerians in 3500 b.C. It was used for carriots. The first wheel was made up of clay, rock and mud
   • chariot
     • It was a boat propelled by sails, it was used for fishing or moving in rivers and seas
   • plow
     • It was used by armies as transport or mobile archery transport, for hunting or racing
   • sailboat
     • It was used to do branches in the ground to cultivate things

3. Writing

   • the first official writing

4. The First Civilization

   • Sumer
     • Sumer, located in Mesopotamia, is the first known civilization, developing the first city-states in the 4th millennium BCE.

5. City States

   • What were the Sumerian city states like?
     • They all had a building called a ziggurat, a large pyramid-shaped building with a temple at the top, dedicated to a Sumerian deity, built cities along the rivers. The farmers in Sumer created leeves to hold back the floods from their fields and cut canals to channel river water to the fields. The use of levees and canals is called irrigation, another Sumerian invention.
   • Mention the most important ones.
     • They didn’t create any empire, but they create a great civilization. They formed lots of city states with an own government
   • Did the Sumerians create empires?
     • The first Sumerian cities and the most important, were Eridu, Uruk, Ur, Larsa, Isin, Adab, Kullah, Lagash, Nippur, and Kish.

6. Mesopotamian Maps

Images and files in the map