The Sumerians had an unusual gift for technological invention. (Illustration photo: Pixabay)
The ancient Sumerians who lived thousands of years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in present-day southern Iraq, built a highly developed civilization similar to today’s Silicon Valley. As the late historian Samuel Noah Kramer wrote: “The people of Sumer had an unusual gift for technological invention.”
In Greek Mesopotamia, the Sumerians invented new technologies and perfected the use of existing technologies on a large scale. In the process, they changed their methods of growing food, building houses, communicating, keeping track of information, and measuring time.
According to Philip Jones, curator and curator of the Babylon section at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, the Sumerians’ creativity was spurred by their natural circumstances of lack of land and natural resources.
“They had few trees, almost no stone or metal,” he explains. That forced them to skillfully use materials like clay – the plastic of the ancient world. They used it to make everything from bricks and ceramics to writing tablets.”
But the real genius of the Sumerians was their ability to organize. They have the ability to take inventions that have been developed elsewhere and apply them on a much larger scale. In this way, they were able to mass-produce goods such as textiles and pottery that they could then trade with others.
As Kramer writes, there was something in the Sumerian identity that drove them to great ambitions and ingenious thinking. “Mentally and psychologically, they exert great pressure on ambition and success, superiority and prestige, honor and recognition,” he explains.
Sumerian innovations gradually spread and led to the development of the world with modern advanced technology. Here are some of the areas where the Sumerians left their mark.
Production of ceramics on a production line
Bowls from the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. (Image: Getty image)
Other ancient peoples made pottery by hand, but the Sumerians were the first to develop the spinning wheel, a device that helped them mass-produce it, according to Reed Goodman (PhD student in art and archeology). at Mediterranean College, Pennsylvania). That helped them produce large quantities of items like workers’ ration containers, an ancient predecessor to Tupperware.
Chữ viết
Hieroglyphic writing system. (Image: Getty image)
Jones says it is possible, although not 100% certain, that the Sumerians were the first to develop a writing system. Either way, it is clear that they were using written communication by 2,800 BC but they did not set out to write great works of literature or record their history, but rather to keep track of thousands of years. goods they are making and selling.
“Their first documents were just numbers and commodities,” Jones explains. They did it with a system of paintings, essentially drawings of different subjects. However, eventually, they began to combine pictures to represent ideas and actions. The images evolved into symbols representing words and sounds.”
Scribblers used sharpened reeds to carve symbols into wet clay, which was then dried to form tablets. The writing system is called cuneiform, and as Kramer notes, it was borrowed and used by subsequent civilizations throughout the Middle East for 2,000 years.
Hydraulic engineering
A Mesopotamian relief showing the importance of agriculture and rivers. (Image: Getty image)
The Sumerians found a way to collect and channel the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their rich sediment, and used them to irrigate and fertilize their farm fields. They designed complex canal systems, with dams built of reeds, palm trunks and mud that could be opened or closed to regulate the flow of water.
Horse wagon
Scale model of a simple two-wheeled chariot invented by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. (Image: Getty image)
Richard W. Bulliet writes in The Wheel: Inventions and Reinventions that there is evidence that the Sumerians had such vehicles for transportation as early as 3,000 BC. However, they were probably used for ceremonial or military purposes, rather than as a means of traveling the countryside, where rough terrain made wheeled travel difficult.
Plow
Simulation of the Sumerian plow. (Image: Getty image)
According to Kramer, the Sumerians invented the plow, an important technology in agriculture. They even produced a detailed handbook for farmers on how to use various types of plowing equipment. And they specified the prayer that should be recited to pay homage to Ninkilim, the Goddess who protects against field rodents, protecting grain from being eaten.
Textile factory
A Mesopotamian woman is weaving. (Image: Getty image)
While other cultures in the Middle East collected wool and used it to weave cloth for clothing, the Sumerians were the first to do so on an industrial scale.
“The Sumerian innovation was to turn their homes into giant factories,” explains Goodman. He notes that the Sumerians were the first to transcend their lineage and establish larger working organizations to produce textiles – the forerunners of modern manufacturing companies.
Mass produced bricks
An archaeological site in Mari, Syria (modern Tell Hariri) was an ancient Sumerian city on the west bank of the Euphrates River. (Image: Getty image)
To compensate for the shortage of stone and wood to build houses and temples, Kramer said, the Sumerians created molds to make bricks from clay. Although they were not the first to use clay as a building material, “the innovation was the ability to produce bricks in large quantities and join them together on a large scale,” Jones explains. Their buildings may not have been as durable as stone buildings, but they were able to build quickly and create larger cities.
Metallurgical
Lion-headed eagle made of bronze, gold and lapis lazuli of the Sumerian civilization. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
According to the Society for the Development of Copper, the Sumerians were some of the earliest people to use bronze to make useful items, from sharp points to chisels and razors. They also made bronze art, including impressionistic panels depicting fantastical animals such as eagles with lion heads. According to Kramer, Sumerian metallurgists used reed furnaces and controlled the temperature with a bellows that could be worked with their hands or feet.
Math
Cuneiform writing, developed by the Sumerians. (Image: Getty image)
Early humans counted using simple methods, such as notching bones, but it was the Sumerians who developed a formal numbering system based on units of 60, according to the book by Robert E. and Carolyn Krebs, Groundbreaking scientific experiments, inventions, and discoveries of the Ancient World. At first, they used reeds to keep track of units of measure, but eventually, with the development of cuneiform, they used vertical marks on clay tablets. Their system laid the foundations for the mathematical calculations of subsequent civilizations.
