Rise and Fall

5th Millennium BC The Ubadians established settlements in the

region known later as Sumer; these settlements gradually developed into the chief Sumerian cities, namelyAdabEriduIsinKishKullab LagashLarsaNippurUr

Growth of the Sumerians

Art Architecture Crafts Religion Agriculture Trade

The Sumerian Writing System The ancient peoples of Western Asia used

cuneiform, a system of writing into clay or stone tablets that probably originated in Sumeria.

Sumerian Schools

Arts and Science Arithmetic Literature

Ziggurat

Ziggurat, a temple-tower, the principal form of religious edifice in ancient West Asia. Ziggurats were built from the 4th millennium BC to 600 BC. Constructed of mud brick and often faced with glazed brick, they rose in stepped stages to a small temple or sanctuary at the peak.

Sumerian Cities

Sumerian Cities Sumerian towns and cities included

Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Kish, and Ur. The cities differed from primitive farming settlements. They were not composed of family-owned farms, but were ringed by large tracts of land. These tracts were thought to be "owned" by a local god. A priest organized work groups of farmers to tend the land and provide barley, beans, wheat, olives, grapes, and flax for the community.

Fall of the Sumerian Cities Around 2000 B. C. both Sumer and

Akkad were attacked by barbarian invaders. The Amorites from Syria seized control in Akkad , and built a powerful new state around the city of Babylon . The Elamites from Iran took the city of Ur , sacked it, and burnt it down. When Ur was later rebuilt under Babylonian rule, its inhabitants remembered with terror the Elamite destruction of their beloved city:

Fall of the Sumerian Cities 0 Father Nanna, that city into ruins was made ...Its

people, not potsherds, filled its sides;  Its walls were breached; the people groan.  In its lofty gates, where they were wont to promenade, dead bodies were lying about; in its boulevards, where the feasts were celebrated, scattered they lay.  In all its streets, where they were wont to promenade, dead bodies were lying about;  In its places, where the festivities of the land took place, the people lay in heaps ... Ur -its weak and its strong perished through hunger;  Mothers and fathers who did not leave their houses were overcome by fire; The young, lying on their mothers' laps, like fish were carried off by the waters;  In the city the wife was abandoned, the son was abandoned, the possessions were scattered about...0 Nanna, Ur has been destroyed, its people have been dispersed.

Sargon of Akkad Sargon I (reigned about 2335-2279 BC),

Akkadian king who for the first time in Mesopotamian history united the ancient lands of Sumer and Akkad, in present-day Iraq and Syria. Little is known of Sargon's early life. One Sumerian legend says he was placed in a sealed reed basket and floated down the Euphrates River like Moses before being rescued. Earning the approval of the deity Ishtar, Sargon rose to establish his kingdom.

Sargon of Akkad

Other reasons of the decline This period is generally taken to coincide

with a major shift in population from southern Iraq toward the north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognised as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissalved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely.

Other reasons of the decline During the Akkadian and Ur III phases, there

was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley, but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly 3/5ths. This greatly weakened the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akkadian was the major language. Henceforth Sumerian would remain only a literary and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied by Latin in medieval Europe.