By: Henry, Grant, and Ties

Political System• Sumerian City-States were run by kings• All of the City-States in Sumer were independent• There were sometimes battles between City-

States for control over farmland• Each City-State selected a king who was the City-

States leader in religion and the war leader• The earliest City-States were run by priests

Accomplishments The Sumerians were great military

commanders and buildersThe Sumerians were the 1st known members

of the Fertile CrescentThey invented the time unit we still use todayThey also created the wheel

Human Expression• They wrote in cuneiform, which was almost as old

as hieroglyphics• Sumerians inscribed their writing into clay with a

stylus and baked it to harden• The Sumerians had 550 letters in their

complicated alphabet system• Sculptures made sculptures for temples

Architecture• Houses were made out of clay• Huge temples (ziggurats) for priests and

worshiping • Rulers lived in huge elegant palaces• The poor lived in small packed houses in tangled

alleys• They had ancestors of shopping malls (bazaars)

with markets• The largest buildings were always the ziggurats

Jobs

Jobs• Some of the jobs in in Sumer City-States were

merchants, scribes, priests, priestesses, crafts people, farmers and fisherman

• The farmers lived outside the city walls

Religion• Temples in Sumer were dedicated to gods

and or goddesses• Sumerian kings claimed to rule by the will of

the gods• They where polytheistic (worshipped many

gods)• Each City-State had their own special gods or

goddess’ to worship

Historical Figures • Ibbisin (last Sumerian king)• Gudea (king of Lagash)• Ur-Nammu (king of Ur)• Gilagamesh (king of Uruk and famous poetry

figure)

Location

As you can see, Sumer is on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers so it was easier to farm and grow crops. It was located in modern day Iraq.

Cuneiform printA temple or ziggurat

This is Gilgamesh in one of his famed battles