Inheritance from Sumer
AIM – To develop our ability in gathering information from sources.
A.O.D. INVESTIGATIVE SKILLS – Use of Evidence
All of you should learn the COP method of examining sources.
MOST of you should be able to gather information from sources and use it to answer questions.
SOME of you will have an opinion on the most important Sumerian invention and will be able to give a reason for your choice.
Remember the object below?
In our first lesson on Sumer we examined this source of information and asked questions about Sumerian Civilisation.
Looking at the objects discovered by Sir Leonard Woolly and his team will have helped us answer many of those questions.
We have learnt what people wore, what their houses were like, what they believed in and how they entertained themselves.
In today’s lesson we are going to think about the method we used to examine source evidence and find answers!
Source A
TASK 1
THE COP METHOD!
 Copy the following table out using a whole page in your book.
 Answer the questions. COP questions are levels 3 & 4!
C CONTENT
O ORIGIN
P PURPOSE
What is shown in the source you’ve examined?
Is this a primary or secondary source? Is it first-hand or written/made with hindsight?
Why do you think it was made?
TASK 2
NOW LETS SEE IF YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT THE SOURCE……
 Read the following passage Source B, from a modern textbook
The birth of writing
Civilisation created the need for writing. There had to be a way of recording information about trade, taxes, laws and contracts
between people. As early as 3500 BC the Sumerians were using pictures that we call pictograms to record events. Gradually the
pictograms changed. They became simpler and quicker to make, so that a few lines represented a picture. These lines were
drawn as wedge-shaped marks. We call this kind of writing cuneiform. The writing was done on clay tablets, which were usually
small enough to hold in one hand – like an ancient i-pad! When the writing was completed the tablets could be baked in the sun
and kept. Clay was used as a writing surface for hundreds of years before the Egyptians found a way to make a type of paper.
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For historians this was fortunate because clay tablets last longer than paper. Cuneiform writing was used in Mesopotamia for
almost 3000 years, but throughout that time there were only ever a small number of people who could read and write. It was
not until 1857 that modern people worked out how to read cuneiform.
So, if you guessed that the stone showed early writing – you were right!
Answer the following questions in your book in full sentences.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What do we call the Sumerian system of writing?
Why did the Sumerians need writing although most of them did not learn to read or write?
Using Source A as your evidence, explain:
a. how Sumerian writing was done
b. what some of the pictograms in the source might represent.
How would a written language have helped Sumerian civilisation to develop?
TASK 3
INHERITANCE FROM SUMER
An inheritance or legacy is something handed down from the past. We might well wonder how we could have legacies
from a society the modern world knew almost nothing about until very recently. However, there were many Sumerian ‘firsts’.
Their inventions and ideas were spread by trade to Iran and Syria. Their ideas were adopted by their neighbours and by the
Akkadians and Babalonians that followed them. The needs of Sumerian farmers and traders produced many inventions. Among
these were the following;
 Irrigation.
 Money; this was normally a disc or a ring of silver of a standard weight.
 The wheel, which allowed goods to be carried in carts and wagons pulled by animals. It also led to development of the
Sumerian war chariot.
 The sail, to harness the power of the wind for transporting goods by boat.
 The plough, to cultivate (chop up) the earth for farming.
The Sumerians also invented a seed planter by pouring seeds through funnels attached to their ploughs. They even had a
written farm manual with instructions for the production of crops.
As well as these discoveries, Sumer produced the world’s first calendar of twelve months, the potter’s wheel and the citystate, with its own legal code. Sumerian architects used arches, so perhaps the Romans learned to use the arch from their
contacts with Mesopotamia.
Sumerian civilization developed a system of numbers that allowed calculations to be made and recorded. The system was
based on the number 60. It was useful because 60 could be divided by twelve numbers. The idea still exists in our sixty-minute
hour and sixty-second minute.
Perhaps the greatest source of Sumerian influence was its literature. Most of it was copied by other peoples and
preserved in their libraries. It influenced the literature of the entire New East because nearly all the peoples of the region
borrowed the Sumerian cuneiform script. To do this, scribes from these other societies had to learn Sumerian language and
literature. They, in turn, passed on some of the Sumerian culture to others.
a.
b.
Make a list of things we have inherited from Sumer. On a page near the back of this book there is a table for you to fill
in.
Decide which three Sumerian inventions were the most important. Write out the three you have chosen and below
your list write a sentence or two explaining your choice.
EXTENSION
 Read the extra information in the box below then design an engraving to be used on a cylinder seal of your own.
Before they invented writing, the Sumerians invented devices called cylinder seals. A cylinder seal consisted of a small stone
cylinder about the size of a thumb. It was engraved with a design that could be rolled onto wet clay. At first they were used to
protect personal property. An item could be put into a container with a cord tied around it. A layer of clay was spread on the
cord and the seal design was rolled over it. Thus the magic power of the religious scene on the seal was placed over the object.
Also, if the clay seal had been broken the owner would know the container had been opened. These seals continued to be used
as signatures for hundreds of year in Sumer and nearby societies
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