Why do you find the Sumerian culture interesting Give at least three reasons with specific examples - Essay Example

Interesting Aspects of Sumerian Culture It is undeniable that the Sumerian culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world. Most of the available evidence support that Sumerians were the oldest organized culture that had a distinct autonomy. Sumerians are believed to have inhabited the region south of Mesopotamia in the period between 3500 B.C and 1800 B.C. Amazingly, the Sumerians demonstrated high levels of development in almost all aspects of life and are credited to be some of the most creative cultures of that time.

What intrigues me most about Sumerian culture is remarkable development in writing, cities, building, and farming aspects in their culture. The most interesting aspect about Sumerian culture is the profound levels of writing technique. Sumerians are credited with being the first people to demonstrate writing skills. Whereas all the others cultures adopted writing from other precedent cultures, Sumerians developed writing skills by themselves. The Sumerian writing system is argued to have come from the financial transactions between the Sumerians as a way of keeping track of financial transactions.

Since there were no books to write on, Sumerians made clay tablets where they would engrave using sharp objects. Although they began engraving images of the actual objects they wanted to preserve, they soon developed a means of writing syllables. More interestingly, the writing culture later developed into a school system that has the same characteristics with the modern system of learning in that only the rich were allowed to take their children to school. Additionally, the schools were initially tailored for men (Glassner 118-120).

Sumerian culture was characterized by characteristic cities. Indeed, most of the modern cities are a reflection of Sumerian cities. Interestingly, the Sumerians made cities on raised grounds to protect the cities from floods. The cities were characterized by small sturdy houses that were clustered together. These cities share similar characteristics with modern cities, which have clustered buildings and an elaborated drainage system. What I find most interesting is the fact that the cities had slums too.

Poor people lived in grass houses outside the cities (Moffett et al 42-47). Sumerians are some of the earliest farmers known to man. The most interesting thing about Sumerian farming was the tools they used for farming. Some of the hoes they used for farming were made of copper metal. They did extensive farming outside the cities but more advanced farming was done inside the cities. I find this interesting especially considering that modern cities practice horticulture farming within the city centers.

How some of the technology used by Sumerians to farm never seems to amaze. For instance, they had developed irrigation systems, which they used to irrigate the farm fields with water from river Tigris and Euphrates (Leick 527-529).Although Sumerian architecture and building culture is one of oldest, it demonstrated high levels of articulation of available resources. The Sumerians used sunbaked bricks to make their houses. Therefore, these houses deteriorated with time. Interestingly, they built other houses on top of the debris and therefore the cities kept on rising (Moffett et al 42-47).

This could explain the reason why most of Sumerian cities were built on raised grounds. However, they also integrated artwork on the walls of their buildings. It is also interesting that the available materials and architectural expertise necessitated the architectural designs. One would actually wonder what would have happened if the Sumerian culture lasted for a much longer periods. The locations of the cities would perhaps have developed into small mountains. Works CitedGlassner, Jean-Jacques et al.

The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer. London: JHU Press, 2003. Print. Leick, Gwendolyn. The Babylonian world. London: Routledge. N.y. Print.Moffett, Marian et al. A World History of Architecture. New York: Laurence King Publishing, 2003. Print.