![]() ![]() Although the Sumerian city-states had much in common, they fought for control of the river water, a valuable resource. There were seven great city-states, each with its own king and a building called a ziggurat, a large pyramid-shaped building with a temple at the top, dedicated to a Sumerian deity. The belief in more than one god is called polytheism. The Sumerians had a common language and believed in the same gods and goddesses. (You can play an irrigation simulation game at the British Museum Mesopotamia website by opening the link at the bottom of this page.)Ī typical Sumerian city-state notice the ziggurat, the tallest building in the city. The use of levees and canals is called irrigation, another Sumerian invention. The farmers in Sumer created levees to hold back the floods from their fields and cut canals to channel river water to the fields. The wheel, plow, and writing (a system that we call cuneiform) are examples of their achievements. The Sumerians were the first people to migrate to Mesopotamia, they created a great civilization. Beginning around 5,500 years ago, the Sumerians built cities along the rivers in Lower Mesopotamia, specialized, cooperated, and made many advances in technology. ![]() This is why Mesopotamia is part of the fertile crescent, an area of land in the Middle East that is rich in fertile soil and crescent-shaped. The flooding deposited silt, which is fertile, rich, soil, on the banks of the rivers every year. ![]() However, snow, melting in the mountains at the source of these two rivers, created annual flooding. There is very little rainfall in Lower Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia at first glance does not look like an ideal place for a civilization to flourish. Here large cities lined the rivers and many advances took place. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle, or beginning, of civilization. Lower Mesopotamia is located the modern country of Iraq, while Upper Mesopotamia is in Syria and Turkey. ![]()
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