Mesopotamia.docVIP

Ancient Sumeria Primary Author:?Robert A. Guisepi Portions of this work Contributed By:F. Roy Willis of the University of California 1980 and 2003 ? The History of Ancient Sumeria including its cities, kings and religions Now, I swear by the sun god Utu on this very day -- and my younger brothers shall be witness of it in foreign lands where the sons of Sumer are not known, where people do not have the use of paved roads, where they have no access to the written word -- that I, the firstborn son, am a fashioner of words, a composer of songs, a composer of words, and that they will recite my songs as heavenly writings, and that they will bow down before my words King Shulgi (c. 2100 BC) on the future of Sumerian literature. Mesopotamia: The First Civilization?/font Authorities do not all agree about the definition of civilization. Most accept the view that a civilization is a culture which has attained a degree of complexity usually characterized by urban life. In other words, a civilization is a culture capable of sustaining a substantial number of specialists to cope with the economic, social, political, and religious needs of a populous society. Other characteristics usually present in a civilization include a system of writing to keep records, monumental architecture in place of simple buildings, and an art that is no longer merely decorative, like that on Neolithic pottery, but representative of people and their activities. All these characteristics of civilization first appreared in Mesopotamia. The Geography Of Mesopotamia Around 6000 B.C., after the agricultural revolution had begun to spread from its place of origin on the northern fringes of the Fertile Crescent, Neolithic farmers started filtering into the Fertile Crescent itself. Although this broad plain received insufficient rainfall to support agriculture, the eastern section was watered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Known in ancient days as Mesopotamia (Greek for between the rivers), the lower