Reading Time: 6 minutes

Have you ever wondered who formed the first civilization on earth? It was not the Greeks, the Romans, or the Egyptians. It was the Sumerians. The Sumerian civilization existed over six thousand years ago, between the 6th and 5th millennium BC.

It was situated in Ancient Mesopotamia, now known as Southern Iraq and parts of Syria, nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Sumerians built their empire during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages. They left behind a rich and storied legacy that we continue to explore today.

Want to know more about the Sumerian civilization? Here are 10 facts about the Sumerians that will amaze you –

1. Beer was a popular drink amongst Sumerians

Sumerians were the first of many discoveries, including beer. Yes, it’s true. Sumerians were the original brewers in history. Evidence suggests that they were making beer in Mesopotamia as far back as the 4th Century BC. Even though it is not clear exactly how they made it, archeologists and historians believe the Sumerians made their ales from barley. Apparently, the drink was so thick that they had to use a special straw to filter the liquid.

The Sumerians were very serious about their beer-making. They took pride in their craft, and they believed that beer was the key to a “joyful heart and a contented liver.” They loved beer so much that they even worshipped Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of brewing. There is even a hymn dedicated to the goddess.

Cuneiform tablet: beer rations, ca. 20th–16th century B.C. Babylonian

2. Sumerians invented modern timing and measurement system.

The Sumerians are the pioneers of using the sexagesimal numeric system. This structure revolved around groupings of the number 60, just like the modern decimal system that uses the number 10 as its base. As the number was easily divisible, later the Babylonians adopted it while making astronomical calculations on the length of months and years. Although the sexigesimal system eventually got replaced by the decimal system, it still is popular when it comes to calculating hours, minutes and seconds. This ancient Mesopotamian system still lives through the 360 degrees in a circle and the 12 inches in feet.

3. Cuneiform was used by the Sumerians

Cuneiform is a Latin term that literally translates to “wedge-shaped”, dates all the way back to around 3400 BC. The most sophisticated style of writing in this manner involves a wet clay tablet and a stylus made out of reeds used for inscribing several hundred characters. It was developed by the Sumerians primarily for the purpose of keeping records of business transactions. But in time the method became popular and thus turned into a full-fledged Sumerian writing system.

As the script was highly flexible and easily adaptable by different languages, it soon spread across civilizations. Archeologists have found evidence of cuneiform being used across a least of different civilizations throughout millennia. In fact, the near East astronomical texts were being composed in cuneiform even back in the 1^st century AD.

Cuneiform Tablet By Noorjahan Mahajabin Asha

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

4. There is one queen in the list of Sumerian rules

One of the greatest discoveries reveals a clay tablet containing a full list of the names of the ancient Sumerian rules and the timeline of their reigns. The record has references to both realistic and mythical accounts. One of the rules is said to have lived and ruled for 43,200 years. There is also a mention of a Kubaba or “a woman tavern-keeper” who was the lone female Sumerian monarch. She is said to sit on the throne of the city-state of Kish around 2500 BC. Although it’s unknown how she rose to the power and not much is found about her queenly duties, the inscriptions on the tablet credit her for “firming the foundations of Kish” and forging a royal line that continued ruling for the next 100 years.

5. The Hero In The Epic Of Gilgamesh Was Perhaps A Historical Sumerian Figure

The ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ is known as the oldest recorded poetry in the history of literature. This 3,000-line Mesopotamian poem focuses on the glorious adventures of a Sumerian king and his fight with a forest monster during his quest for the secret of eternal life. Despite the hero of the story being a demigod with herculean strength, most historians claim that the story is based on the life of an actual Sumerian king. He served as the fifth monarch of the city of Uruk.

On the discovered list of kings, the historical Gilgamesh is said to have lived around 2700 BC. Very few records during this time have survived till today but some archaeological discoveries reveal him building the massive walls of the city of Uruk. He is also said to restore the temple of a goddess named Ninhil. These facts prove that there might be an actual king who later became a mythical hero.

6. Sumerian Cities Housed Up To 80,000 People

Discoveries claim that there were up to a dozen Sumerian city-states by the 4^th millennium BC. These cities were like walled metropolises with a ziggurat or a tiered, pyramid-shaped temple. Homes were made using bundles of marsh reeds or mud bricks. The similar styles of pottery and stamp seals placed on a variety of containers suggest some level of administration system developed around 6,000 and 7,000 years ago.

Amongst cities like Eridu, Nippur, Ur, Kish and Lagash, Uruk was the oldest and most prosperous. Uruk was the center for trade and commerce with a span of defensive walls up to six miles. It housed 40,000 to 80,000 people. Around 2800 BC, it was the largest city in the world.

7. The Sumerians Were Travelling Merchants

As their homeland was geographically devoid of resources like timber and stones, the Sumerians discovered the oldest trade routes both across lands and seas. The island of Dilmun was probably their most favoured commercial partner (present-day Bahrain) as it was great for the copper business. The Sumerians also ventured to places like Anatolia and Lebanon for buying cedarwood. Oman and the Indus Valley were also popular among them for gold and gemstones.

Lapis lazuli – a blue-coloured precious gemstone used for making jewelry and art was the favourite amongst the Sumerians. Records show that they even travelled to Afghanistan for it. Historians claim that the ancient trading lands named “Magan” and “Meluhha” may actually refer to Egypt and Ethiopia.

8. The Sumerian City-States Were Never On Good Terms

Despite their shared culture and language, the Sumerian city-states were constantly plunged into wars with one another. The earliest recorded conflict in history is the one in which King Eannatum of Lagash defeats his rival city-state of Umma in a border dispute around 2450 BC. In commemoration of his victory, a grisly limestone monument called “Stele of the Vultures” was constructed with depictions of vultures feasting upon the flesh of his fallen enemies. Ennatum lead more sieges to conquer the rest of Sumer, but Lagash was just one of the many powerful cities back then.

The Sumerians invented the phalanx formation and other siege warfare, but internal conflicts made them vulnerable to foreign invasions. Eventually, they were conquered by Elamites, Akkadians and Gutians.

9. The Plow Was Invented By The Sumerians

One of the notable innovations by the Sumerians was the plow. Appearing around 3500 BC, it became the tool of turning the desert into an oasis. By 1500 BC, the Sumerians had invented the seeder plow that helped farmers use beasts of burden to till the soil and plant at the same time. The Sumerian Farmer’s Almanac bore all the instructions for farmers to boost their production of crops using tilling and irrigation. A complex irrigation system across the lands made sure that the silt-laden waters would wash up their field and make the soil fertile. This advanced technique of farming lead to the vast production of crops which enabled them to look further for other resources to enrich their lifestyle

10. Sumerian Civilization Was Discovered In The 19^th Century

When the Amorites and the Babylonians conquered the Sumerians, they eventually lost their cultural identity. Their influence as a political force was gone. All of their knowledge, history, language, technology, even their name got absorbed into the newer civilizations. Their history remained buried underneath the deserts of Iraq until French and British archaeologists stumbled upon Sumerian artifacts in the 19^th century while looking for the ancient Assyrians.

Since then, many scholars have deciphered the meaning of cuneiform texts, paving way for more historians to take an interest in digging deeper to know more about the Sumerians. Vast amounts of information regarding the ancient Mesopotamians have been uncovered afterwards, including 500,000 clay tablets that are yet to be deciphered.

The Sumerians were pioneers of the modern-day lifestyle, without any doubt. While their identity as a whole had been under the shadow for too long, it cannot be denied that their discovery is indeed a great achievement. The way such underdeveloped times had housed such fascinating civilizations still is a mystery to all. However, it’s evident that the Sumerians were no less than the other civilizations that eventually conquered them and erased their records from history for a long time.