9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 History’s first empire rose out of a hot,[br]dry landscape, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without rainfall to nourish crops, [br]without trees or stones for building. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In spite of all this, its inhabitants[br]built the world’s first cities, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with monumental architecture and [br]large populations— 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they built them [br]entirely out of mud. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sumer occupied the Southern part of[br]modern Iraq 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the region called Mesopotamia. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Mesopotamia means “between two rivers”— 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Tigris and the Euphrates. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Around 5000 BCE, early Sumerians used[br]irrigation channels, dams, and reservoirs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to redirect river water and farm large[br]areas of previously bone-dry land. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Agricultural communities like this were[br]slowly springing up around the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But Sumerians were the first[br]to take the next step. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Using clay bricks made from river mud, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they began to build multi-storied[br]homes and temples. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They invented the wheel— 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a potter’s wheel, for turning mud into[br]household goods and tools. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Those clay bricks gave rise to the world’s[br]first cities, probably around 4500 BCE. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 At the top of the city’s social ladder[br]were priests and priestesses, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who were considered nobility, then[br]merchants, craftspeople, farmers, and enslaved people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Sumerian empire consisted [br]of distinct city-states that operated like small nations. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They were loosely linked by language[br]and spiritual belief 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but lacked centralized control. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The earliest cities were Uruk, Ur,[br]and Eridu, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and eventually there were a dozen cities. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Each had a king who served a role [br]somewhere between a priest and a ruler. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sometimes they fought against each [br]other to conquer new territories. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Each city was dedicated to a patron deity,[br]considered the city’s founder. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The largest and most important building [br]n the city was this patron god’s home: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the ziggurat, a temple designed[br]as a stepped pyramid. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Around 3200 BCE, Sumerians began to[br]expand their reach. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The potter’s wheel found a new home [br]on chariots and wagons. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They built boats out of reeds and date[br]palm leaves, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with linen sails that carried them [br]vast distances by river and sea. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To supplement scarce resources, [br]they built a trade network 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with the rising kingdoms in Egypt, [br]Anatolia, and Ethiopia, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 importing gold, silver, [br]lapis lazuli, and cedar wood. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Trade was the unlikely impetus for the[br]invention of the world’s first writing system. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It started as a system of accounting[br]for Sumerian merchants 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 conducting business with traders abroad. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After a few hundred years, the early [br]pictogram system 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 called cuneiform turned into a script. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Sumerians drafted up the first[br]written laws 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and created the first school system, [br]designed to teach the craft of writing— 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and pioneered some less exciting[br]innovations, like bureaucracy and taxes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the schools, scribes studying from [br]dawn to dusk, from childhood 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 well into adulthood. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They learned accounting, mathematics,[br]and copied works of literature–– 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hymns, myths, proverbs, animal fables, [br]magic spells, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the first epics on clay tablets. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some of those tablets told the story of[br]Gilgamesh, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a king of the city of Uruk who was[br]also the subject of mythical tales. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But by the third millennium BCE, Sumer[br]was no longer the only empire around, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or even in Mesopotamia. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Waves of nomadic tribes poured[br]into the region from the north and east. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some newcomers looked up to the Sumerians,[br]adopting their way of life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and using the cuneiform script to express[br]their own languages. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In 2300 BCE, the Akkadian king Sargon[br]conquered the Sumerian city-states. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But Sargon respected Sumerian culture,[br]and Akkadians and Sumerians 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 existed side-by-side for centuries. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Other invading groups focused only [br]on looting and destruction. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Even as Sumerian culture spread, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a steady onslaught of invasions killed[br]off the Sumerian people by 1750 BCE. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Afterward, Sumer disappeared back into [br]the desert dirt, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not to be rediscovered[br]until the 19th century. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But Sumerian culture lived on[br]for thousands of years— 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 first through the Akkadians,[br]then the Assyrians, then the Babylonians. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Babylonians passed Sumerian inventions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and traditions through along Hebrew,[br]Greek, and Roman cultures. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some persist today.