1. MADE BY
MUHAMMAD USMAN KARIM
Social Studies Task;3

2. RISE AND FALL OF SUMERIAN
CIVILIZATION
Despite the Sumerian’s leading role of
Other races should not be underestimated.
While with prehistory only approximate
dates can be offered, historical periods
require a firm chronological frame work,
which, unfortunately, has not yet been
established for the first half of the 3rd
millennium BC.

3. The basis for the chronological after about
1450 BC is provided by the data in the
Assyrian and Babylonia king lists, which
can often be checked by dated tablets and
the Assyrian lists of eponyms (annual
officials whose names served to identify each
year).
It is, however, still uncertain how much time
separated the middle of the 15th
century BC from the
end of the first 1st
dynasty of Babylon, which is
therefore variously dated to 1594 BC (“middle”),
1530 BC(“short”), or 1730 BC (“long” chronology. As
a compromise, the middle chronology is used

4. From 1594 BC several chronologically over lapping dynasties
reach back to the beginning of the 3rd
dynasties of Ur, about
2112 BC. From this point to the beginning of the dynasty of
Akkad (c. 2334 BC) the interval can only be calculated to
with in 40 to 50 years, via the ruling houses of Lagash and
the rather uncertain tradition regarding the succession of
Gutian viceroys.
With Ur-Nanshe(c. 2520 BC), the first king of the 1st
dynasty of Lagash there is a possible variation of
70 to 80 years, and earlier dates are a matter of
guess work; they depend upon factors of only
limited relevance, such as computation of
occupation of destruction levels, the degree of
development in the script (paleography),

5. the characters of the sculpture, pottery,
and cylinder seal, and their correlation at
different sites. In short the chronology of
the first half of the 3rd
millennium is largely
a matter for the intuition of the individual
author. Carbon-14 dates are present too few
and far between to be given undue weight.
 Consequently, the turn of the 4th
to 3rd
millennium is to be accepted, with due
caution and reservations, as the date of the
flourishing of the archaic civilization of
uruk and of the invention of writing

6. Key Features
In uruk and probably also in their cities of comprable size,
the sumerians led a city life that can be more or less
reconstruced as follows: temples and residential districts;
intensive agriculture , stock breeding, fishing ,and date
palm cultivation forming the four main stays of the
ecnomy; and highly specialized industries carried on by
sculptors, seal engravers, smiths, carpenters, ship
builders, potters, and workers of reed and textiles.

7. That organized city life existed is demonstrated chiefly
by the existence of inscribed tablets. The earliest
tablets contain figures with the items they enumerate
and measures with the items they measure, as well as
personal names and, occasionally, probably
professions. This shows the purely practical origins
of writing in Mesopotamia: it began not as a means
of magic or as a way for the ruler to record his
achievements, for example , but as an aid to memory
for an admistration that was ever expanding its area
of operations.

8. The earliest examples of writing are very difficult to
penetrate because of their extremely laconic
formulation, which presupposes a knowledge of the
context, and because of the still very imperfect
rendering of the spoken word. More over, many of the
archaic signs were pruned away after a short period of
use and cannot be traced in the paleography of later
periods, so that they cannot be identified
Part of the population was supported with ratios from
a central point of distribution, which relieved people
of the necessity of providing their basic food them
selves, in return for their work all day and every day, at
least for most of the year. The cities kept up activate
trade with foreign lands

9. Impact on surrounding world
 one of the most important question that has to be met when
dealing with “organization” and “city life” is that of social
structure and the form of government ;
However, it can be answered only with difficulty, and the
use of evidence from later periods carry with it the
danger of anachronisms. The Sumerians word for ruler,
excellence is lugal, which etymologically means “big person”.
The first occurrence comes form kish about 2700 BC, since an
earlier instance form uruk is uncertain because it cold simply be
intended as a personal name: “monsieur legrand” in uruk the
rulers special tittles was “EN”. In later periods this word
(etymology unknown), which is also found in divine names such

10. Enlil and enki had a predominantly religious
connotation that is translated, for want of a better
designation, as “en-priest, en-priestess”. En, as the
rulers title, is encountered in the traditional epics of
the Sumerians (Gilgamesh is the “En of kullab,” a
district of Uruk) and particularly in the personal name
, such as “the- en-has-abundanse” , “the-en-
occupies-the-throne,” and many others

11. major achievement
 It has often been asked if the ruler of uruk is to be
recognized in artistic representation. A man feeding
sheep with flowering branches, a prominent
personality in seal design, might thus represent the
ruler or a priest in his capacity as administrator and
protector of flocks. The same question may be posed in
the cased of a man who is depicted on a stelaaiming an
arrow at a lion. These question are purely speculative,
however: even if the “protector of flocks” were
identical with the en, there is no ground for seeing in
the ruler a person with a predominantly religious
function

12. Reference : wikipedia.com
 thank you
the end