You've Gotta Love Those Sumerians! Quiz

Answer: Iraq

The Sumerian civilization began in the modern country of Iraq. It is believed that the ancestors of the ancient Sumerians probably migrated from the area now known as Iran, perhaps as early as 5,000 B.C.

Answer: Tigris and Euphrates

The Tigris River has its beginnings in the mountains of southeastern Turkey at Lake Hazar; the source of the Euphrates River is Murat Su, Turkey. Uniting near Basra, Iraq, the two rivers converge to form a channel called the Shatt-al-Arab, which flows into the Persian Gulf.

The annual flooding of the two rivers was very important to civilization in ancient Sumer. Not only was the soil rejuvenated, but water for irrigation was provided. In addition, it became vitally important for the ancient Sumerians to keep track of when the rivers might flood.

This led to the development of astronomy and the use of a calendar.

Answer: Ur

The Sumerian city-states each has their own ruler and way of life. Sometimes they were at peace with each other, and sometimes they fought over the rich farmland. At the time God appeared to Abraham, the ancient Hebrews lived in the area surrounding Ur, herding their animals, and with the same religion as the ancient Sumerians.

Answer: Henotheistic

The ancient Sumerians were polytheistic nature worshipers, however, the term that BEST describes their religion is henotheistic. Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god, while accepting the fact that other gods exist and may be worshiped. Each Sumerian city-state worshiped the same pantheon of gods; however, each Sumerian city-state had one god in particular who was most important to them.

For example, the main god in Ur was Nanna, the moon god. The goddess Inanna, goddess of love and war, was the patron diety of Uruk.

Henotheistic beliefs contributed quite a bit to the constant war and fighting in Mesopotamia. The fertile land was an important prize; however, it was also important to prove that your god was the best.

Answer: 60

Anu was represented by the number 60. The Sumerians used the number sixty as their basic unit of math; it is the origin of our sixty-minute hour and 360 degree circle.

Answer: wedge

The name cuneiform means "wedge-shaped". It was derived from the Latin "cuneus" for wedge and "forma" for shape. Written with a wedge-shaped stylus, cuneiform actually began as simple pictographs. In order to portray more complicated ideas, the Sumerians turned their pictographs into ideograms. Eventually the symbols came to represent syllables or sounds, called phonograms.

The Sumerians used about one hundred phongrams, and never developed an alphabet, so learning to read and write was not an easy task; scribes were able to earn a great living. Luckily, the later groups who conquered Mesopotamia and established empires there (Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans) adopted a form of cuneiform as their writing, so the art developed by the ancient Sumerians was not soon forgotten.

Answer: False

The Rosetta Stone, of course, decoded hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt, but cuneiform was decoded using the same principle in 1802. The Behistun Rock had been ordered carved on a mountainside in Iran by the Persian, King Darius I, in three languages, Akkadian, Elamite, and Old Persian. Grotefend noticed that the names of kings were set off from other words by a diagonal wedge mark. Rawlinson, working independently, came to the same conclusion. Because he was able to work out the Old Persian script by looking at the patterns of the kings' names, Rawlinson was able to decipher the Akkadian cuneiform.

This discovery made it possible for scholars to reconstruct the lives of ancient Sumerians because of the countless cuneiform tablets they left behind.

Answer: Gilgamesh Epic

The "Gilgamesh Epic" is considered to be the oldest epic poetry in existence. However, it is predated by the "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor" in the general poetry category. The epic recounts the story of a man, Utnapishtun, who survived a great flood by building a boat.

Answer: It was the home of the city-state's god

The levels of the ziggurat were connected by stairways, which permitted the priest-king to ascend to the deities, and the deities to descend to the people. Besides the priest-king it is believed that only a native woman was allowed inside the top level, and that was to keep the room tidy and comfortable for the god's visit, and to provide other necessities as needed.

After the fall of Sumer, other groups who occupied Mesopotamia continued to build ziggurats.

Answer: It provides the oldest known evidence of the invention of the wheel

When the Royal Standard was discovered, it was in terrible condition. It consisted of two pieces of wood that were 22" x 11", that were inlaid with shell and lapis luzuli. The wooden frame had decayed over the thousands of years it had been in the tomb. Wooley's men painstakingly excavated the tiny pieces that had fallen onto the ground and put together the original design.

The side called "War" shows soldiers bringing prisoners of war to their king, and some of the soldiers are driving the four-wheeled chariot designed by the Sumerians.

The other side, called "Peace", shows scenes from a royal banquet.