Sumerian Civilization Research Paper

Every civilization has seven characteristics that keep the civilization up and running. These characteristics include having an urban focus, political and military structures, social structure based on power, more complexity, a district religious structure, writing, and having new forms of artistic and intellectual activity. Missing just one of the seven characteristics can cause the civilization to turn upside down and fall apart.
The first characteristic is to have an urban focus. This is one of the most important of the seven because it involves developing a city. These cities would eventually become the centers for political, economic, social, cultural, and religious development. Cities were a more advanced version of the Neolithic Towns
About 90% of the population were farmers, this resulted in the surplus of agricultural crops. The surplus allowed some people to work other jobs instead of farming. At the same time, there was a huge demand among the elites for luxury items, this demand resulted in the push for the production of new products. The city-states started to export finishing goods in exchange for raw materials, resulting in the massive growth of trading. The importance of commerce and industry started growing because the Sumerian city-states were primarily agricultural. The population of Mesopotamia began to produce woolen textures, pottery, and metalwork. Sumerians began imported copper, tin, and timber in exchange for dried fish, wool, wheat, barley, and metal
Writing was mainly used by kings, priests, merchants, and artisans as a mean to keep records. The oldest Mesopotamian text was written by the Sumerians around 3000 B.C.E. Their system of writing was based around cuneiform, which was made up of wedge-shaped symbols. They would use a reed stylus to make wedge-shaped impressions on clay tablets, which were then baked or dried in the sun. These tablets were nearly indestructible, resulting in hundred of thousands being found by scientist who use them as a great source of information. The Mesopotamians would use cuneiform text in schools to teach the people to write. This would help them keep records and maintain knowledge. Using math, they formed a number system based on 60, this was achieved by using combinations of six and ten. The Egyptians also had their own writing system known as hieroglyphics, made up of signs that depicts objects and had a sacred