Sumerian Society

Before I get to the rest of the post, I wanted to say that tomorrow is my one-year blogoversary!!! It has been a pleasure to share history, geography, and literature with all of you readers the past year and I hope that there will be more exciting posts to come in the upcoming year.

For our history articles, we should be talking about Sumer for two more weeks. This week is about Sumerian industry, religion, and society. I'm going to try to put together what is sort of a Sumerian "portfolio" and show pictures of craftsmanship and other things including ziggurats or their inventions. But that is for next time.

Industry is basically a skill that the culture uses to make their money and keep their economy going. In Sumer, agriculture and craftsmanship are examples of their industry. Some cultures' religion could be considered an industry as well. We spoke about agriculture and the inventions in the first article about Sumer. I will speak about the craftsmanship with the pictures in the next article. I won't write extensively about architecture in this article. The Sumerians' architecture included ziggurats (refer to the link above), arches, and domes.


It has been said that the most important commercial industry of Sumer is the textile industry. The fibers from the flax plant were used to make linens as early as Abraham's days in Ur (c. 2000 BC). Some of these prized linens were used as garments for the Sumerian priests which brings us to our next section: religion.

According to the earliest cuneiform tablets, the Sumerians began as monotheists with a belief in one god, An ("high"). Their religion eventually turned to worshipping more than 5,000 gods and goddesses of nature. At that point, the Sumerians can be said to be polytheists (worshipping more than one god), humanists (worshipping man), and naturalists (worshipping nature). Their very futile religion provided the basis of the Epic of Gilgamesh which shows the apparent hopelessness of life. This epic is the oldest work of literature being written in c. 2700 BC.

The Sumerian government began as a form of democracy with the free citizens and a governor, the ensi, as ruler. At one time, 50% of the people were slaves either taken as prisoners of war or as a payment of debts. As time went on, the Sumerians adopted a monarchy with the lugal ("big man") as the king. Because they viewed their political order as the establishment of the gods' religious order on earth, each of their cities was dedicated to a specific god. They would build a ziggurat with a shrine dedicated to that particular god.

The only facts we know about Sumerian history are from the cuneiform tablets that were found when Sumer was excavated. There are a few main periods of Sumer that are listed below:

• Early Dynastic Age: Sumer reached its first peak in cultural development as independent city-states.
• Old Akkadian Period: Sargon of Akkad (the world's second greatest empire builder) conquers Sumer to unique much of the known world; the cultural diffusion of the Akkadian language begins to replace the Sumerian language (although through cultural diffusion, other empires picked up some aspects of Sumerian)
• The Gutians from the Iranian mountains and highlands drives the Akkadians out of the area.
• Third Dynasty of Ur (Golden Age of Ur): In 2100 BC, Ur-Nammu becomes the lugal of Sumer; he drove out the Gutians and established the world's oldest law code; 200,000 people including Abraham lived in Sumer during this period
• The Amorites and Elamites destroyed Sumer only leaving behind its art of writing to its conquerors.

During the Third Dynasty of Ur, Sumer was comprised of twelve walled city states which were comprised of smaller villages. There were four main classifications of societal positions during this time. Here they are from most important to least important.

• Nobles: These were the ruling class and the priests of the temple. They would kind of like the lords in the feudal system of the Middle East.
• Commoners: These were the free citizens who owned their own property and had a little say in the workings of Sumerian society.
• Clients: These were temple employees, farmers, and craftsman. This group is much like the serfs of the feudal system except that they were not exactly tied to the land.
• Slaves: I spoke about how nearly 50% of the population were slaves; the slaves were used as free labor for the nobles or commoners.

That was a quick run through of the loose ends of our study in Sumer. The passage for this week is Matthew 11:28-30. Jesus says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." A lot of problems in life would be solved if we just trusted that God would take care of us like He said He would. As Christians, we know that we don't walk alone here on earth; God is always with us and He always protects us. Trusting in One who never fails us is a wonderful thing.