Origins of Tamils?[Where are Tamil people from?]PART :44

Compiled by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam

As we said earlier,Sumer was a region located on the southern Mesopotamian plains. It was settleed around  5000~4000 B.C. by Mesopotamians who were later known as Sumerians. Sumer extended over 10,000 square miles and consisted of various powerful city-states, such as Lagash, Ur, and Uruk. The Sumerian environment had a number of disadvantages - hot summers, a lack of rainfall, and rivers that flooded unpredictably. Historians believe the Sumerians' struggles with this harsh environment inspired some of their greatest achievements. Many inventions, such as writing, the plow, and the sailboat, were adapted by other civilizations, and some are still in use today. For these reasons, some historians refer to Sumer as the "cradle of civilization." Now I  briefly  outlining their achievements below,which were already mentioned or not mentioned in other chapters earlier:

The Arch:

Sumerian arches were inverted U- or V-shaped openings built above doorways. Because the Mesopotamian architects didn't have easy access to wood or stone,generally speaking,they couldn't use wood beams or stone supports to span the tops of doorways. The arch was invented to solve this problem, allowing the Mesopotamians to work around their lack of other local buildings materials.The Mesopotamian arches are made of the same mud brick as the walls. Sumerians built arches by stacking bricks one on

top of the other The bricks rose in steps from the wall and met in the center Arches added both strength and beauty to Sumerian architecture Also we found as shown above a pointed arch made of stone as part of a house at Ur and dates to approximately 2160 B.C.  

City-States/Kings:

The Stele of Naram-Sin, a rounded stone slab depicting King Naram-Sin and his soldiers on the battlefield. It was found at Susa in Iran and dates to the second half of the third millennium B.C.Naram-Sin was the grandson of Sargon and the first to unify the whole of Mesopotamia around 2350 BC.This monument depicts the Akkadian victory over the Lullubi Mountain people.Naram-Sin expanded the territory of Akkad, improved administration by standardizing accounting, and increased the religious prominence of Akkad by installing several daughters as high priestesses Naram-Sin traded with Meluhha (almost certainly corresponding to the Indus Valley civilization) Also Naram-Sin's aunt was the High Priestess En-hedu-ana.Except for the period 2370-2230 B.C, when the Sumerian city-states were subdued by the rulers of Akkad , the region immediately to the north, the Sumerians remained prosperous and powerful until the beginning of the second millennium B. C.

Cuneiform Writing

 A circular cuneiform tablet from Lagash in Iraq, dating to approximately 1980 B.C.This Cuneiform writing was most probably invented in Uruk in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) about 3400 - 3300 BC. It was invented to keep records of goods and services, and the language that was recorded was, as far as we can tell, Sumerian.Humans had been speaking for a couple hundred thousand years before they got the inspiration or nerve to mark their ideas down for posterity.But when a Mesopotamian people called the Sumerians finally did scratch out a few bookkeeping symbols on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, they unknowingly started a whole new era in history.In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumer develop a reliable and lasting method of keeping track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth.On lumps of wet clay the scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay tablet becomes a permanent document.Before the invention of a much simpler alphabet, only a small group of men had the time to learn how to read and write a system using some 700 symbols. These men were known as scribes.Fully qualified scribes could look forward to a promising career working for the king, temple, or rich merchants. They had high status in society, since their skills were so specialized.The importance of writing to history is hard to overestimate. Without it, kings, priests, and businessmen would not be able to keep track of anything beyond their immediate surroundings. With it, trade routes could expand and kings could keep the tax and census records necessary for expanding their city-states into empires.

PART::45 WILL FOLLOW IN NEXT WEEK