[Compiled by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]
Sailboat
An artist's rendition of
one type of Sumerian sail boat. The rope indicates where the sails would have
hung on the wooden mast. The body of the boat is made of bundled reeds covered
with leather.
A civilization flourishes
based on its trade and commerce, and Mesopotamia was no exception. They wanted
to set up trade relationships with nearby cities and countries. These were in
the days before road routes were built making transportation of goods by land
routes hectic and difficult. Therefore, they had to figure out an alternative
mode of transportation for goods and people. This came in the form of water
transportation, and thus the first boats were invented.They were simple wooden
boats and the sails were square in shape and made of cloth. The angle and
direction of the sails could not be changed. If the wind blew in the direction
that the sailboats desired to go, things went well. If that wasn't the case,
they had to wait for the wind to blow in their favor!.That is,effective travel
was highly dependent on favorable winds. They were primitive in design, but the
sailboats helped the Mesopotamians in trade and commerce.They also helped in
irrigation and fishing. For example,fishermen would go downstream using
sailboats, cast their nets, stay, wait and return with the catch.Though they
couldn't handle lots of cargo or people at a given time,The design work they
did on their sailboats provided the basis for all future sailboats, even five
thousand years later.Thus the same basic principles of sailboat design used by
the Sumerians remain in use as of 2014/2015, with sailboats still constructed
of wooden planks and sails, even though many boats in 2014/2015 no longer use
sails.
Over 2000 years old Tamil
poems,Purananuru 66 too mentioned about "sail boat" & indicate
that ancestors of these sangam tamil people knows how to control winds & move
boats in sea.These ancestors may be ancient sumerians,who established the first
world civilization!
"One of your
ancestors mastered the movement of the wind
when his ships sailed on
the dark and enormous ocean!
Karikal Valavan, you who
master rutting elephants!"
Wheel
A copper statue of a
chariot being pulled by four donkeys. It depicts an early form of the wheel,
which Sumerians made by pressing two pieces of wood together. The statue is
2.75 inches tall, dates to about 2700 B.C., and was found at Tell Agrab in
Iraq.
In today’s world,
technology is developing at an unprecedented rate. The latest gadget today is
tomorrow’s antique. As a result of this rapid development of technology, we
often take things for granted. One of these is the wheel. Take a look around,
and you will see wheels everywhere, be it as tyres, or in everyday
machinery.Nevertheless, the wheel (specifically as a means of transportation)
was actually invented at a relatively late point of human history. The oldest
known wheel found in an archaeological excavation is from Mesopotamia, and
dates to around 3500 BC.One of the reasons why the wheel was invented only at
this point in history is due to the fact that metal tools were needed to chisel
fine-fitted holes and axles.The ends of the axle, as well as the holes in the
centre of the wheels had to be nearly perfectly smooth and round.Failing to
achieve this would result in too much friction between these components, and
the wheel would not turn.Although Mesopotamia has the oldest known
wheel,scholar believe it developed independently in separate parts of the world
at around the same time.its importance to mankind can be simply guess as we find
the various uses of the wheel,in our day to day life.Hence I think,We
should not view it as a basic invention by ‘primitive man’. Instead, we should
view it as one of the great achievements of human society.
Time[24-hour Day]:
Little is known about the
details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras, however, records and artifacts that
are discovered, show that in every culture, people were preoccupied with
measuring and recording the passage of time.Generally,We wake up at a certain
hour, go to work or school at another, eat at regular times, and go to sleep
based upon the revolutions of the clock. Once, however, there existed a time
without time.Before the Sumerians, a day began with the sunrise and ended with
the sunset. People went to work from when the sun was positioned at a certain
height in the morning sky and returned to their homes when it set. It was the
Sumerians who divided the day from the night by time, by increments of
sixty-second minutes and sixty-minute hours which made up twelve hours of night
and the twelve hours of the day.
Once both the light and
dark hours were divided into 12 parts, the concept of a 24-hour day was in
place.Thanks to the over 5000 years old ancient civilizations of Sumerians that
defined and preserved the divisions of time,The use of 60 began with the
Sumerians who used different number systems. While you and I write numbers
using base 10, or “decimal” this civilization used base 12
("duodecimal") and base 60 ("sexigesimal")..In the biblical
Book of Genesis, chapter 1, it states that God divided the night from the day
and saw that it was good. If one accepts God’s role in creating day and night
then the Sumerians finished the job and, if one does not, it was not God who
divided night and day – it was the Sumerians!.
PART :48 WILL FOLLOW
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