Archaeologists found a stone tablet about 3500 BC engraved with picture symbols and linear symbols in Ohimir mound near Kish. This is the earliest writing found in the south of the two rivers basin.
The writing materials in the two river basins are semi-dry clay tablets made of soil, and the pens are made of reed poles (or bone sticks or wooden sticks), cut into triangular tips, and engraved on the semi-dry clay tablets with them, leaving the handwriting strokes naturally wedge-shaped, so it is called cuneiform writing. After writing, dry or burn the clay tablet and keep it for a long time. The cuneiform characters created by Sumerians were later inherited by Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians, and spread throughout West Asia with the expansion of commercial and cultural exchanges.
The initial spread of cuneiform was mainly in West Asia and Southwest Asia. During the reign of Babylon and Assyria, cuneiform characters developed greatly, vocabulary was enlarged and complete, and calligraphy was more exquisite and beautiful. With the spread of culture, other ethnic groups in the two river basins also adopted this writing method.
Around 1500 BC, cuneiform characters invented by Sumerians had become a common writing system for ethnic exchanges at that time, and even cuneiform characters were used in diplomatic exchanges or treaties between Egypt and countries in the two river basins.
Later, due to the development of commerce, Persians in the Iranian plateau improved the cuneiform in Mesopotamia and gradually turned it into an advanced alphabet. The wheel was invented at the beginning of the Sumerian era (about 3200 BC). Sumerians may have been inspired by pottery wheels, because Iranian wheels were used to make pottery as early as 4000 BC, and were introduced to Sumerian by Iran about 500 years later.
Sumerians regard the full moon and the full moon as a one-month cycle. Divide a year into 12 months, of which 6 months have 30 days each, the other 6 months have 29 days each, and the whole year has 354 days. This is 1 1 many days less than the time for the earth to go around the sun once a year, so they created a method to set a leap year. This is the solar calendar.
They also introduced a timing system that divided the time into 60 minutes and 60 seconds per minute.
Sumerians' use of numbers can be said to be far behind: on a clay tablet found near the pyramid, a calculation problem of multiplying two numbers was listed. If the final product is represented by Arabic numerals, the result is actually a 15-digit number195,955,200,000,000, which was Sumerian 6000 years ago.
However, the Greeks around 500 BC still believed that five digits 10000 was simply an "incalculable value", and anything exceeding 10000 was called "infinity". For Europeans, mathematicians and philosophers such as Descartes and Leibniz were not used for calculation for the first time until after 1600. However, in the concept of ordinary people in the west, people began to understand the number of numbers after entering the19th century, so that the name millionaire became synonymous with the richest man with countless wealth. Sumerians also reached a high level in ancient architecture, and the most important architectural relic is the pagoda temple.
Because there is no huge granite in the two river basins, Sumerians built pagoda temples with bricks. Sumerians used to build a new temple on the site of the old one. Due to the continuous construction of the past dynasties, the foundation of the temple has become a multi-storey tower-shaped platform with a shrine at the top. This tall building is called "Gu Ye".
Sumerians mainly used small sculptures and mosaic art in their early plastic arts. The unearthed masks, priest sculptures, bull's head (bull's head harp) and "Ur military flag" were exemplary at that time. Later, Sumerians focused on larger statues and reliefs (Na Ramsin stone tablet). The religious development of Sumerians is not high, but religion plays an important role in his life. They worship many natural gods, such as God (Anu), Land God (enlil), Water God (Nun), Sun God (Chamak), Moon God (Xin) and Goddess (Hista).
Sumerian religion has a noteworthy feature: it does not advocate any blissful and eternal afterlife, but cares more about the survival of this world.
Because religion played an important role in Sumer, priests occupied an important position in the society at that time. Priests and administrators (these two words often have the same meaning) need to learn cuneiform, so there are affiliated schools in temple areas to teach cuneiform and other knowledge that priests need to master. These schools in Sumer are the earliest schools in the history of human civilization.
According to the records on the clay tablets, the pyramids are all used for sacrifices. Because their gods always live on the top of high mountains, they need to pray at the top of the pyramids, so that people can get close to the palace of the gods and the gods can easily accept people's worship. The influence of this worship in Mesopotamia expanded rapidly and lasted for thousands of years. From the kingdom of Babylon to the kingdom of Assyria, from Babylon to Nineveh, such stepped pyramids can be seen everywhere. Even the Babel in the Bible is stepped. If it can be built, it will be a small gold pagoda.
Therefore, many amazing miracles are also related to the Sumerian pyramids. In the ancient books and patterns left by Sumerians, the images of Sumerian gods recorded are all related to the stars in the sky. None of these gods are human. Each god represents a star, and there are many different planets around each star. The whole star map is almost the same as that drawn by modern people. According to the existing historical materials and archaeological remains, it is very likely that the earliest military array was produced here.