Arts

Sculptures

In Mesopotamia most sculptures were made for political and religious purposes. They were  mainly made from clay, metal, and stone. Uruk was one of the first cities in Mesopotamia to start making more human-like figures which eventually led to most of Mesopotamia making human sculptures. Sculptures were sold for gold and other wants or needs. Many sculptures were put into the ziggurats for their gods who they worshipped. A lot of our knowledge of Mesopotamia is from sculptures. Without them we would know a lot less about Mesopotamias past. (CW)

Jewelry

In Mesopotamia about 4000 years ago, the cities Sumer and Akkad started paying more attention than other cities did to jewelry. About everyone in Mesopotamia would wear decorative items everyday. The most decorative item that men and women wore in Mesopotamia was ankle bracelets, silver hair rings and gold earrings. Most of the time they engraved their jewelry with twigs, leaves, and branches. A large quantity of Mesopotamian jewelry is still preserved today because of their tradition of burying and carrying jewelry into the afterlife. (ON)

Pottery

In mesopotamia they mainly used pottery for preparing food, serving food, and even storing food. They also use pottery to record history and legends believed in their time. A lot of Mesoptamians would trade the pottery for other things including gold, silver, carved ivory figurines, finely woven textiles, and more. Mesopotamians obviously also used pottery for decoration. They got this clay from river banks and used it to manufacture clay tablets, mudbricks, obviously pottery, figurines, and plaques. (CW)

Cylinder Seals

Cylinder seals, which were usually made out of jasper, serpentine, chalcedony. For cylinder seals they used cuneiforms to engrave. Cylinder Seals were often used by everyone,from royals to slaves . In time,they came to be recognized by personal identification. Cylinder Seals were organized in the late neolithic period. In order to accurately represent and identify the owner of such a seal, a skilled artist was required to carve the story of the individual on the stone cylinder in exacting detail. (ON)

Sciences

Math

The Sexagesimal System , Before 2000 B.C. the Sumerians and the creators of cuneiform script, who lived in southern parts, used a system with a base of 60 for writing integers and fractions. In the system, “Positional” would mean that the value of a numeral depends on where it stands. When you write a I, a vertical wedge, it can denote any power of 60 or any power of 1/60. Integers up to 59 were written in the decimal system. Like 21 would be written as the character for 10 and 1 being repeated as often as needed. Above 59, integers were written as sums of multiples of powers of 60. Also, 80 = 60 + 20 would be written like that.

The normal way of writing fractions was to show them as multiples of 1/60, or of 1/602, and so on. The denom. 60n was not written: it had to be inferred from the context. Like, 1 1/2 would be written as 1,30; and the reader would have to figure from the context whether I 1/2 or 90 was meant, or even 90 X 60 n or 1 1/2 X 60-n.

Astronomy

Writing

Mesopotamians started with only pictures for writing. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk Jamdat Nasr from 3,300 BCE. Images and symbols were engraved onto clay tablets.  Most people knew the basics of reading and writing because it was used in their economy.  Sumerians used small clay tokens in a clay pouch to indicate what they had purchased, like a modern day receipt.   

Important documents are put onto cylinder seals, for example, a marriage contract or laws.  To print the cylinder seals, an inverted pattern is used. This cylinder seal would include an oath to the chief god.  Writings about gods will be inscribed in gold most times to symbolize their importance.  Being a writer was a very important role in society held by a few specialized people. Students learning to write this way would have long days of practice while older scribes would look over and critique their work.  

In the 1700s, researchers excavated and took note of clay fragments that had symbols on them, but no one understood what was written.  They had discovered an unknown language: Akkadian cuneiform, the written language of the conquerors of the Sumerians. In 1786 a French archeologist brought a black kudurru, a small stone monument. Many people came up with inventive translations such as, “The army of heaven gives us vinegar to drink solely to provide us remedies able to bring us healing.¨ They were not correct.  It was not until the 1800s when Akkadian cuneiform was deciphered.  The meaning of the writing and symbols was confirmed and determined by four independent scientists.  It turns out that the small stone monument was actually a contract between a man and his daughter.  

In the 1800s and 1900s, archaeological excavations continued to reveal thousands of cuneiform cylinders and tablets, many which remain unread and untranslated.  Archeologists hope that AI and machine reading can help us decode the messages carved into these ancient relics. (TS)

Boats

Sail boats or boats in general were created for trade. They were made of papyrus or wood bundled together. 

The addition of boats was revolutionary for humans. Boats were made from light martials so it can float and easily be ferried back and forth. They soon were used in battles and for tactical maneuvers they built up the sides to protect passengers and oarsman they started using battering rams to hit other boats if used for battle. (T.S)