2/14/19

Today we started off by looking at our powerpoint and taking a couple more notes. We talked about Sumer which is a city state located in between the Tigris and Euphrates river. The population of Sumer increased dramatically due to the new irrigation techniques. Cities and towns were founded, some with as many as 40,000 inhabitants. Better food storage allowed for diversity in professions: priests, tradesmen, artisans, politicians, and farmers. Kings emerged, as did family dynasties and the concept of the city-state. Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as cuneiform. A pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged, with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world. We also looked at some of the laws under Hammurabi's code and tried to see what all of them were trying to enforce. I noticed that all these laws started with an "if" statement and most were pretty brutal.