Sumerian City States Map
Sumerian city states had local rulers who lived in large palaces but most of these local rulers were not considered kings.
Sumerian city states map. Map of sumerian city states map and travel information. Map showing the extent of mesopotamia. To the east loomed the zagros mountains where scattered city states thrived on trade and learning from sumer and to the west was the vast expanse of the arabian desert. Sumer american tribune sumer cuneiform a study of mesopotamia.
Priests and rulers share. Ur history of sumer wikipedia eridu crystalinks sumer looklex encyclopaedia mari ancient sumerian amorite city ancient near east. 30 free sumerian city states map. Eventually sumer was unified by eannatum but the unification was tenuous and failed to last as the akkadians conquered sumeria in 2331 bc.
2800 bce thereafter kish erech ur and lagash vied for ascendancy for hundreds of years rendering sumer vulnerable to external conquerors first the elamites c. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century bc and before but the historical record remains obscure until the early dynastic iii period c. Map of map of sumerian city states. Cities became the centers of trade learning and religion and offered people more opportunities than life in the country.
The 23rd century bc when a now deciphered syllabary writing system was developed which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions. By the year 2500 bce the total population in ancient sumer was more than half a million people. The first king to unite the separate city states was etana ruler of kish c. By p l kessler published on 11 july 2013 send to google classroom.
As in ur the center of all sumerian cities was the walled temple with a ziggurat in the middle. 2530 2450 bce and later the akkadians led by their king sargon reigned 2334 2279 bce although sargon s dynasty lasted only about 100. Ur ancient history was early sumerian civilization wiped out by a. About four out of five of those people lived in the cities making sumer the world s.
Sumer ancient history encyclopedia altorient 28th century bc a study of mesopotamia. There the priests and rulers appealed to the gods for the well being of the city state. Sumerian city states included uruk kish lagash umma and ur. A city state functioned much as an independent country does today.
At times one city would try to conquer and unify the region but such efforts were resisted and failed for centuries. So far archeologists have dated the earliest known royal palaces to c. Thus each sumerian city became a city state independent of the others and protective of its independence. The sumerian city states rose to power during the prehistoric ubaid and uruk periods.
Map of sumerian city states map. The area which formed sumer started at the persian gulf and reached north to the neck of mesopotamia where the two rivers the tigris and the euphrates meander much closer to each other. Classical sumer ends with the rise of the akkadian empire in the 23rd century bc. As a result the political history of sumer is one of almost constant warfare.
Ancient sumer city states. Sumer american tribune sumer cuneiform ancient history was early sumerian civilization wiped out by a. 30 free map of sumerian city states. While there does seem to have been a sense of inhabiting a shared space in southern mesopotamia referred to as the land in written records city states had distinctive.
2600 bce and conclude that sumerian city states had centralized governments with secular rulers by at least that timeframe. The rivers have changed course. Soon there were hundreds of villages and towns some with populations of only a few hundred and some with populations of 30 000 or more.