After Neolithic people settled Sumer they developed a kind of writing called pictographs which are considered one of the earliest forms of known writing. They carved pictographs on clay tablets and then baked them in kilns.
Sumerians baked bricks to build with and are famous for building with the arch.
The Sumerians are also famous for ziggurats. Have you ever heard of the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon“? Well that was a ziggurat.
Ziggurats look kind of like a layered wedding cake. Sometimes the layers were as high as 150 feet. The very top layer was usually a shrine to one of their gods.
Here is a link to a MAKE A ZIGGURAT craft
Many scholars are pretty sure that Sumerians were among the first people to use the wheel. It is kind of hard to imagine NOT knowing about wheels, and how they work, but if you’d never seen one, you’d have to invent it.
Hubert is 15-year-old inventor in ancient Sumeria who invents the wheel and wins a race. Then the wheel really catches on but then problems start, like traffic jams and war machines and Hubert has to save the day with another invention. Find out which invention it is in this entertaining story.
Sumerians used a number system based on 60. Now- a- days we use a number system based on tens, mostly. Some number systems we still do the same way. For example, a circle has 360 degrees because it is separated into 6 sections of 60 (6X60=360). The degrees in a circle were divided into 60 minutes and then into 60 seconds. We still use that system for clocks and compasses.
Phases of the Moon courtesy Wikimedia.org
The Sumarian’s calender was based on the cycles of the moon, called a Lunar Calendar (luna is Latin for moon). To keep it fairly precise, they would add on a month, every few years.
