Sumer Through Time: City-States, Kings and Inventions

Inside a Sumerian City-State

1A Sumerian city-state was a walled city together with the villages and fields around it. Sumer's city-states shared a language, a writing system and many of the same gods, but each one governed itself, and each honored its own patron god in a great temple at the city's center.

2Early on, temple leaders managed much of a city's land and stored its grain. Some historians think that assemblies of elders also advised rulers on big decisions such as war. Over time, war leaders gained more power. The Sumerian word for king, lugal, means "big man." Kings commanded armies, built walls and temples, and often passed their rule to their sons.

3Every city depended on irrigation. Farmers dug canals from the rivers and opened small gates to let water flow into their fields. The rivers carried a great deal of silt, so canals filled up and had to be cleaned out again and again. Rulers called up crews of workers for this job and settled quarrels over who got water first. Over centuries, irrigation water also left salt behind in the soil, and many farmers switched from wheat to barley, which grows better in salty ground.

4Sumerians used and improved many tools. Oxen pulled plows that broke up the hard soil. Sailboats carried grain and goods up and down the rivers and canals. Metalworkers mixed copper and tin to make bronze tools and weapons. The flat river plain had good clay and reeds but little timber, stone or metal, so merchants traded grain, cloth and other goods for wood, copper and a blue stone called lapis lazuli from mountains far to the east.