SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY

3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Historical Antecedents in the Course of

Science and Technology:

Sumerian Civilization

Consolidated by:
Mrs. Lorna C. Aban
Center for Natural Sciences
School of Health and Natural Sciences
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Objectives
• Explain how science and technology affected
the society and environment and vice versa
• Identify inventions and discoveries that
changed the world over the course of history
• Discuss the scientific and technological
developments in the Philippines

Reference: McNamara, D. J., Valverde, V. M., & Beleno, R. (2018) Science, Technology, and Society. C & E Publishing, Inc.
Quezon City. All Rights Reserved
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines
Sumerians and Mesopotamia
• The heartland of Sumer lay
between the Euphrates and Tigris
rivers, in what the Greeks later
called Mesopotamia.
• The ancient Sumerians, the
"black-headed ones," lived in the
southern part of what is now
Iraq.
Reference:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Sumer
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie
s/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-
east1/sumerian/a/the-sumerians-and-
Mesopotamia
Image from
http://armchairprehistory.com/2011/08/1
0/the-black-haired-sumerian-elite/
Map from
https://slideplayer.com/slide/11744303/
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Sumerian Civilization
• The Sumerians were
characteristically inventive, and are
likely to have been responsible for
the development of the first writing.
• Well before 3000 B.C.E. Sumerians
were recording their language using
simple pictures. They wrote on
tablets of clay, later evolving the Cuneiform tablet still in its
clay case: legal case
script that to us is known as from Niqmepuh, King of
Iamhad (Aleppo), 1720

cuneiform, or "wedge-shaped." B.C.E., 3.94 x 2" (British

Museum)
References: https://www.britannica.com/place/Sumer
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/sumerian/a/the-sumerians-
and-Mesopotamia
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Sumerian civilization
• Book-keeping and very detailed
records on clay tablets of offerings,
rations, taxes and agricultural work
were features of Sumerian life
• They were energetic farmers, traders
and sailors.
• Their religion recognized many gods,
rituals as well as parties were
References:
enlivened by skillful harpists and
https://www.britannica.com/place/Sumer
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities singers, and Sumerian musical
/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-
east1/sumerian/a/the-sumerians-and- instruments have even been
Mesopotamia
excavated by modern archaeologists.
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Uruk City
• Uruk was the first
major city in Sumer built
in the 5th century BC,
• is considered one of the
largest Sumerian
settlements and most
important religious
centers in Mesopotamia.
• It was continuously Reference:
https://staff.cdms.westernsydney.edu.au/~anton/Research/Uruk_Pro
ject/History.html#:~:text=Uruk%20was%20the%20first%20major,to%
inhabited from about 20the%205th%20century%20AD.
image from https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-
5000 BC up to the 5th asia/uruk-sumerian-003653

century AD.
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

The great ziggurat of Ur

• Ziggurat or mountain of god
• Constructed using the sun-
baked bricks
• Sacred place, only their
priests were allowed to enter
• The temple showcases the
– the elaborate and intricate
Sumerian architecture
– remarkable technology
used to build it
Reference: McNamara, D. J., Valverde, V. M., & Beleno, R. (2018) Science, Technology, and Society. C & E Publishing, Inc.
Quezon City. All Rights Reserved
Image from https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/great-ziggurat-ur-001767
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Irrigation and Dikes

• Built to bring water to
farmlands
• To control flooding of
rivers
• Considered as one of the
world’s most beneficial
engineering works
• Year-long farming and
increased food
production
Reference: Ancientmesopotamia5.wordpress.com
Irrigation Systems, Ancient - dam, building, river, important, salt ...water encyclopedia
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Sailboats
• Main mode of
transportation was
through waterways
• Used to carry large
quantities of products
(for trading)
• To cover large distances
(foster culture,
Reference: McNamara, D. J., Valverde, V. M., & Beleno, R.
(2018) Science, Technology, and Society. C & E Publishing,
Inc. Quezon City. All Rights Reserved
information, and
https://historyplex.com/important-inventions-of-
sumerian-civilization
technology
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Wheel and plow

• For farm works and food
processes (for mass
production)

• To dig the earth in a

faster pace, so as to
plant the seeds
Reference: McNamara, D. J., Valverde, V. M., & Beleno, R. (2018)
Science, Technology, and Society. C & E Publishing, Inc. Quezon City.
All Rights Reserved
Images from https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/mesopotamia-
history/top-11-inventions-and-discoveries-of-mesopotamia/
https://mesopotamiaapworld.wordpress.com/achievements/
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

roads
• To travel faster and
easier
• Made of sun-baked
bricks laid on the
ground, used
bitumen, a black
sticky substance
similar to asphalt
Reference: McNamara, D. J., Valverde, V. M., &
Beleno, R. (2018) Science, Technology, and Society. C
& E Publishing, Inc. Quezon City. All Rights Reserved
https://www.history.com/news/sumerians-
inventions-mesopotamia#section_7
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

• Cylinder seal is a small

Other inventions round cylinder with
figurative scenes or written
characters or both etched
on them.
• Invented around 3500 BC in
southern Mesopotamia,
they were used as an
Reference: McNamara, D. J., Valverde, V. M., & Beleno, R.
(2018) Science, Technology, and Society. C & E Publishing,
administrative tool, a form
Inc. Quezon City. All Rights Reserved
https://stillunfold.com/history/10-inventions-of-
of signature, jewelry and as
sumerian-civilizations-we-re-using-even-today
https://www.historyonthenet.com/mesopotamian- magical amulets.
cylinder-seals
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Copper fabrication
• Sumerians were known to be the first users of
copper – the earliest non-precious metals. The
archeological evidence states that they
harnessed the skill of extracting and working
with copper around 5000-6000 years ago. Reference: McNamara,
D. J., Valverde, V. M., &
• Sumerians used copper in making heads of Beleno, R. (2018)
Science, Technology, and
arrows, razors, harpoons and many other small Society. C & E Publishing,
Inc. Quezon City. All
objects. Rights Reserved
https://interestingengine
ering.com/11-
• they also began making vessels, chisels, and fascinating-sumerian-
inventions-that-changed-
jugs from copper, which reveal excellent the-world

craftsmanship of the Sumerians.

 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Time
• The world was definitely aware of
the day and night system but, yet
again, Sumerians were the first ones
to divide the passage of time. They
introduced passage of weeks,
https://interestingengineering.com/
11-fascinating-sumerian-inventions-
months and years to the world.
that-changed-the-world
https://www.ancient- • The Sumerians did the astronomical
origins.net/history/sumerians-
looked-heavens-they-invented-
calculation in the base 60 system.
system-time-and-we-still-use-it-
today-007341
Their work was appreciated and
https://www.ancienthistorylists.co accepted throughout Eurasia.
m/mesopotamia-history/top-10-
sumerian-inventions-followed-
many-civilizations/
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

Lunar calendar
• It is believed that the Sumerians were
possibly the first to develop the lunar
calendar.
• entirely based on the recurrence of
lunar phases which means, the phases
of the moons were used to count the 12
months.
• The Sumerians observed two seasons – https://interestingengineering.c
summer and winter and the sacred om/11-fascinating-sumerian-
inventions-that-changed-the-
marriage rites were performed on New world
https://www.crystalinks.com/su
Year. They used the phases of the moon mercalendars.html

to count 12 lunar months as a year.

 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

• Another significant invention by numeral system

Sumerians
• Known as Sexagesimal,
• The reason behind this invention
was out of an urgent need of
keeping the records for their
traded harvests. Gradually, they
started using a small clay cones
to denote the number one.
https://interestingengineering.com/11-
• Similarly, a ball denoted the fascinating-sumerian-inventions-that-
changed-the-world
number ten and a large clay https://historyplex.com/important-
inventions-of-sumerian-civilization
cone denoted sixty.
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

• Record of Sumerian achievement in science and

technology as presented by Kramer (1948) and Brinkman
(1990) are amazing and far-reaching, particularly in
mathematics, engineering, architecture, agriculture,
transportation, and medicine.
• Sumerian doctors made use of assorted botanical,
zoological, and mineralogical ingredients as materia
medica in their prescriptions. The Sumerian civilization
was gradually absorbed by the Semitic people who
migrated to Mesopotamia from Arabia during the 2300
BCE and founded the great empires of Babylonia, Assyria,
and Persia. [materia medica: the body of remedial substances used in
the practice of medicine.]
 SAINT M ARY’S UNIVERSITY
3700 Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines

• What do you think is the most vital

contribution of the Sumerian civilization?
Explain briefly.