Sumerian Inventions and Achievements
Hello. I am a Sumerian inventor. Allow me and my team to show you around, and teach you about all of the wonders of Sumer. Please enjoy!
And since I am An inventor, as you might imagine, I will be teaching you about the amazing achievements, discoveries, and inventions that me and my people have made. First off, we have came up with a complex form of writing, that we call cuneiform. It is composed of symbols, called pictographs, that represent what we are writing about. We just carve these into clay, or stone, tablets. Then you have a record that might last for centuries, longer than any man could remember. This has proven to be extremely important when recording business and trade, politics and government, or we could use them in our temples for religious purposes. They keep on becoming more and more useful as time passes. Other people are starting to use as well, so the pictographs are becoming more complex and specific over time. I believe that in the future, our writing will still be growing and helping people. It might even be used by everybody, everywhere, all thanks to our intelligence.
And since I am An inventor, as you might imagine, I will be teaching you about the amazing achievements, discoveries, and inventions that me and my people have made. First off, we have came up with a complex form of writing, that we call cuneiform. It is composed of symbols, called pictographs, that represent what we are writing about. We just carve these into clay, or stone, tablets. Then you have a record that might last for centuries, longer than any man could remember. This has proven to be extremely important when recording business and trade, politics and government, or we could use them in our temples for religious purposes. They keep on becoming more and more useful as time passes. Other people are starting to use as well, so the pictographs are becoming more complex and specific over time. I believe that in the future, our writing will still be growing and helping people. It might even be used by everybody, everywhere, all thanks to our intelligence.
The Wheel
We first created the wheel around 3500 BC. Our first use of the wheel was not for transportation, but for the potters wheel. We then used it for transportation much later. About 300 years actually. Many people might think that the wheel isn't even fit to be referred to as an invention. All it is is just a rolling cylinder, but they would be wrong. We took so long to master the wheel and how it works, because it is very complex to not only have a moving wheel, but to have it hold a stable platform or object on top. This idea was very unique and had never been thought of at the time that we started with it. It was quite a revolution in our discoveries. We are now able to use it for many convenient purposes, such as traveling far distances, and it greatly helps in trade when we need transport goods from place to place. This is much easier than simply carrying our loads. We can also do more at a time, using wheeled carts. We found that if you put a platform on a round log, it is easier to move. We spent a lot of time evolving that until we had very easy and efficient ways to transport items, this helps us to keep a good economy, because of how it helps our trade. We also use the wheel for our plow and getting irrigation to our agriculture. This makes getting getting water to our crops from the rivers muck easier so we can have large amounts of food to feed our people what they need and even more for surplus and trade. It works out out well.
Mathematics
We have created mathematics primarily for taxes, measuring area for building and agriculture, and we had to describe larger numbers as we attempted to chart the sky in the night, and try to develop our lunar calendar. We had to get numbers or symbols to represent sheaves of wheat or any other form of agriculture, or anything to count in general. We needed this for organization. First we used a small clay cone to represent one, a clay ball for ten, and a large clay cone for sixty. But after time, this was replaced when we found out a way to put numbers into the form of cuneiform and put it on clay tablets. There were very little people in the public that knew about it at first because of the complexity, but people are beginning to understand. We came up with a unique number system with a base of 60 as oppose to 10. We use 60 instead of 10 because 60 is divisible by so many different numbers making it easy to use. It is similar to the reason why 12 is so popular divisible by 12. 12 is important because it is divisible by 1,2,3,4, and 6. We have 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. We also have a circle with 360 degrees, (60*6). The number 60 was represented by the same symbol as 1 so you sometimes had to make a guess on what the numbers might be. The numbers are lined up in a fashion similar to the Roman Numerals. There is also a place value system so that the numbers to the left are greater than the numbers to their right. Another important concept that only we have thought of, is zero, and representing it with a circular, oval, symbol. In about 3000 BC, we came up with a metrology system with multiplication and division tables, tables of squares, are other very complex mathematical practices. We have basic geometrical shapes such as rectangles, triangles, and trapezoids. We also understand things like cylinders and bricks. I believe that in the future our mathematical practices will continue being used and evolving into very complex concepts, that might be essential to everyday life.
Conclusion
I have just showed you the beginning to our endless list of great achievements, like medicine, astronomy, and more, all of which, certain to change basic life. Come to Sumer, we will teach you what we already know, and we can work with your knowledge to advance the basic intelligence of any basic man, scholar or not. Imagine what great things we could do. The potential of the mind is absolutely endless. And all we need is someone like you, to be creative, and join us to expand all the small ideas, and turn them into something bigger. Come.