Sumer was one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. More than 7000 years ago, the Sumerians built the roads and walls of their first city. They were the first in the history of mankind to leave their homes and tribal houses, abandoning the usual farming and cattle breeding, and moved to live in a real city. today there are few artifacts that could tell something about life in 5000 BC, nevertheless, scientists are carefully studying all the finds and can already tell about the life of the Sumerians.
1. Women had their own language
Men and women in Sumeria were not equal. When morning came, the man was sure that his wife had already prepared his breakfast. When the family had children, they sent the boys to school and left the girls at home. The lives of men and women were so different that women even developed their own language.
Sumerian woman figurine
The main Sumerian language was called "Emegir", but women had their own separate dialect called "Emsal" ("female language"), and no records of it have survived. Some sounds in the female language were pronounced differently, and the fairer sex also used some words and several vowels that were not in the emegir.
2. The Sumerians paid taxes before they invented money
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Taxes last longer than the money to pay them. Even before the first coins and silver shekels appeared in Mesopotamia, the people must give a part of their income to the ruler. Often Sumerian taxes did not differ from modern ones. Instead of money, the ruler charged a percentage of what the people produced. Farmers sent crops or livestock, while traders could pay with leather or timber.
Natural product as a means of paying taxes
The rich were taxed much more - in some cases, they had to give the ruler half of what they earned. However, this was not the only way to pay taxes. The Sumerians practiced work in community projects. For a month each year, a man had to leave his home to work on a farm, dig irrigation canals, or fight. Only rich people could buy off such a duty (pay someone else to work instead of him).
3. Life revolved around beer
There is a theory that beer started civilization. Allegedly, people started farming just to get drunk. And they were "lured" into the city only with the promise of more beer. True or not, beer was by far an important part of life in Sumer. It was served on the table at every meal, from breakfast to dinner, and was not considered the main drink in any person's life.
Sumerian Beer Recipe Tablet
Of course, Sumerian beer was different from modern beer. It was a kind of porridge in consistency, with a dirty sediment at the bottom, a layer of foam on top and small pieces of bread left over from fermentation floating on the surface. It could only be drunk through a straw. But it was worth it. Sumerian beer had enough grain to be considered a nutritious part of a balanced breakfast. When workers came to work on community projects, very often they were paid with beer. This is how the ruler "lured" farmers to work on his construction projects: he had the best beer.
4. Use of opium
Beer was not the only way to “relax” in Sumer. The Sumerians had opium and they definitely used this substance. The Sumerians have been cultivating opium poppy since at least 3000 BC. Today there is not much information about what they did with it, but the name given to the poppy by the Sumerians clearly speaks for itself - they called it "the plant of joy." There are theories that the Sumerians used these plants for medicine, specifically as a pain reliever.
Opium poppy for relaxation
5. New wife for the ruler annually
Each year the ruler married a new woman. He was to marry one of the priestesses - a group of virgin girls chosen to be "perfect in body" - and make love to her. Otherwise, the gods would supposedly make the land and women of Sumer sterile. The ruler and his chosen bride would have to "reflect the act of making love to the gods in the earthly world." On the day of her wedding, the bride was bathed, fumigated with incense and dressed in the most beautiful clothes, while the ruler and his entourage went to her temple.
Marriage document
In the temple, a crowd of priests and priestesses were waiting, who began to sing songs of love. When the ruler arrived, he would give gifts to the bride, and then they would go together to a room filled with incense smoke and make love on a ceremonial bed, which was made to order exclusively for this event.
6. The priestesses were doctors and dentists
The priestesses were not only the ruler's harem - they were some of the most helpful people in Sumerian society. They were poets, scribes and some of the earliest doctors in history. Sumerian cities have always been built around a temple complex. In the center was the great ziggurat, surrounded by buildings in which priests and priestesses lived and artisans worked on community projects. It was a huge space that took up a third of the city, and it was used for more than just ceremonies.
Sumerian Priestess
There were also orphanages, astronomical centers and large business organizations. However, it was outside the complex that the most historically important work was done. The sick came here and asked the priestesses to examine them. These women went outside and checked the health of the patients. They diagnosed the sick and prepared medicines for them.
7. Literacy is wealth
Reading and writing were fairly new concepts in ancient Sumer, but they were incredibly important even then. People never got rich by working with their hands. Traders and farmers were usually of the lower class. If someone wanted to get rich, then he became a manager or a priest. And literacy was a prerequisite. Sumerian boys could start their studies as soon as they were seven years old, but it was expensive. Only the richest people in the city could afford to send their children to school, where they were taught math, history and literacy. Usually, children would just copy what the teacher wrote until they could accurately imitate it.
Tablet with Sumerian clynography
8. Poor people living outside the city
Not every Sumerian was part of this "upper echelon of society." Most were of the lower class, living on farms outside the city walls or helping the low-paid artisan workers in the city. While the rich lived in adobe houses with furniture, windows and lamps, the poor should settle in reed tents. They slept on straw mats on the ground, and all their families lived in such conditions. Life was hard outside the city walls. But people could move up. A hardworking family could trade some of their crops to buy more land, or rent their land for a profit.
Sumerian city walls
9. Army of Conquerors
And yet the life of the poor of Sumer was much better than the life of the slaves. The Sumerian rulers constantly used enslaved workers in their cities, and recruited slaves simply by conducting raids on people who lived in the mountains. The raiders took these people with them into captivity and took away all their property. The Sumerian rulers believed that if the gods grant them victory, then the divine will is to make the inhabitants of the mountains slaves.
Sumerian conquerors
Usually male slaves were led by women, and female slaves often became completely powerless concubines. Although, it is worth noting that there were options to gain freedom. A slave woman could only marry a free man, although she would have to give her firstborn to her master as payment. A slave man could do enough to buy his freedom and even get his land. But there was also a downside - no one was immune from slavery. If a free person fell into debt bondage or committed a crime, then he was made a slave.
10. Ritual burials
In Sumer, death was a real mystery. The dead supposedly went to what the Sumerians called "a land of no return," but no one knew what was there. Therefore, the Sumerians believed that they would need all the earthly goods that they owned in the afterlife. They were terrified of the opportunity to spend eternity alone and hungry, so the dead were buried with jewelry, gold, food and even their domestic dogs. The rulers, however, "took" with them to the other world all their servants and "courtiers", and sometimes their families.
… and the servants were buried with the owners