MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION

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Mesopotamia is a region of southwest Asia in the Tigris and Euphrates

river system. The area’s climate and geography hosted the beginnings
of human civilization and was called as the ‘Fertile Crescent’. The
people of Mesopotamia also became to be known as the Sumerians.
 Map of Mesopotamia

Its history is marked by many important inventions that changed the

world, including the concept of time, math, the wheel, sailboats, maps
and writing. Mesopotamia is also defined by a changing succession of
ruling bodies from different areas and cities that seized control over a
period of thousands of years.

The image shows an old city of Mesopotamia called Uruk

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Mesopotamian inventions

Mesopotamian invented new technologies and perfected the large-

scale use of existing ones. In the process, they transformed how
humans cultivated food, built dwellings, communicated and kept track
of information and time

Mass-Produced Pottery
Sumerians were the first to develop the turning wheel, a device which
allowed them to mass-produce pottery.  This enabled them to churn out
large numbers of items.

  A pottery produced by the Sumerians

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Writing
Sumerians were the first to develop a writing system. Either way, it’s
clear that they were using written communication by 2800 B.C. But
they didn’t set out to write great literature or record their history, but
rather to keep track of the goods that they were making and selling

An early writing sample from  Mesopotamia using pictographs to create a record of

food supplies.

Hydraulic Engineering
The Sumerians figured out  how to collect and channel the overflow of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—and the rich silt that it contained—and
then use it to water and fertilize their farm fields. They designed
complex systems of canals, with dams constructed of reeds, palm
trunks and mud whose gates could be opened or closed to regulate the
flow of water.
A Mesopotamian relief showing the agricultural importance of the rivers

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The Chariot 
The Sumerians didn’t invent wheeled vehicles, but they probably
developed the first two-wheeled chariot in which a driver drove a team
of animals.
Scale model of a simple  two-wheeled  chariot which was invented by the
Sumerians in Mesopotamia.

Mathematics
The Sumerians developed a formal numbering system based on units
of 60. At first, they used reeds to keep track of the units, but
eventually, with the development of cuneiform, they used vertical
marks on the clay tablets. Their system helped lay the groundwork for
the mathematical calculations of civilizations that followed.
Cuneiform script, developed by the Sumerians