City-states of Ancient Sumer http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Ciudades_de_Sumeria.svg/436px-Ciudades_de_Sumeria.svg.png

Irrigation Agriculture and Sumerian Civilization.   The organization required to dig canals and dikes along the Tigris and Euphrates produced a greater level of specialization within the workforce than had occurred in the later Neolithic towns. To be effective, irrigation efforts had to be carefully planned by people who observed the flow of the water from year to year. Such people understood where the dikes and canals should be placed for maximum effect. At the same time, the dikes and canals themselves, channeling millions of gallons of water, had to be constructed sturdily and efficiently. This process also required the development of specialized skills in surveying and building. Once the water had been brought to the fields, of course, it was also important to know the best times for sowing, weeding, watering, and ultimately harvesting. This too required experience and knowledge, particularly of the seasons and the weather. Those who had such specialized skills and knowledge would naturally have emerged as the leaders of Sumerian society.

The role of these specialists, however, also reflected the general Sumerian conception of how the universe worked. As had been the case in the Neolithic farming communities, the ancient Sumerians apparently believed that the natural world was essentially alive. Sumerians saw natural forces like lightening, rain, wind, thunder, and so on, as the physical forms of unseen spirits. They believed everything was inhabited by a spirit or god that gave it its shape and function, even the rivers, canals, reeds, and water. Quite naturally, since the specialists were dealing with the forces of Nature, these leaders of Sumerian society were also probably seen as intermediaries with the spirits that ruled the natural world - in other words, the gods. Thus they were not only agricultural specialists and engineers, but also priests. Indeed, the earliest rulers of the city-states appear to have been the ensi, or chief priests, who organized and oversaw both the general agricultural activity of the city as well as the worship of the city's chief god. This combination of spiritual authority with the practical knowledge that allowed Sumerians to feed themselves determined the overall character of early Sumerian culture and society. At the heart of this culture was a religious worldview that directly reflected the environment from which it had sprung.

Sumerian religion. From the beginning, human history in Mesopotamia (as the whole region between the two rivers has come to be called) has reflected the nature of the land and climate in which it developed. The land is harsh, and the climate violent. For example, there are probably more lightening strikes in Mesopotamia per year than in any other region of the world. Thunderstorms and unexpected floods, killing dust storms and long months of drought, these are the elements of nature with which the early peoples of the land between the rivers had to struggle for survival. As might be expected, the violence of the climate and the harshness of the environment greatly affected their outlook on life in general.

Although they had begun to depend on agriculture for their livelihood, Sumerians remained subject to the forces of nature. The Tigris and Euphrates were especially unpredictable rivers; some years they might be reduced to a trickle, others they might experience sudden, violent floods. As the early settlers in the region began to develop their cooperative skills, they also appealed to the spirits and forces of nature on which they depended. Sumerians naturally believed that these gods and goddesses were just as cruel, unpredictable, and violent as the natural forces that embodied them. Their gods like their environment were harsh and unpredictable. The whole character of Mesopotamian civilization thus became pessimistic rather than optimistic.

            With so much of their livelihood dependent on natural forces, Sumerians also came to see the gods and goddesses associated with them as the true rulers of their own lives. Under the leadership of the priests, people saw their cities as the property of particular deities. Indeed, the city became in a sense the embodiment of the god. When cities fought one another, Sumerians believed, it was because the gods were fighting. When cities cooperated (a rare occurrence), it showed the gods were friendly. They explained every aspect of existence with reference to the gods.

Even in their architecture, Sumerians expressed their central concern with the gods. The most imposing building in any Sumerian city was the ziggurat, a great step pyramid structure, with ramps and staircases leading to the very top where the god's shrine or temple stood. Like a man-made mountain rising from the flat lowlands, the ziggurats were always built at the center of Sumerian cities. They dominated the landscape of Sumer as they dominated the lives of the Sumerians. (The mountain-like structure of the ziggurat may suggest that the earliest Sumerians came from a mountainous region. The word itself means "pinnacle" or "hilltop.)

Artist's reconstruction of the Ziggurat of Ur. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Ziggurat_of_ur.jpg/220px-Ziggurat_of_ur.jpg

Ruins of the ziggurat of Ur in 1932, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/matpc/13200/13224r.jpg

            Who were these gods? The father and king over all the gods was Anu, a sky god connected with lightening and thunder, whose city was Uruk (Erech in the Bible). Associated with him was Innana, the Mother Goddess and Queen of Heaven, who would later be called Ishtar or Astarte. In later days Inanna would be even more important in Uruk than Anu. In fact female deities were extremely important in this civilization that depended upon agriculture and the fertility of the soil. In the city of Nippur they worshipped the god of the air and life on earth, Enlil, and his wife Ninlil. The sun god Shamash held sway in the cities of Sippur and Larsa, and in Lagash dwelt Ningirsu. The people of Eridu worshipped Ea, the water god. Ea's son Marduk later became the chief god of the Babylonians, and fed upon the first-born sons of the city. Great Ur belonged to Enlil�s son, Nanna (or Sin), the moon god, whose phases were studied by the priests and seers to foretell the future as well as when to plant and when to harvest. Not least, in the city of Borsippa they worshipped Nebo, the Scribe, who recorded the decisions and deeds of the other gods. In addition to these greater gods, Sumerians also worshipped their own lesser, personal gods who could theoretically intercede on their behalf with the greater gods.

Sumerian Social Structure 

The initial association of religion and irrigation agriculture led to a three-fold social structure in early Sumerian cities. At the top of an increasingly stratified hierarchy were the priests, en or ensi (chief priest), whose service to the gods the Sumerians believed to be critical to insuring good crop yields, and hence survival. Associated with the priests, and perhaps part of the same general category, were the administrators who oversaw day-to-day functions of the city.

Next came artisans and merchants. Artisans made the specialized items required by the rest of the community. Merchants traded with neighboring cities or with people in far away regions for products like salt, wood, stone and metal ores that were unavailable locally. Finally, the third category consisted of agricultural laborers and slaves. These workers of the fields actually did the essential labor necessary to feed everyone. But the Sumerians apparently believed they were merely the hands and feet of the community.

The real prestige of Sumerian society lay with those who were responsible for organizing the activities of workers - the priests and administrators. The Sumerians reinforced the hierarchical nature of this social structure by assigning different levels of worth to each of the three classes. For example, the death or injury of a member of the aristocracy was a more serious offense than that of a peasant or slave. Such distinctions reflected the Sumerians' assessment of the level of contribution to the society as a whole made by any particular individual.

This three-fold structure provided the basic framework for Sumerian society for its first five to eight hundred years. Sometime around the beginning of the third millennium B.C., however, changes began to occur within the Sumerian city-states that added a new element to the pattern. While service to the gods remained a primary aspect of Sumerian life, as the city-states became more prosperous a close second became the need for protection. Sumer�s increasing wealth, with its rich agricultural produce, sorely tempted surrounding peoples who had not yet begun to settle down to a farming lifestyle.

Kingship. Mesopotamia, and particularly Sumer, is a great plain with few natural barriers. Access is relatively easy for travelers or invaders. Nomadic marauders found the Sumerian city-states prime targets for raiding and plundering.  Moreover, as they grew, the various city-states also frequently fought among themselves over water rights and land boundaries. Consequently, in addition to the priesthood that served the gods, another important figure emerged in the city, the war-chief, or lugal, meaning "big man," who soon became powerful enough to act as a local king. Although ensi appears to have been the title used by city rulers in the earliest records of the Sumerian city-states, as warfare became a major factor in Sumerian life so the title of lugal seems to have superceded that of ensi in prestige and importance. As kings extended their power, often dominating more than one city, the title ensi came to indicate a local governor under a more powerful lugal. 

With a flair for economy appropriate to the region, the Sumerians eventually combined the role of king with that of chief priest. In addition to being a war leader, the lugal also became the one responsible for conducting the most important sacrifices to the city gods. He came to be seen as the representative of the gods to humanity. With such divine sanction, the concept of kingship became a central theme of Sumerian and later Mesopotamian civilization in general.  For the Sumerians, the mark of a great people was that their city should be blessed with the authority of kingship. Those cities that lost the kingship, usually through having been conquered, were clearly out of favor with the gods and in decline - or so the Sumerians believed. What the king represented, of course, was security in an insecure environment. With the emergence of kingship, Sumerian society achieved the pattern that would ultimately become a blueprint for future Mesopotamian societies.