ARTH 1380 1ST Edition Lecture 6 Outline of Last Lecture - Catal Huyuk housing- Interior decoration- Catal Huyuk artOutline of Current Lecture - Location of first cities- Distinctions between the new cities and past towns- Invention of writing Current Lecture- Sumerian Art is the period of 3500-2300 BCE- Mesopotamia is Greek for between the rivers- Mesopotamia is the land of modern day Iraq and parts of Syria as well as Turkey- Sumer is the southern area where the Sumerians are from- Babylonia is all the southern area- The climate here is long summers temperature exceeds 120 degrees- The rainfall is unpredictable and at times dangerous it can wipe out towns with floods orit can change river currents as well as wash away seeds that were planted.- This is where the ideas of gods play a role as they make offerings to have good climate conditions- Since rainfall is scarce and unpredictable irrigation is needed to grow food, but they did not figure this out right away- There are structures made of bundle of reeds - They worked with limited resources but use them effectively- There is continuity of language through the periods- This is the time of the first cities - Uruk was the first city- This time was important for the invention of writing- What differentiated these cities from towns was population and infrastructure- In the cities the irrigation system created an agriculture surplus- With this agriculture surplus it allowed for specialization of labor only some people produced food while others could be priests, bureaucrats, craftsmen- They created temples where they offered food to the Gods- Priests got more powerful since the agriculture surplus - The priests started to use resources to control labor and buildings- The people would pay tribute to the temples like modern day taxes instead with foodThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.- Before writing people used tools like tokens for counting to keep order- There were cylinder seals to make things official- There were also clay envelopes that contained tokens for a sealed transactionKey TermsAgriculture surplus- production that exceeds the needs of the cityInfrastructure- physical and organizational structures e.g. buildings, roads
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