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Reading Guide
Cities of Sumer
Directions: Complete this sheet as you read today’s assignment.
1. Define culture.

2. The Sumerians learned to control the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers by building blank.
3. They watered their fields in dry weather by blank.
4. What is division of labor?

5. Define surplus of food.

6. How did Sumer’s surplus of food lead to the development of cities?

7. Most houses were made of Blank.
8. Major crops included Blank and Blank.
9. Why did the Sumerians begin to trade with other peoples? What did they trade?

10. What improvements in transportation did the Sumerians make over time?

11. The Sumerians first used Blank for trade, but later switched to Blank because Blank.
12. The small group who enjoyed the wealth and beauty of Sumer included Blank, Blank, Blank, and Blank.
Document Analysis
Look at the box on page 51. It is a quotation, translated into English, from an actual Sumerian document. It is a primary source, meaning that it was written by someone at that time and in that place. Historians use primary sources to learn about what happened long ago. Historians ask questions about the primary source documents they use.
We don’t know exactly who wrote this document. In fact, these words were pieced together from several broken tablets. But a historian would be able to learn quite a bit by analyzing the document and combining it with what she already knows. First, the title tells us something about whom it was written for.
1. Who was the audience, according to the title?

Did you say it was written for farmers? That’s a reasonable conclusion. But a historian would probably already know that farmers in Sumer could not read. The historian would most likely conclude the document was intended for farm managers and landowners who had access to scribes who could read.
2. A historian would read the document carefully to learn more about Sumerian society. For example, look at Tip 6. A historian might point to part of this tip as evidence that Sumerians had religious beliefs. What part of Tip 6 would support that claim?

Did you notice that part of the advice to farmers was to pray to a goddess? That tells us that there was religion in Sumer. It also indicates that there was more than one god/goddess and some or all of them were female.
3. Scan the rest of the document and write one question that you have about Sumerian farming or society.