Sumer: Law and Order
From: Human Experience 59-60
The Sumerian Civilization
Around 3500 BCE, a people from either central Asia or Asia Minor – the Sumerians- arrived in Mesopotamia. They settled in the lower part of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley, known as Sumer. Sumer became the birthplace of what historians have considered the world’s first cities.
The Sumerian City-States
By 3000 BCE, the Sumerians had formed 12 city-states in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, including Ur, Uruk, Eridu. A typical Sumerian city-state consisted of the city itself and the land surrounding it. The population of each city-sate ranged form 20,000 to 250,000.
The people of Sumer shared a common culture, language and religion. Sumerian city-states also shared some physical features. A ziggurat, or temple, made of sun-dried brick and decorated with color tile, was built in each city-state. Sumerians built a ziggurat as a series of terraces, with each terrace smaller than the one below. A staircase climbed to a shrine atop the ziggurat. Only priest and priestesses were allowed to enter the shrine, which was dedicated to the city-state’s chief deity. In form a ziggurat resembled a pyramid-both being massive stepped or peaked structures- but the feeling and emphasis of the two differed. A pyramid hid an inner tomb reachable only through passageways. A ziggurat raised a shrine to the sky, reached by mounting outer stairs.
Sumerian Government
Each Sumerian city-state usually governed itself independently of the others. In the city-states of Uruk, for example, a council of nobles and an assembly of citizens ran political affairs at first. But later, as city-states faced threats of foreign invaders and began to compete for land and water rights, the citizens of each city-state typically chose a military leader from among themselves. By 2700 BCE, the leaders of several city-states ruled as kings. Soon after, the kingships became hereditary.
A Sumerian king served not only as military leader but also as the high priest, who represented the city-state’s deity. Thus the governments of the city-states were not only monarchies but also theocracies. Because the Sumerians believed that much of the land belonged to a city-state’s god or goddess, a king and his priests closely supervised farming. A king also enforced the law and set penalties for lawbreakers. Most punishments consisted of fines and did not involve bodily injury or loss of life.
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Sumerians viewed kingship as divine in origin – kings, they believed, derived their power from the gods and were the agents of the gods. Regardless of their origins, kings had power – they led armies, initiated legislation, supervised the building of public works, provided courts, and organized workers for the irrigation projects upon which Mesopotamian agriculture depended. The army, the government, bureaucracy, and the priests and priestesses all aided the kings in their rule. Befitting their power, Sumerian kings lived in large palaces with their wives and their children.