Ancient technologies and education - Part III

May 7, 2010

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Around 5300 BCE Non-Semitic people moved into Mesopotamia, (the region between river Euphrates and river Tigris), they were called by archaeologists Ubaidians (after their earliest remains in the village Al-Ubaid, were discovered). It is not known who the Ubaidians were, nor what language they spoke, as they have left no written record., but their culture had a long duration beginning before 5300 BC and lasting until the beginning of the Uruk period, around 4000 BC. The main achievements of the Ubaidians were draining the marshes so that they could be used in agriculture; they established industries like weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry and pottery. Some were involved in trade with other societies. The invention of the wheel and the beginning of the Chalcolithic period -which is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools -fall into the Ubaid period.

In the year 2000 of modern times, archaeologists discovered a protective city wall. They described the place of their digging as more than a town. They described it as a city dated by 4000 BCE in Syria at Tell Hamoukar. They found primitive hieroglyphics: markings for recording trade transactions. So that, a society existed that had regional centers and a complex government. For sure they had a form of &#&elementary education&#&. Here, as with the Ubaidians, people baked bread in huge ovens and manufactured fine pottery.

It was around 4000 BCE that a people coming perhaps from around the Caspian Sea, called Sumerians moved into Mesopotamia. Semitic Akkadians also migrated into Mesopotamia in the late 4th millennium BCE and amalgamate with non-Semitic Mesopotamian (Sumerian) populations into the Assyrians and Babylonians of the Late Bronze Age.

The Uruk period (around 4000 BCE to 3100 BCE) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia. In addition to being one of the first cities, Uruk was the main force of urbanization in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization. The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age. Cuneiform writing emerged during this middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the Ancient Near East.