Here, Woolley confirmed that the site was the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur. Woolley decided to excavate near the ruins of a ziggurat and began to dig two trenches.

AbrahamВ is a central figureВ of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, three monotheistic religions. Many people felt that Ur was only a myth, but Woolley, the son of a clergyman,В was fascinated byВ the stories his father told about Ur, which, according to the Bible, was the birth place of Abraham. Woolley learned archaeology from some of the best of his day, and now he was ready to strike off on his own. Leonard Woolley went to Southern Iraq in hopes of finding the Sumerian city-state of Ur. ( By clicking on any links the user is leaving the Penfield School District website, the district is not responsible for any information associated with these links.) Watch the video clip below fromВ Discovery Education, as Nissaba, a young Sumerian girl, talks about her people's accomplishments. Each city-state needed an army to protect itself from its neighbors. Although the Sumerian city-states had much in common, they fought for control of the river water, a valuable resource. There were seven great city-states, each with its own king and a building called a ziggurat, a large pyramid-shaped building with a temple at the top, dedicated to a Sumerian deity. The belief in more than one god is called polytheism. The Sumerians had a common language and believed in the same gods and goddesses. (You can play an irrigation simulation game at the British Museum Mesopotamia website by opening the link at the bottom of this page.)ДЄ typical Sumerian city-state, notice the ziggurat, the tallest building in the city. The use of levees andВ canals is called irrigation, another Sumerian invention. The farmers in Sumer created levees to hold back the floods from their fields and cutВ canals to channel river water to the fields. The wheel, plow, and writing (a system which we call cuneiform)В are examples of theirВ achievements. The Sumerians were the first people to migrate to Mesopotamia, they createdВ a great civilization.В Beginning around 5,500 years ago, the SumeriansВ built cities along the rivers in Lower Mesopotamia, specialized, cooperated, and made many advances in technology. This is why Mesopotamia is part of the fertile crescent, an area of land in the Middle East that is rich in fertile soil and crescent-shaped. The flooding deposited silt, which is fertile, rich, soil,В on the banks ofВ the rivers every year. However, snow, melting inВ the mountains at the source of these two rivers, created an annual flooding. There is very little rainfall in Lower Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia at first glance does not look like an ideal place for a civilization to flourish. Here large cities lined the rivers and many advances took place. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle, or beginning,В of civilization.

Lower Mesopotamia is located the modern country of Iraq, while Upper Mesopotamia is in Syria and Turkey.

Civ 5 water mill