SUMER
General
Map of Sumer :
The
area which formed Sumer started at the Persian Gulf and reached
north to the 'neck' of Mesopotamia where the two rivers, the Tigris
and the Euphrates meander much closer to each other. To the east
loomed the Zagros Mountains, where scattered city states thrived
on trade and learning from Sumer, and to the west was the vast expanse
of the Arabian desert.
The
rivers have changed course considerably in the last four thousand
years, moving well away from some of the cities and causing the
complex network of canals to dry up. At the time, the two rivers
had separate entrances into the foreshortened Gulf.
Some
of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the
north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints
of what became that complex network of cities and canals. Girsu
and Nippur were highly important religious centres but other cities,
such as Larsa, Eshnunna, Babylon, and Isin did not really emerge
as such until after the end of Sumerian civilisation circa 2000
BC.
![](MapSumer01.jpg)