In the 1920s when my grandfather was alive, an archaeologist called Sir Leonard Woolley, was digging a rather large hole. That’s what archaeologists do. They dig and find evidence about the past so that we can learn how we humans were in the past, how we came to be as we are in the present and how we might be in the future. Woolley was digging in Iraq. You can find it on many modern maps. His mission was to find evidence of people called the Assyrians. He’d read about them in ancient Greek and Hebrew books and wanted to find something which would help him learn more about them.
Woolley and his team were digging in the desert heat. They dug deep into a mound of soft earth and sand. Suddenly the sound of shovel on stone made everyone stop their work. Something hard had been struck. Though he didn’t know it yet, Woolley had discovered a tomb. A resting place for some of the most powerful people of a city named Ur. Inside the tomb the diggers discovered beautiful works of art, including the Standard of Ur, which depicted scenes from life in the city. They also found carved stones like the one you examined. And they found skeletons, skeletons of women wearing headdresses of gold and precious metals and skeletons of soldiers with copper spears. Woolley had found evidence of a once great civilisation.
When the evidence was tested by scientists in white coats yet another discovery was made and more questions had to be asked. The tomb did not belong to the Assyrians who lived in 1300BC for the objects within were much too old. 1500years too old! The scientists tested and retested and tested and decided that the tomb belonged to a truly lost civilisation, one that existed in 3500BC!
Now you might ask why we should be interested in people who lived so long ago and I will tell you that all people are interesting. All people are similar in many ways and different in others and everyone has a story; even the Ancient Sumerians.
We will be learning about the Ancient Sumerians in our lessons on the Ancients and on the child pages to this one on this blog. The following key words sheet might help with this – SUMER – KEY WORDS LIST