Sumer: Where Engineering Was Born

Abstract

The first Sumerian city‐states, which knew no centralized authority, emerged around 3500 B.C. in the lower part of Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers merge before flowing into the Persian gulf. This region, believed to have been the biblical Garden of Eden, is modern‐day Iraq. At the time, Sumer was a fertile and a difficult land: There was too much water at the wrong time; the topography was flat; and building materials consisted exclusively of clay, asphalt, and vegetable fibers, with no timber or stone. Fierce competition among the cities for favorable location, the inventiveness of the Sumerians, their strong religious beliefs, and their understanding of and respect for organized society led them to the creation of an urban society and the development of technology as a social system. It is in this context that this paper suggests that engineering, as a concept of social progress through technology, started in Sumer.