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P1 ：Before about 4500 B.C., lower Mesopotamia, the whole plain between and on either side of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was much less densely populated than other inhabited regions of the Near and Middle East. Each year the two great rivers were swollen with the winter snows of the northern mountains, and each year at flood stage they spread a thick layer of immensely f**ile silt across the flood plain where they approached the Persian Gulf. But without domestic animals and beasts, this swampy delta was not suited to the primitive hoe-centric tilling culture of early agriculture. Besides, the Tigris-Euphrates plain lacked minerals and trees. However, it was in this unpromising area, between 3500 and 3000 B. C., that agricultural settlers created wealth of city-states that constituted Sumer, of which the best known is Ur. The Sumerians appeared at the dawn of history as a fully developed society with a technology and organization that was distinct from and superior to other societies of the time. Even civilization itself seems to have stemmed from this alien and mysterious people.

P2：This delta, a land of swamps rich in fish, wildlife, and date palms, was the most challenging and rewarding of the three natural units into which the river valleys were divided. Reasons for their being challenging lie in that the rivers not only sustained life, but they also destroyed it with frequent floods that ravaged entire cities. Although land nearer to the rivers was f**ile and good for crops, portions of land farther from the water were dry and largely uninhabitable. Therefore, the development of drainage and irrigation systems was essential for Sumerians to harness the full productivity of this land which in turn required a large and well-disciplined workforce, as well as skilled management and supervision—the latter were supplied by a class of priests and warriors who ruled a large population of peasants and artisans.

P3：

The economy that sustained the people of Sumer relied on agriculture and trade. To support agriculture, Sumerians created sophisticated water transport systems that would both irrigate crops during dry periods and control flooding during the spring. This water management enabled them to build up a food surplus for trading. They exchanged barley and wheat to supplement a scarcity of stone and lumber, as well as copper and bronze, thereby contributing to the diffusion of Sumerian civilization. In Sumerian cities, stone imported by sea through the Persian Gulf from Oman and downriver from the mountains of Anatolia and the Caucasus had to compete with imported copper, and the latter proved more economical and effective for a variety of uses. Sumerians would have plowed with stone and cut with clay sickles and Went on to using metal plows with the development of metal-working skills.