1. Religion
1.1. Sumerians
1.1.1. Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a tin dome.
1.1.2. There was no organized set of gods in Sumer. Each city-state having its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings.
1.1.3. They were the first to write down their beliefs, which was the inspiration for Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology.
1.1.4. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).
1.2. Sumerian Image
1.3. Shang/ Zhou
1.3.1. The two major Chinese philosophies were Confucianism and taoism.
1.3.2. The Chinese philosopher Confucius lived from 551 to 479 BC. Many impacted the culture and government.
1.3.3. Taoism was introduced by Lao Tzu
1.3.4. Folk religion during the Shang dynasty was polytheistic, meaning the people worshipped many gods.
1.4. Shang Image
2. economy and trade
2.1. Sumerians
2.1.1. The Sumerian economy was based on agriculture, which was influenced by major technological advances in Mesopotamian history.
2.1.2. Jobs included pottery makers, stonecutters, bricklayers, metal smiths, farmers, fishers, shepherds, weavers, leather-workers, and sailors.
2.1.3. The Sumerians used slaves, although they were not a major part of the economy. Slave women worked as weavers, pressers, millers, and porters.
2.1.4. Seals had been used to stamp a carved insignia on clay before cylindrical seals became widespread for labeling commodities and legal documents.
2.2. Shang/ Zhou
2.2.1. The most important part of the economy was the agriculture sector.
2.2.2. Originally a tribe living in the lower regions of the Yellow River during the Xia Dynasty.
2.2.3. Shang Dynasty was established by King Tang in 1675 BC after overthrowing the tyrannical rule of Jie
2.2.4. The Shang were in the business of trading goods, and they had trade routes that extended far and wide.
3. social structure and family
3.1. Sumerians
3.1.1. Upper class contained nobles, priests, government officials and warriors.
3.1.2. Men held political power and made laws while women took care of home and children
3.1.3. At the top of the social structure were priests, kings and there principal agents. Next were landowners and wealthy merchants.
3.1.4. Below the kings and priests were the majority of Sumerians farmers and laborers.
3.2. Shang/ Zhou
3.2.1. The Shang social structure consists of six classes. The classes includes King and Relatives, Nobles, Artisans, Traders, Farmers, and Slaves.
3.2.2. Nobles were the highest ranking class after the royal class. And then at the very bottom of the Shang society were slaves.
3.2.3. Ancient China was controlled by clans, or extended families, that often fought each other to protect their power over the different regions.
3.2.4. When a clan became strong enough to control all others, it was considered a dynasty. The Shang from the region of the Yellow River is an example of a clan that grew powerful enough to become a dynasty.
4. Geography and agriculture
4.1. Shang/ Zhou
4.1.1. Agriculture was the basis of the Shang economy, as it was in all ancient civilizations.
4.1.2. Because the region was situated around the Huang He, or Yellow River, agriculture was able to go off the growing of loess, a fertile sediment found on the river's banks.
4.1.3. Because farming was for commoners, the Shang did not want to use their precious metals, especially bronze, to make tools for people of such low social status.
4.1.4. The fields were either owned by nobles or were under the control of the king.
4.1.5. shang image
4.2. Sumerians
4.2.1. By 5000 BC the Sumerians had developed core agricultural techniques including large-scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and the use of a specialized labor force.
4.2.2. They grew barley, chickpeas, lentils, wheat, dates, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard.
4.2.3. They also raised cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. They used oxen as their primary beasts of burden and donkeys or equids as their primary transport animal. Sumerians caught many fish and hunted fowl and gazelle.
4.2.4. Early in Sumerian civilization, eighty to ninety percent of those who farmed did so on land they considered theirs rather than communal property. Here, too, the Sumerians were expressing a trend that was common among others.
4.3. sumerian image
5. science and technology
5.1. Sumerians
5.1.1. Remembered most for their many inventions
5.1.2. Invented the wheel and the potters wheel also many authorities credit them with the invention of military formations
5.1.3. They came up with the concept of dividing the hour into 60 minutes and the minute into 60 seconds
5.1.4. They used many tools including,saws, chisels, hammers, braces, bits, nails, pins, rings, hoes, axes, knives, lancepoints, arrowheads, swords
5.1.5. sumerian image
5.2. Shang/ Zhou
5.2.1. The brush pen was used as early as the seventh or sixth century B.C.E.
5.2.2. Chinese books began as thin slips of bamboo or wood connected by thongs and used like paged books or scrolls.
5.2.3. Many bronze artifacts have been discovered, especially in the tombs of the nobility and ruling class.
5.2.4. During the Shang reign, several workshops were built outside cities and equipped with iron tools, furnaces, and molds.
5.3. shang image
6. arts and education
6.1. Sumerians
6.1.1. System of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium B.C. in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley, most likely by the Sumerians.
6.1.2. Sumerian techniques and motifs were widely available because of the invention of cuneiform writing before 3000 B.C.
6.1.3. Characters consist of arrangements of wedge-like strokes, generally on clay tablets. The history of the script is strikingly like that of the Egyptian hieroglyphic.
6.1.4. Practically all Sumerian sculpture served as adornment or ritual equipment for the temples.
6.1.5. sumerian image
6.2. Shang/ Zhou
6.2.1. Musical instruments had evidently come down from the Xia. The early Shang instruments were well developed and included a clay ocarina, tuned chimes of stone, and bells and drums of bronze.
6.2.2. Legend has it that official school education emerged during the Western Zhou Dynasty.
6.2.3. In primitive society, knowledge was passed on orally by elders to their children. As hieroglyphic writings became 3,000 years or so ago, professional institutions came aiming to teach knowledge. These were called chengjun, the predecessors of schools.
6.2.4. A major contributor to Chinese art, the Shang Dynasty is famous above all for its bronzes.
6.3. shang image
7. government and leaders
7.1. Shang/ Zhou
7.1.1. The Carly leaders introduced the idea of the "Mandate of hearch".
7.1.2. Government based on the feudal system
7.1.3. The emperor divided the land into fiefs ruled by relatives. The nobles ruled the fiefs and owned the farms
7.1.4. The Shang Dynasty was a monarchy in which the king was both lawmaker and judge so no one dared to argue with him.
7.2. Sumerians
7.2.1. Sumerian government started out with the creation of city-states.
7.2.2. As Sumerians became more powerful, and the cities gained more and more wealth they shifted to a different form of government where instead of each city being ruled by a different priest, you had one guy in control of multiple cities.
7.2.3. One of the most famous priest-kings was Gilgamesh of Uruk. Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, was said to be two-thirds God and one-third human, and 18 feet tall
7.2.4. The Sumerian priest-kings received advice from a General Assembly made up of free (elected) men.