Standard of Ur
The
Standard of Ur is in a way what your life would be as if depending on the
social class you are a part of. Leonard Woolley found the Standard of Ur in the
Royal Cemetery. The Standard of Ur looks about the size of a shoebox on its
side and it is made of inlaid
mosaic scenes made from shell, red limestone, and lapis lazuli. The
Standard of Ur was made in 2600 B.C. and it is 4600 years old now.
In my opinion, there were class distinctions in
Sumerian society because the standard of Ur was classified into different
social classes. The evidence for this is that the lowest people have old and
ragged clothing, but the highest level of people have the nicest clothing.
Another piece of evidence is the activity that the people are doing, the lowest
class is hauling everything around, and the highest class is just sitting and
drinking while listening to someone sings. In addition, the size of the king
towers over the size of the people next to him and the other classes. The fourth
reason is that the richest people are on the top class indicating that they are
much greater than those below them are. The 5th reason is that the
way the people are positioned, the bottom people are slouching, the middle
people are just standing up, but the people on top are sitting with their chins
in the air and their chests out like they are all high and mighty. Lastly, the
king has something nobody else has which is a different weapon and different
clothing than the people less powerful than him.
Women in Sumerian society did not share leadership tasks
equally with men because women had specialized jobs that men were not good at
like cooking or washing clothes. Another reason is that men might not have felt
as women had an opinion and that men were superior over women. Since women did
not go to battle, they could not be king or make new laws for people to follow.
Lastly, men did most of the hard labor and if they worked harder maybe that
means they have the right to be in the government or be king.
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| Hammurabi code of laws, Purch, https://img.purch.com/w/660/aHR0cD ovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2 VzL2kvMDAwLzA1Ni81NDcvb3JpZ2luYWwvaGFtbXVyYWJpLXN0ZWxlLmpwZw==, 30 November 2017 |
The Standard of Ur can be called a window into Sumerian
society because it is a sneak peek into what Sumerian society was like. This
artifact is unique because the Sumerians are showing off their power and
stomping on the ones under the top people. Things we know is that the Sumerians
fought enemies, separated themselves into three social classes, and they
domesticated animals. During the archaeology unit, we created a culture, which
is compared to the Standard of Ur because we created a mural, which is sort of
like the Standard of Ur. I think that because in the mural we talked about what
our culture did and what is important to us.
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| Standard of Ur, Wikimedia, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Standard_of_Ur_-_War.jpg/1200px-Standard_of_Ur_-_War.jpg, 30 November 2017
Hammurabi’s
Law Code
Hammurabi
feels that he is compared to a loving father and a good shepherd to his people.
In my opinion the laws that reflect this are the laws of protecting women and
children because he is loving and he cares for his family. Also another law
that reflects this is the law of required respect for authority because he is
the father. The last law that reflects his names is the law of being held
accountable for your actions because he needs to be a good shepherd for his
people so that the people don’t wander off the laws of Hammurabi and he needs
to keep them on the right path.
One
of Hammurabi’s big ideas was retaliation/ vengeance which was used when someone
would do something to another person or their property. Hammurabi would be fair
and make the punishment equally for the victim unless it was a slave or a
minor. Another big idea of Hammurabi was being held accountable for your
actions when you do something rude or mean to another person or their things.
Also if you were to not do work for someone when it was needed and their
belongings were destroyed or lost then Hammurabi would come up with an equal
punishment for the perpetrator.
The
third big idea that Hammurabi came up with is having a required respect for
your authorities. If you don’t have respect for the people who created you and
raised you to be the person you are now then that person then Hammurabi should
have the right to tell them their fate. The fourth idea Hammurabi came up with
is recognizing that some things are uncontrollable because if a flood takes
away all your crops then you can’t do anything about it. Also if a cow is
wounded and you do surgery on it and it dies then that is not the doctors
fault, it is concluded that the death of the cow is uncontrollable.
The
different things that were important in Babylonian society were protection of
women and children, the saying eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth, being held
accountable for your actions, required respect for authorities, and more. The
topics with the highest number of laws were the protection for women and
children because Hammurabi doesn’t want to lose any people in his empire. Also
another law is the law of retaliation and vengeance because in the end someone
would retaliate with killing another person and Hammurabi doesn’t want murder
in his city. Lastly another law is the law of being held accountable for your
actions because if you don’t do your jobs people could die from that and again,
Hammurabi doesn’t want that.
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