Sumerians

Sumerian story (154 KB)
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Gilgamesh
The Sumerian mystery, lasting three lessons, was taught to a combined class of children aged 9-11 in a small rural primary school.

The resource for the lesson was a story about what people found in one of the royal tombs of Ur which dated from about 4000 years ago. (This was in ancient Mesopotamia, near what we now call the Persian Gulf.) The story is full of the magic and mystery of the past, old gods and burial ceremonies, belief in an afterlife, and mystifying objects. Download the story and the teachers' notes above.

Teaching methods used were storytelling and expressive movement. Both methods offer ways of teaching history with the human element strongly present.

The lessons needed thorough preparation to be successful, but then this is true of most good teaching.

Here are some children's comments:
"I learnt a lot about their religion; they thought their gods were really special."
"They must have wanted to die with the queen. I am not sure how I would have felt if that was me. I suppose it must have helped if you really believed you were going to live forever."
"I liked the way we were all working together. When I was not sure what to do I looked around and got loads of ideas."

We give a couple of useful websites below which have useful information about the Sumerians.

by Paul Flux

For more information about the Sumerians see
http://home.cfl.rr.com/crossland/AncientCivilizations/Middle_East_Civilizations/Sumerians/sumerians.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerians

The picture shows an incident in The Epic of Gilgamesh - a famous ancient Sumerian epic poem, though not what this lesson is about