Hello, my name is Mrs. Tipping, and I'm really looking forward to learning with you today all about Sumer and other early civilizations and what made them similar.

So shall we get started? Let's go.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to describe some of the similarities between the early civilizations' religions and writing systems. Before we start, I'd like to introduce you to some keywords.

We'll be using these keywords during the lesson, so it might be a good idea to write these words down.

The keywords we're going to use today are; decipher, sacrifice.

I'm going to say those again and I'd like you to repeat them after me.

Decipher.

Sacrifice.

Good job.

Let's think in more detail about what these keywords mean.

Here are the definitions of our keywords.

"To first understand a different language "or code you must decipher it." "To give up something valuable for a reason is a sacrifice." Pause the video here to make a note of these keywords, and when you are ready to continue, press play.

These are the learning cycles that we will be working through together in today's lesson.

"Religion in early civilizations." "Writing in early civilizations." In the first learning cycle, we will explore religion in early civilizations.

All ancient civilizations believed in multiple gods and goddesses, but each early civilization had its own religion.

These beliefs also included details about what happened in the afterlife, how the world was created, and how to behave in life.

Ancient Sumerians believed in gods for different aspects of the world, such as Enlil, the god of air and wind, and Enki who was the god of water.

You can see in a picture here a carving of a Sumerian god.

In ancient Egypt, the ancient Egyptians believed in gods and goddesses too.

These were different gods and goddesses from the Sumerians and had names such as Ra, Osiris, Anubis, and Horus.

Ra was God of the sun, and Anubis guided souls of the dead to the afterlife.

Have a look at that carving of Egyptian gods.

I wonder which God is which? The people in the Shang civilization also believed in many gods and goddesses, but the most important one was Shangdi.

The Shang people used oracle bones to talk to and ask questions of the gods to try to find out the future.

In comparison, unfortunately, little is known about the religion of the Indus Valley civilization as historians have never been able to decipher the writing from this civilization.

Historians have made guesses about their gods and goddesses from artworks and sculptures, but there is no certain answer.

Take a look there that photo of a Shang oracle bone.

How fascinating.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Ancient civilizations believed in different gods and goddesses.

Is that true or false? What do you think? If you said that that was true, you are absolutely right.

Well done! Now, which of these two statements helps to justify your answer? "Each ancient civilization had its own gods and goddesses." "Each ancient civilization had the same religion "but different gods and goddesses." Have a discussion with your partner.

Pause the video here and restart when you are ready to continue.

What did you think? Which of these two statements helps to justify your answer? If you said that a: "Each ancient civilization had its own "gods and goddesses," you're absolutely right.

Well done! "Another similarity in the religions "of the early civilization "is that they all built special religious buildings." Some ancient Egyptian temples were built as homes for the gods and were made from mudbrick or stone.

The temples in Sumer were a special kind of step pyramid called Ziggurat, also made from stone.

The people in the Shang dynasty similarly built temples, but these were made of mudbrick and wooden posts instead of stone.

Historians are still trying to work out which ruins may have been temples or important religious buildings in the Indus Valley civilization.

So take a look at those photos there, the remains of an ancient Egyptian temple and a photo of a Sumerian temple.

Historians know that another similarity between early civilizations' religions is that they offered sacrifices to their gods and goddesses.

Some of these sacrifices were in the form of live animals or animal remains.

They made these sacrifices to try to please their gods and goddesses and to show their dedication to their religion.

So there's evidence of sacrifice from the ancient Egyptian, Indus Valley, and Shang civilizations.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Choose two similarities between ancient civilizations.

"All their gods and goddesses were the same." "They all offered sacrifices." "They all built religious temples." "They all believed in Shangdi." Pause the video here.

Take a moment to think, and restart when you are ready to continue.

What did you think? Let's take a look.

If you said, "They all offered sacrifices" and "They all built religious temples," you are absolutely right.

Those are the two similarities between ancient civilizations.

This brings us to our first learning task.

I'd like you to fill in the table with one similarity and one difference between the ancient civilizations' religions.

"You could include: gods, goddesses, buildings, sacrifices." So grab yourself a pen and some paper and take some time to fill in the table with one similarity and one difference.

Pause the video here, and when you are ready to continue, press play.

How did that go? Did you manage find one similarity and one difference? Let's take a look at what you could have written.

So some similarities: "They all believed in many gods and goddesses." "They all had religious buildings called temples." "They offered sacrifices to their gods and goddesses." And the differences: "They believed in different gods and goddesses." "They followed different religions." Well done if you were able to find one similarity and one difference, and for completing that learning task.

We're now ready to move on to the second part of this lesson.

We're going to explore, "Writing in early civilizations." Writing is a very important source of historical information and is useful to historians for learning about what life was like in different historical time periods.

Another similarity between the early civilizations is that they all developed their own form of writing.

Historians have deciphered the writings of the Sumerian, the ancient Egyptian, and the Shang civilizations.

Their writings recorded important aspects of their ancient civilizations and societies.

They wrote about trade, laws, and the rulers of their ancient cities.

They also wrote about religious stories, about their different gods and goddesses.

They used their writing to record lots of different things.

In modern times we write on paper or type on a computer.

But even though all ancient civilizations had writing systems they used different writing materials.

Some writing was carved into stone, some into bones, some into clay tablets, and some was even inscribed on bronze.

Take a look at that example there of ancient writing written on a clay tablet.

I bet that would've taken quite some time.

Let's take a moment to pause.

"Ancient writing was used to record information about trade.

"What else did ancient civilization write about? "Religion, laws, paper, rulers." What do you think? Pause the video here and have a discussion with your partner and talk about what else this ancient civilizations wrote about.

And when you're ready to continue, press play.

What did you think? If you said that they also wrote about religion, and they also wrote about laws and rulers, you're absolutely right.

Well done.

The earliest evidence of writing is from Sumer and was first developed to record trade.

Ancient Sumerian writing is called cuneiform, and it uses symbols for sounds.

To write cuneiform, a stylus was pressed into a clay tablet to make marks.

Ancient Egyptians also had their own form of writing called hieroglyphics.

It was different to cuneiform, as it was made up of pictures and symbols called hieroglyphs that were carved into stone.

Take a look at that photo of the hieroglyphs there carved into stone.

What can you see? Can you imagine what they've written about? I wonder what each of those hieroglyphs mean? So what's the difference between the hieroglyphs and the cuneiform? Let's pause here and check our understanding.

Can you have a discussion with your partner.

What differences are there between the hieroglyphs and cuneiform? Pause the video here, and when you are ready to continue, press play.

What did you think? What did you have a discussion about? Well, let's take a look.

The hieroglyphs were symbols and pictures, whereas cuneiform only used symbols.

Hieroglyphs were carved into stone, whereas to write cuneiform a stylus would be pressed into a clay tablet.

So there are a couple of differences there between hieroglyphs and cuneiform.

Well done if you remembered those.

The Shang civilization also had their own writing system.

Writing from the Shang civilization has been preserved in different forms. Some of it was carved on stone, some on oracle bones, some on bronze, and some has even been found carved onto the shell of a tortoise.

Similarly to hieroglyphs, the Shang writing system used pictures and symbols.

So take a look there of a photo of carved writing from the Shang civilization.

Can you believe they even carved on the shell of a tortoise? How fascinating.

The Indus Valley civilization also used symbols in their writing, and there is a lot of evidence of their writing on both stone and clay.

However, unfortunately, it has never been deciphered, and it remains a mystery to be solved by historians of the future.

If the writing can be deciphered, we could learn a lot more about the stories and beliefs of the people of the Indus Valley civilization.

Wow, how fascinating that that could still be uncovered, that mystery could still be uncovered by a future historian.

Do you think you might uncover that in the future? Let's pause here and check our understanding.

"Historians can read all ancient writing.

" Is that true or false? What do you think? If you said that's false, you are absolutely right.

How would we justify our answer? We have two statements here.

"They cannot decipher cuneiform and hieroglyphs." "They cannot decipher writing from the Indus Valley." What do you think? Have a discussion with your partner.

Which of these two statements helps to justify your answer? Pause the video here and restart when you're ready to continue.

What did you think? What did your discussion reveal? Well, if you said, "They cannot decipher writing from the Indus Valley," you are absolutely right.

They have been able to decipher the cuneiform and hieroglyphs.

That's why we know so much about ancient Sumer and the ancient Egyptians.

This brings us to our final learning task.

I'd like you to tick each statement in the table to show the similarities between the early civilizations' writing systems. So we've got "Sumerians," "Ancient Egyptians," "The Shang," "Indus Valley." So down the side, we have: "Developed own form of writing." "Writing has been deciphered." "Wrote about trade laws, rulers and religion." "Used stone for writing." "Used symbols and pictures for writing." So place a tick in the table where it shows the early civilizations' writing system, whether it's a similarity or not.

Pause the video here and give yourself enough time to complete this learning task.

And when you are ready to restart, press play.

How did you get on? Shall we take a look at where those ticks need to be? So we have; "Developed own form of writing." We've got the "Sumerians," "Ancient Egyptians," "The Shang" and "Indus Valley," all of them developed their own form of writing.

"Writing has been deciphered." We should put a tick in "Sumerians," "Ancient Egyptians," and "The Shang," but not "Indus Valley." We've yet to find out and decipher their writing.

All of the ancient civilizations, "Wrote about trades, "laws, rulers, and religion." The ancient Egyptians, the Shang, and Indus Valley used stone for writing, but the Sumerians didn't.

And the ancient Egyptians and the Shang used symbols and pictures for writing, the Sumerians and the Indus Valley civilization did not.

Well done for completing that learning task.

Before we finish this lesson, let's summarise what we've learned about similarities between the earliest civilizations.

We've certainly learned a lot in this lesson.

"Early civilizations all had different gods and goddesses.

"They all built special religious buildings and temples "and offered sacrifices to their gods and goddesses.

"All early civilizations invented their own writing "to record trade, religion, laws and rulers.

"Historians know how to read cuneiform, hieroglyphs "and writing by the Shang civilization.

"However, historians are still working "to decipher the writing of the Indus Valley civilization." Thank you for joining me in this lesson today, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.

See you next time.