rajpurkar/squad huggingface dataset:
Title: Sumer

This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward the north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. During the Akkadian and Ur III phases, there was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley, but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three fifths. This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akkadian was the major language. Henceforth Sumerian would remain only a literary and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied by Latin in medieval Europe.

Question: What effect was rising salinity having on the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands?
Answer: compromised

Question: The salinity of what in the region was long recognized as a major problem?
Answer: Soil

Question: Poorly drained irrigated soils in an arid climate with a good deal of evaporation is responsible for leaving what?
Answer: dissolved salts

Question: What did cultivation shift from to salt-tolerant barley during the Ur III phase?
Answer: wheat

Question: How much did the population of the region decline due to the decrease in crop productivity? 
Answer: by nearly three fifths
Title: Sumer

The Sumerians were a non-Semitic caucasoid people, and spoke a language isolate; a number of linguists believed they could detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian, because names of some of Sumer's major cities are not Sumerian, revealing influences of earlier inhabitants. However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early Ubaid period (5300 – 4700 BC C-14) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.

Question: Who were a non-Semitic caucasoid people?
Answer: The Sumerians

Question: What influences did the Sumerian language seem to retain?
Answer: earlier inhabitants

Question: What do archaeological records clearly show about the Sumerian culture?
Answer: uninterrupted cultural continuity

Question: When were settlements started in southern Mesopotamia?
Answer: early Ubaid period

Question: Why were the lands in the region the Sumerian people settled fertile?
Answer: silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers
Title: Sumer

It is speculated by some archaeologists that Sumerian speakers were farmers who moved down from the north, after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami transitional ware to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700 – 4900 BC C-14) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.[citation needed]

Question: Where do some archaeologists speculate Sumerians originally moved from?
Answer: the north

Question: What had the Sumerians perfected before coming south?
Answer: irrigation agriculture

Question: Who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture?
Answer: the Samarra

Question: How many levels of pre-Ubaid pottery were excavated by the French in the 1980s?
Answer: eight

Question: What did the temple-centered social organization of the farming peoples allow them to mobilize?
Answer: labor
Title: Sumer

Though women were protected by late Sumerian law and were able to achieve a higher status in Sumer than in other contemporary civilizations, the culture was male-dominated. The Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest such codification yet discovered, dating to the Ur-III "Sumerian Renaissance", reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumerian law. Beneath the lu-gal ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The "lu" or free person, and the slave (male, arad; female geme). The son of a lu was called a dumu-nita until he married. A woman (munus) went from being a daughter (dumu-mi), to a wife (dam), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (numasu) and she could then remarry.

Question: How were women protected in Sumerian society?
Answer: law

Question: What gender dominated Sumerian culture?
Answer: male

Question: Whose code reveals a bit about the societal structure through Sumerian law?
Answer: Ur-Nammu

Question: Who was at the top of the power pyramid in Sumerian society?
Answer: the lu-gal

Question: How many strata existed in Sumerian society?
Answer: two
Title: Sumer

The most important archaeological discoveries in Sumer are a large number of tablets written in cuneiform. Sumerian writing, while proven to be not the oldest example of writing on earth, is considered to be a great milestone in the development of man's ability to not only create historical records but also in creating pieces of literature both in the form of poetic epics and stories as well as prayers and laws. Although pictures — that is, hieroglyphs — were first used, cuneiform and then Ideograms (where symbols were made to represent ideas) soon followed. Triangular or wedge-shaped reeds were used to write on moist clay. A large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in the Sumerian language have survived, such as personal or business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, daily records, and even libraries full of clay tablets. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects like statues or bricks are also very common. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes-in-training. Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become dominant.

Question: What were the most important discoveries for archaeologists from Sumer?
Answer: tablets written in cuneiform

Question: What is Sumerian writing considered to be in the development of man's ability to create literature?
Answer: milestone

Question: What followed cuneiform in writing?
Answer: Ideograms

Question: How many texts in the Sumerian language have survived to modern day?
Answer: hundreds of thousands

Question: What was the Sumerian language used for long have their civilization had diminished? 
Answer: religion and law in Mesopotamia
Title: Sumer

The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no known language family; Akkadian, by contrast, belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian to other language groups. It is an agglutinative language; in other words, morphemes ("units of meaning") are added together to create words, unlike analytic languages where morphemes are purely added together to create sentences. Some authors have proposed that there may be evidence of a sub-stratum or add-stratum language for geographic features and various crafts and agricultural activities, called variously Proto-Euphratean or Proto Tigrean, but this is disputed by others.

Question: Akkadian's language can be traced to the Semitic branch of what languages?
Answer: Afroasiatic

Question: Why is the Sumerian language usually thought of as a language isolate in linguistics?
Answer: belongs to no known language family

Question: In Sumerian, what are morphemes added together to create?
Answer: words

Question: What has been the result of attempts to connect Sumerian to other language groups?
Answer: failed

Question: What are morphemes?
Answer: "units of meaning"
Title: Sumer

Sumerian religion seems to have been founded upon two separate cosmogenic myths. The first saw creation as the result of a series of hieros gami or sacred marriages, involving the reconciliation of opposites, postulated as a coming together of male and female divine beings; the gods. This continued to influence the whole Mesopotamian mythos. Thus in the Enuma Elish the creation was seen as the union of fresh and salt water; as male Abzu, and female Tiamat. The product of that union, Lahm and Lahmu, "the muddy ones", were titles given to the gate keepers of the E-Abzu temple of Enki, in Eridu, the first Sumerian city. Describing the way that muddy islands emerge from the confluence of fresh and salty water at the mouth of the Euphrates, where the river deposited its load of silt, a second hieros gamos supposedly created Anshar and Kishar, the "sky-pivot" or axle, and the "earth pivot", parents in turn of Anu (the sky) and Ki (the earth). Another important Sumerian hieros gamos was that between Ki, here known as Ninhursag or "Lady Sacred Mountain", and Enki of Eridu, the god of fresh water which brought forth greenery and pasture.

Question: How many cosmogenic myths does the religion of the Sumerians appear to be founded upon?
Answer: two

Question: What does one myth see creation as being the result of?
Answer: a series of hieros gami

Question: In the Enuma Elish, what is creation seen as the union of?
Answer: fresh and salt water

Question: What were the titles given to the gate keeps of the E-Abzu temple of Enki?
Answer: the muddy ones

Question: Who was the Lady Sacred Mountain?
Answer: Ninhursag
Title: Sumer

These deities formed a core pantheon; there were additionally hundreds of minor ones. Sumerian gods could thus have associations with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with those cities' political power. The gods were said to have created human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. The temples organized the mass labour projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple, though they could avoid it by a payment of silver.

Question: What did the Sumerian deities form?
Answer: a core pantheon

Question: Why did the gods create human beings from clay?
Answer: for the purpose of serving them

Question: What could Sumerian gods be associated with?
Answer: different cities

Question: What did the religious importance of city gods wax and wan with?
Answer: those cities' political power

Question: How could a citizen avoid their labor duty to their local temple?
Answer: a payment of silver
Title: Sumer

Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) each had an individual name and consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification. The temple itself had a central nave with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. After a time the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the Ziggurat style.

Question: What were Sumerian temples known as?
Answer: Ziggurats

Question: What was the central pond in the forecourt of a Ziggurat for?
Answer: purification

Question: Who were the rooms on either side of the aisles in the temple for?
Answer: the priests

Question: What was the mudbrick table in the temple for?
Answer: animal and vegetable sacrifices

Question: Where did the Sumerians usually locate their granaries and storehouses?
Answer: near the temples
Title: Sumer

It was believed that when people died, they would be confined to a gloomy world of Ereshkigal, whose realm was guarded by gateways with various monsters designed to prevent people entering or leaving. The dead were buried outside the city walls in graveyards where a small mound covered the corpse, along with offerings to monsters and a small amount of food. Those who could afford it sought burial at Dilmun. Human sacrifice was found in the death pits at the Ur royal cemetery where Queen Puabi was accompanied in death by her servants. It is also said that the Sumerians invented the first oboe-like instrument, and used them at royal funerals.

Question: What type of afterlife could Sumerians look forward to?
Answer: confined to a gloomy world

Question: Where were dead Sumerians buried?
Answer: outside the city walls in graveyards

Question: What realm was guarded by gateways containing various monsters?
Answer: Ereshkigal

Question: Who was Queen Puabi accompanied in death by?
Answer: her servants

Question: What type of instrument are the Sumerians thought to have invented to use at royal funerals?
Answer: oboe-like
Title: Sumer

In the early Sumerian Uruk period, the primitive pictograms suggest that sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs were domesticated. They used oxen as their primary beasts of burden and donkeys or equids as their primary transport animal and "woollen clothing as well as rugs were made from the wool or hair of the animals. ... By the side of the house was an enclosed garden planted with trees and other plants; wheat and probably other cereals were sown in the fields, and the shaduf was already employed for the purpose of irrigation. Plants were also grown in pots or vases."

Question: When do the pictograms suggest Sumerians had domesticated livestock?
Answer: Uruk period

Question: What might be found by the side of a Sumerian house?
Answer: enclosed garden planted with trees and other plants

Question: What animal did Sumerians use primary to facilitate transportation?
Answer: donkeys

Question: What was the primary purpose of oxen for Sumerians? 
Answer: beasts of burden

Question: Where were plants also grown besides the garden?
Answer: pots or vases
Title: Sumer

The Sumerians were one of the first known beer drinking societies. Cereals were plentiful and were the key ingredient in their early brew. They brewed multiple kinds of beer consisting of wheat, barley, and mixed grain beers. Beer brewing was very important to the Sumerians. It was referenced in the Epic of Gilgamesh when Enkidu was introduced to the food and beer of Gilgamesh's people: "Drink the beer, as is the custom of the land... He drank the beer-seven jugs! and became expansive and sang with joy!"

Question: What was Sumerians one of the first societies known to consume?
Answer: beer

Question: What was the key ingredient in early Sumerian brews?
Answer: Cereals

Question: What kinds of beer did the Sumerians brew?
Answer: wheat, barley, and mixed grain

Question: How important was beer brewing to Sumerians?
Answer: very important

Question: What did Enkidu become and do after consuming seven jugs of beer?
Answer: expansive and sang with joy
Title: Sumer

As is known from the "Sumerian Farmer's Almanac", after the flood season and after the Spring Equinox and the Akitu or New Year Festival, using the canals, farmers would flood their fields and then drain the water. Next they made oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. They then dragged the fields with pickaxes. After drying, they plowed, harrowed, and raked the ground three times, and pulverized it with a mattock, before planting seed. Unfortunately the high evaporation rate resulted in a gradual increase in the salinity of the fields. By the Ur III period, farmers had switched from wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley as their principal crop.

Question: Why did the Sumerian farmers make their oxen stomp the ground?
Answer: kill weeds

Question: How do archaeologists know about Sumerian agricultural practices? 
Answer: from the "Sumerian Farmer's Almanac"

Question: How many times did Sumerian farmers plow, harrow and rake the ground?
Answer: three times

Question: When would farmers flood their fields?
Answer: after the Spring Equinox and the Akitu

Question: The the Ur III period, what crop had Sumerians switched to from wheat for their primary crop?
Answer: salt-tolerant barley
Title: Sumer

According to Archibald Sayce, the primitive pictograms of the early Sumerian (i.e. Uruk) era suggest that "Stone was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals. Brick was the ordinary building material, and with it cities, forts, temples and houses were constructed. The city was provided with towers and stood on an artificial platform; the house also had a tower-like appearance. It was provided with a door which turned on a hinge, and could be opened with a sort of key; the city gate was on a larger scale, and seems to have been double. The foundation stones — or rather bricks — of a house were consecrated by certain objects that were deposited under them."

Question: What does Archibald Sayce think early Sumerian pictograms suggest about the availability of stone?
Answer: was scarce

Question: How did the Sumerians fashion the stone they cut?
Answer: into blocks and seals

Question: What was the ordinary building material of Sumerians?
Answer: Brick

Question: What were the foundation stones of Sumerian houses consecrated by?
Answer: objects that were deposited under them

Question: What kind of appearance did Sumerian houses have?
Answer: tower-like
Title: Sumer

The most impressive and famous of Sumerian buildings are the ziggurats, large layered platforms which supported temples. Sumerian cylinder seals also depict houses built from reeds not unlike those built by the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq until as recently as 400 CE. The Sumerians also developed the arch, which enabled them to develop a strong type of dome. They built this by constructing and linking several arches. Sumerian temples and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques,[citation needed] such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and clay nails.

Question: What is the most impressive and famous style of Sumerian buildings?
Answer: the ziggurats

Question: Sumerians also built houses from reeds not very different from ones built by inhabitants in Iraq as recently as when?
Answer: 400 CE

Question: How did the Sumerians build their strong domes?
Answer: by constructing and linking several arches

Question: What development by the Sumerians allowed them to make use of domes?
Answer: the arch

Question: Where were the use of advanced materials and techniques on display in Sumer?
Answer: Sumerian temples and palaces
Title: Sumer

The Sumerians developed a complex system of metrology c. 4000 BC. This advanced metrology resulted in the creation of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. From c. 2600 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period. The period c. 2700 – 2300 BC saw the first appearance of the abacus, and a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system. The Sumerians were the first to use a place value numeral system. There is also anecdotal evidence the Sumerians may have used a type of slide rule in astronomical calculations. They were the first to find the area of a triangle and the volume of a cube.

Question: What did the Sumerians a complex system of around 4000 BC?
Answer: metrology

Question: From the Sumerian metrology sprang forth the creation of what disciplines? 
Answer: arithmetic, geometry, and algebra

Question: Where did the Sumerians put their multiplication tables?
Answer: on clay tablets

Question: When was the abacus first seen between?
Answer: 2700 – 2300 BC

Question: What were the Sumerians the first to do when it came to mathematics?
Answer: use a place value numeral system
Title: Sumer

Commercial credit and agricultural consumer loans were the main types of loans. The trade credit was usually extended by temples in order to finance trade expeditions and was nominated in silver. The interest rate was set at 1/60 a month (one shekel per mina) some time before 2000 BC and it remained at that level for about two thousand years. Rural loans commonly arose as a result of unpaid obligations due to an institution (such as a temple), in this case the arrears were considered to be lent to the debtor. They were denominated in barley or other crops and the interest rate was typically much higher than for commercial loans and could amount to 1/3 to 1/2 of the loan principal.

Question: What were the main types of loans in Sumerian society?
Answer: Commercial credit and agricultural consumer

Question: How man shekel per mina was the interest rate for loans?
Answer: one

Question: What was trade credit backed by when extended by temples?
Answer: silver

Question: For how long was the interest rate of Sumerian loans consistent?
Answer: about two thousand years

Question: What typically arose as a result of unpaid obligations?
Answer: Rural loans
Title: Sumer

Periodically "clean slate" decrees were signed by rulers which cancelled all the rural (but not commercial) debt and allowed bondservants to return to their homes. Customarily rulers did it at the beginning of the first full year of their reign, but they could also be proclaimed at times of military conflict or crop failure. The first known ones were made by Enmetena and Urukagina of Lagash in 2400-2350 BC. According to Hudson, the purpose of these decrees was to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened fighting force which could happen if peasants lost the subsistence land or became bondservants due to the inability to repay the debt.

Question: What type of debt did "clean slate" decrees cancel?
Answer: rural

Question: When did rulers typically proclaim "clean slate" decrees?
Answer: the first full year of their reign

Question: Why were the clean slate decrees useful to the rulers of Sumer?
Answer: to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened fighting force

Question: What would happen if peasants couldn't repay their debts?
Answer: lost the subsistence land or became bondservants

Question: Who made the first known clean slate decrees?
Answer: Enmetena and Urukagina
Title: Sumer

The almost constant wars among the Sumerian city-states for 2000 years helped to develop the military technology and techniques of Sumer to a high level. The first war recorded in any detail was between Lagash and Umma in c. 2525 BC on a stele called the Stele of the Vultures. It shows the king of Lagash leading a Sumerian army consisting mostly of infantry. The infantrymen carried spears, wore copper helmets, and carried rectangular shields. The spearmen are shown arranged in what resembles the phalanx formation, which requires training and discipline; this implies that the Sumerians may have made use of professional soldiers.

Question: What contributed to developing military technology for Sumer?
Answer: almost constant wars

Question: How many years were the Sumerian city-states at war?
Answer: 2000 years

Question: Who was the first war between in 2525 BC?
Answer: Lagash and Umma

Question: What did the king of Lagash's army mostly consist of?
Answer: infantry

Question: What shape were the shields of the infantry of Lagash?
Answer: rectangular