Final answer:
Sumerian art is less plentiful than Egyptian artifacts due to material choices and environmental conditions. The Sumerians focused on record-keeping with their cuneiform writing, and many of their clay and metal artifacts did not survive or were repurposed.
Step-by-step explanation:
The lesser availability of art from the Sumerians compared to that of the ancient Egyptians can be attributed to several factors. The Sumerians used materials like clay and metals, which were often repurposed or did not survive the environmental conditions. While Sumerian cuneiform tablets made from clay have been well-preserved due to baking, other forms of artistic traditions may not have been as lucky. The Egyptian artifacts, on the other hand, benefited from the dry desert conditions that aided in the preservation of materials.
Cuneiform itself, with over one million clay tablets discovered, reveals the complexity and flexibility of this writing system that required a specialty in literacy held by scribes. Due to its complexity, cuneiform was used to document a variety of aspects of Mesopotamian life, ranging from commercial exchanges to laws and religious texts. However, the abundance of these texts as compared to artistic works suggests that the society placed a high value on documentation and record-keeping.
The durability of Sumerian architecture and written texts contrasted with the scarcity of preserved Sumerian art could also be due to the fact that clay, while excellent for tablets, might not have been the best medium for lasting art compared to stone and metal used more extensively in Egyptian artifacts. Additionally, the practice of reusing materials such as soft metal or clay in everyday life means that fewer pieces would have survived through the ages.