Download Rediscovery of Mesopotamia

Rediscovery of Mesopotamia
Background Information
From the Middle Ages most Europeans only knew about Mesopotamia through
references in the Old Testament. The stories of Creation, Flood, Tower of Babel and Ur
of the Chaldees were all located in Mesopotamia. There were also accounts of invasions
of the Holy Land by the Assyrians and Babylonians and of how the people of Judah were
carried off into exile to Mesopotamia. Educated people could also read about
Mesopotamia from the writings of classical Greek and Roman authors such as
Herodotus, Xenophon and Strabo. Babylon, especially, was known as the location of
one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Walls and Hanging Gardens of
Babylon.
It was interest in the biblical world that stimulated some of the first excavations in
Mesopotamia. Other reasons were political and economic. By 1800 Britain had
established political and trade links with India and the Far East. Before the Suez Canal
was built, travelers could sail east around Africa, but this was a long and dangerous
voyage and they preferred to sail to Alexandria, on Egypt's Mediterranean coast, travel
overland to Suez and then take a ship across the Indian Ocean.
In 1798, during the Napoleonic Wars, the French conquered Egypt and the British were
no longer able to use this route. They therefore investigated overland routes to the
Indian Ocean through Syria and Iraq, which were then part of the Ottoman Empire. In
1808, Claudius James Rich was appointed Resident in Baghdad for the British East
India Company. He was only 21. He was interested in every aspect of life in
Mesopotamia, including the archaeology. He visited Nineveh and Babylon and many
other sites, and he kept records of his travels. He also amassed a huge collection of
antiquities which was sold to the British Museum in 1825.
Many travelers to the East adopted the overland route, and interest in Mesopotamia
grew. A young traveler on his way to Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) stopped in 1840 to visit
the ruins of Nimrod and Nineveh and ended up excavating both sites between 1845 and
1851. He was Austen Henry Layard. He discovered Assyrian palaces buried under
mounds of rubble. Layard tunneled into these mounds and found the remains of huge
sculptures of guardian figures: winged human-headed bulls and lions. He also found the
large stone slabs which decorated the walls of the main rooms of the palaces. Many of
these were transported to the British Museum.
Perhaps of more significance was the discovery at Nineveh of a huge royal library of
cuneiform tablets which illuminated the world of Mesopotamia. The beginnings in
deciphering cuneiform writing had already been accomplished by scholars like Henry
Rawlinson in the 1830s. After discovering text and graphics on mountain cliffs, he
undertook a 12-year process of successfully understanding and translating cuneiform
writing. Gradually the languages of the ancient Near East could be understood and the
texts translated, revealing for the first time, significant information about the ancient
world we now refer to as Mesopotamia.
Chronological Table
The prehistory and history of Mesopotamia is divided by archaeologists and
historians into periods.
Sumer
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


3500 - 3000
3000 - 2350
2350 - 2100
2100 - 2000
Uruk Period
Early Dynastic
Agade Empire
Third Dynasty of Ur (or Ur III)
Babylonia







2000 - 1600
1600 - 1500
1500 - 1150
1150 - 729
729 - 625
625 - 539
539 - 331
Old Babylonian
Dark Age
Kassites
Various Dynasties
Neo-Assyrian
Neo-Babylonian
Achaemenid Persian
Assyria







2000 - 1600
1600 - 1500
1500 - 1350
1350 - 1000
1000 - 612
612 - 539
539 - 331
Old Assyrian
Dark Age
Mitannian Empire
Middle Assyrian
Neo-Assyrian
Neo-Babylonian
Achaemenid Persian
Geography and Environment
The region of modern Iraq and much of Syria is also known as Mesopotamia. This is a
Greek word which means ‘between the rivers'. There are two main rivers, the Tigris and
Euphrates, and they flow through many varied landscapes. The rivers start in high
mountains where there is a lot of rainfall. They then rush through grasslands which are
important for growing wheat and herding sheep and cattle (ancient Assyria). Their final
journey is across a very flat plain (ancient Babylonia) where the only plants are found
close to the rivers. Beyond are sandy deserts or dry earth. Here the rivers split into many
different streams until the water eventually flows into the sea.
In the north there is plenty of wood and stone but the further south one goes there is less
and less. On the flat lands of Babylonia there was only mud, reeds and date palms.
Unlike the rainy north there is very infrequent rainfall on the southern plains and farmers
have to bring water from the rivers to their fields in ditches and canals. When the rain
does fall it is torrential and turns the area into a sea of mud. However, the soil is very
fertile once it is watered.
Water still remains an important issue. In modern times the building of several large
dams across the Tigris, Euphrates and their tributaries has changed local environmental
conditions and has caused large areas to be flooded.
In addition, the marsh areas of Iraq have been gradually drained, increasing the amount
of available farm land but involving the resettlement of people living in that area.
Writing
Small clay tokens have been found at a number of sites in Mesopotamia dating from
7000 B.C. and may have been used for basic accounting. However, around 3500 B.C.
cities were growing across Mesopotamia and more sophisticated methods of
organization and control were needed. In southern Mesopotamia tokens were enclosed
in hollow clay balls which were covered with cylinder seal impressions as a mark of
authority. These clay balls may have accompanied deliveries represented by the tokens.
A check could be made on the number of objects delivered by breaking open the ball
and checking against the number of tokens. The use of tokens seems to have been
replaced by marking clay tablets with signs which represented the objects counted.
From these various methods of recording proper writing (the representation of a spoken
language) emerged. The first script was pictographic, each sign representing a word,
and so could be read in any language. Soon scribes started applying the ‘rebus' principle
to these signs. A sign could be read for its sound value rather than its meaning.
For example the sign X could mean ‘eye' or the sound ‘i'. It could thus have the following
possible meanings:
eye,
I = first person,
aye = yes, ‘i'.
A picture of a thin man could mean ‘thin', i.e. not fat, or the sound ‘thin'. Combine that
with the sign for ‘king' which could mean ‘the king is thin' or ‘thinking'.
From 3000 B.C. this writing system is found across Babylonia where it is used to write
the local language Sumerian.
As signs drawn on clay were increasingly used to represent sounds rather than actual
objects it was less important to draw them as pictures. Instead of dragging a piece of
sharpened reed across the damp clay, scribes started to impress the end of the reed into
the clay at an angle. This created little lines which look like wedges. Signs began to be
made up of little wedge strokes and, since the Latin word for wedge is ‘cuneus', this form
of writing is known today as cuneiform - ‘wedge-like'.
From around 2350 B.C. cuneiform was adapted to write languages other than
Sumerian. Increasingly Akkadian became the main written language of Mesopotamia
while cuneiform was adopted in surrounding regions to write languages such as Hittite
and Elamite.
Mathematics and Measurement
The Mesopotamians used the following systems of measurement
Measurement of length
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


finger = 1.65 cm
30 fingers = 1 cubit = 49.5 cm
6 cubits = 1 reed
30 cubits = 1 cord
Measurement of area



1 sar = 36m2
100 sar = 1 iku
1800 iku = 1 bur
The sar was used for measuring the area of houses, the iku and bur for field areas
Measurement of capacity




1 sila = 0.82 litre
10 sila = 1 ban
6 ban = 1 nigida
5 nigida= 1 gur
Mathematics
Whereas we use the decimal system with a base of 10, the Sumerians used the
sexigesimal system, which has a base of 60. From 3000 B.C. individual symbols were
used for the values 36,000, 3600, 600, 60 and 10.
In the later Babylonian cuneiform script (from 2000 B.C.) the sexigesimal system was
used for mathematics and astronomy, while the decimal system was used for everyday
purposes such as trading and accounting.
Only two signs are used in the sexigesimal system. Everything depended on the order of
the wedges, reading from left to right.
One of the principal uses of Babylonian mathematics was for astronomy.
Technology
From the first settled communities around 8000 B.C. the inhabitants of the Near East
developed almost all the techniques that formed the basis of civilized life before the
industrial revolution: architecture, transport, metalworking, carpentry, pottery,
glass- making, textile manufacture and leather-working as well as many processes
associated with farming and food preparation. In southern Mesopotamia irrigation
and flood control were necessary and this gave rise to a number of subsidiary
technologies of water management, including canal-building, water storage and
drainage. For some crafts, such as pottery or metalworking, it is possible to work out
how objects were made from surviving artifacts. A few texts give detailed information on
the methods employed in such technologies as glass manufacture and brewing.
Pottery
People had been using clay to make objects since about 8000 B.C. but true pottery was
only possible once the ability to control the firing had been mastered. This appears
around 6000 B.C. Distinctive shapes of pottery reflected their use, and fashions changed
over time and between regions. Early pottery was made of slabs or coils of clay. The
potters wheel was developed in the mid-fourth millennium B.C.
Metalwork
As early as the seventh millennium B.C. objects were manufactured out of copper.
The earliest objects were shaped by hammering but by the end of the 4th millennium
B.C. copper objects were cast from smelted metal. At the same time gold, silver and
lead also came into use. The cire perdue, or lost-wax method of casting complicated
shapes in bronze, gold or silver was invented in the 4th millennium B.C. First a model
was made out of wax over a clay core. This was covered with more clay and then heated
so that the wax melted and ran away. Molten metal was poured into the space left by the
wax which would be broken open to release the complete object. The properties of
copper were improved by alloying with other metals: first antimony or arsenic, then tin,
lead and zinc (c. 700 B.C.). In the 2nd millennium B.C. iron was manufactured but the
technology was not perfected until the first millennium B.C.
Textiles
Cloth was manufactured from a variety of materials such as wool, linen (flax), and
palm fibre. Early evidence dates from around 7000 B.C. with impressions left by textiles
on clay objects. Cylinder seals of the late fourth millennium B.C. appear to show women
gathered together to weave textiles and early texts refer to hundreds of women
employed by the palace and temple in textile manufacture. Spindle whorls are common
as far back in time as the sixth millennium B.C. In the second millennium B.C. textile
production in Babylonia and Assyria was important (Assyrian merchants exported it to
Anatolia). Cotton, native to India, is first mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions of the
seventh century B.C. The same period saw the introduction of silk from China.
Faience
Faience is an artificial glazed material and was made in Mesopotamia by 4000 B.C. but
glaze was not applied to pottery until the 2nd millennium B.C.
Glass
Mesopotamian craftsmen invented glass around 1600 B.C. Glass vessels were moulded
on a core, i.e. molten glass was poured over a clay core which was scraped away when
the glass solidified. Rods of coloured glass were sometimes let into the still plastic
surface of vessels and then dragged up and down to create a zigzag pattern.
Mud-brick making and building
The earliest mud-bricks date to around 8000 B.C. and were moulded by hand and had a
flat base and a round top. Later bricks were made in a mould. Houses were made of
mud-bricks and usually had flat roofs. The walls and the roofs were coated with plaster
made of mud and straw. A damp course was created using burnt bricks (which was
expensive) or bitumen. When the buildings fell down or were abandoned the roof timbers
were removed but the rest of the structure was left to form a small, flat mound of mud.
To make bricks mud, chopped straw and water are mixed together and allowed to stand
for some days. The straw stops the bricks from cracking as they dry. Sometimes gravel
or other material is used instead of straw. The brickmaker takes a lump of this mud
mixture and presses it into a square or rectangular mould. The bricks are then left to dry
in the sun for as little as a few days depending on the weather. Bricks are normally made
in May to June after harvest, when there is little danger of rain and when straw is
available. The shape and size of the mud-bricks varied from period to period and thus
the type of bricks in a building can sometimes help to determine its date.
Farming
The earliest village settlements appear in north Mesopotamia from around 8000 B.C.
The people combined hunting and gathering with keeping animals and growing cereals.
They became more and more dependent upon domesticated animals and cereals as
time went on. The first evidence for ploughs in Mesopotamia only appears at the end of
the fourth millennium B.C. as pictographs on the clay tablets from Uruk. It is a beam-ard,
a simple machine which scratches a furrow without turning the soil and this changed little
in design throughout the whole of Mesopotamian history. They were pulled by oxen.
Seed ploughs, with a funnel through which seed was dropped into the furrow, are
depicted on seals from at least 2300 B.C. onwards.
Most farmers made do with tools made from locally available clay, stone and timber.
Workers on palace and temple estates were sometimes issued with copper-alloy tools
from the third millennium B.C., and with iron equipment from the early first millennium
B.C., though they were always subject to close control because metal was expensive.
In the south there isn't sufficient rainfall to grow crops without access to river water. The
southern plain was crossed by numerous streams, branching from the main Tigris and
Euphrates. Water could easily be led to nearby land in ditches. Gradually a larger
network of canals and waterways was created. The very fertile soil allowed enormous
surpluses to be generated. The main crops were barley and wheat.
The Sumerians had gardens shaded by tall date palms where they grew peas, beans
and lentils, vegetables like cucumbers, leeks, lettuces and garlic, and fruit such as
grapes, apples, melons and figs. Later other foods were grown like onions, beetroot,
turnips, pears, pomegranates, nuts and various herbs. In the south the most important
crop was the date. Further north, in Assyria, it is too cold in the winter for the date to
fruit.
The agricultural season started with ploughing and sowing in late October or November
ready for the rains. If the rains delayed coming then famine followed; hence
administrators reported directly to the king concerning rain and crops. Harvest was at the
end of April until June. Floods came in early spring when the snow melted in the
mountains, just as the crops were ripening. Flood waters were led off into swampy,
unused land.
From around 4000 B.C. milk from sheep, goats and cows was used to make butter. Meat
was largely reserved for the elite. They ate sheep, goats, beef and poultry. Delicacies
included gazelle, mice and locusts. Drying, salting and smoking fish was important (see
Food and Cooking). Sheep and goats were also important for their wool and hair. The
sheep's fleece was plucked (combed out) rather than shorn. The Standard of Ur shows
that sheep and goat were being bred for their long fleeces by 2600 B.C.
Travel
The most efficient way of transporting goods was by water, as most places in south
Mesopotamia could be reached through a network of rivers and canals. Rafts and
coracles were the main form of river boat (both were common on the Tigris and
Euphrates until recently). Larger ships made of wood or bundles of reeds were paddled
or punted in the southern marshes of Mesopotamia and also sailed along the Gulf to
places like Bahrain. Where travel by water was not possible, normally donkeys or mules
were used and sometimes human porters. After about 2000 B.C. the introduction of the
horse from Central Asia enabled messengers to travel more quickly. Camels became
increasingly important with the rise of the desert tribes in the first millennium B.C.
Wheeled vehicles were known in the Near East from about 3500 B.C. However, in the
sandy or muddy conditions of the south sledges were often more practical and in the
mountains vehicles were useless before proper roads were built (c. 800 B.C.). Sledges
were used for transporting the stone for Assyrian palace reliefs, pulled by large numbers
of prisoners of war. Local journeys were often made in carts with solid wooden wheels
generally pulled by oxen.
Chariots developed from the heavy carts of the Sumerian period. With the introduction of
the horse into Mesopotamia chariots became lighter. Assyrian wall reliefs show a
technological development in chariot design with wheels of six spokes in the ninth
century changing to eight spokes in the seventh century B.C. They were used
predominantly for warfare.
Ziggurats
Ziggurat is an anglicized form of the Akkadian word ziqqurratum, the name given to the
solid stepped towers of mud brick. It derives from the verb zaqaru, ‘to be high'.
The ziggurat was part of the religious architecture found at the centre of Mesopotamian
settlements and was probably a feature of most cities after c.2000 B.C. Millions of sundried mud bricks were used in their construction. Layers of bricks were often separated
by layers of reeds, perhaps helping to spread the load or allow drainage. Baked bricks
and bitumen were used to protect the exterior from rain and wind. In Babylonia ziggurats
had a shrine on the top-most stage but it has been suggested that in Assyria there were
no buildings on the summit.
Cuneiform texts from 2100 B.C. onwards refer to temples with seven storeys, and are
described as being like mountains linking earth and heaven. However, depictions on
cylinder seals, boundary stones, stone reliefs and clay tablets show buildings with either
four or five storeys. Some of the seals date to the mid-third millennium B.C. which shows
that the idea of a ziggurat predates the best known and best preserved example at Ur
(c.2100 B.C.).
It seems likely that ziggurats developed in southern Mesopotamia from the need to raise
important buildings above the flat flood-plain. As a mud brick shrine became too small or
old, the foundations and first few courses of brick work were incorporated into the
platform supporting the next temple. This process is best known from excavations at the
sites of Uruk and Eridu.
The mountains to the east of Mesopotamia were thought to be where some gods lived
(especially celestial deities which appeared to rise up from them). The ziggurat may
therefore have been thought of as bringing the home of the gods to the flat plains of
Mesopotamia. It may also have been viewed as a stairway to heaven or the point where
heaven and earth met. They would have been an ideal place to view the stars, but there
is no evidence that they were ever used for astrological observations.
The ziggurat at Ur, excavated by Leonard Woolley, is 64 by 46 metres at base and
originally some 12 metres in height with three storeys. It was built under Ur-Nammu
(c.2100 B.C.) and rebuilt under Nabonidus (555-539 B.C.) when it was increased in
height to probably seven storeys.
Religion
The people of Mesopotamia believed in many gods and goddesses. These represented
natural features, the forces of nature and the heavenly bodies. From the middle of the
third millennium B.C. representations of the gods show them in human form but wearing
a horned crown or helmet. This may be an attempt to link the deities to the power of
nature. They are often accompanied by their sacred animals and symbols. Each
settlement had its own patron deity and divine family. There were also tribal, family and
personal gods and goddesses. Each person was believed to have their own protective
god and goddess. If these deities decided to abandon a person it could result in illness
or misfortune. Spells, prayers and rituals were designed to maintain the blessings of the
gods. It was possible to divine the will of the gods through special rites such as extispicy
(the taking of omens) and astrology. The gods lived in temples where their statues were
washed, clothed and fed. During festivals the divine statues were carried in processions.
Few divine images survive since the most important examples would have been made of
precious materials and were often broken up when captured by invading armies.
Occasionally, enemy kings would keep a god's statue hostage and only return it to its
temple when political conditions were favourable.
There is very little information about Mesopotamian ideas about death and an afterlife. A
few poetic descriptions of the underworld survive. It is a dark place where the dead
wander like shadows and is organised like a kingdom ruled over by the goddess
Ereshkigal and her husband Nergal. Conditions were made better for the dead if the
living provided them with offerings of food and drink. Alternative views of an afterlife may
be suggested by the Royal Graves of Ur where the sacrificial victims may have been
thought to accompany the main occupant of the tomb to a next life (although there is
nothing to prove this and the graves are unique in Mesopotamia). The tombs of some of
the queens of Assyria have been discovered at Nimrud where the bodies were
surrounded with astonishing jewellery and other exotic goods. A cuneiform text in one of
the tombs curses anybody who disturbs the body.
Royal Tombs of Ur
The temples and buildings at Ur dating to around 2600 B.C. had stood on a high terrace.
South of the terrace was an open space and here the people of Ur had thrown their
rubbish. Over time this grew into a mound which sloped down from the walls of the
terrace. This was an easy place to bury the dead and a large cemetery developed.
In 1927 Leonard Woolley and his team began to excavate the cemetery. There were
really two cemeteries, one above the other, belonging to different periods. The upper
graves dated to around 2300 B.C. Below them were graves three hundred years older,
and among these were the ‘Royal' tombs.
Woolley discovered about two thousand ordinary graves. These were shafts, 1 to 4
metres deep, in which the dead person was laid either wrapped in matting or in a coffin
of wicker-work, wood or clay. With the body were placed some objects such as beads, a
knife, a cylinder seal. Outside the coffin or matting roll were clay, copper or stone
vessels, weapons and tools.
Several of these graves were richer in contents than others. One in particular contained
remarkable objects. At the bottom of a shaft was the body of a man in a wooden coffin.
Around the coffin were spears and vases of alabaster and clay, gold-mounted daggers,
copper daggers and tools, fifty copper bowls, silver bowls and plates. Inside the coffin,
the body was accompanied by a gold dagger, lapis lazuli and gold beads, two gold bowls
and a gold lamp. Beside the decayed skull was a helmet of beaten gold. A cuneiform
inscription on two of the bowls and the lamp read ‘Meskalamdug'. Carved on a cylinder
seal found in another tomb was the same name plus the title ‘lugal', which is normally
translated as king. It may have referred to the owner of the rich tomb.
In one area of the cemetery Woolley discovered 16 unusual graves which he described
as ‘Royal'. The majority had been robbed in antiquity but sufficient evidence survived for
Woolley to reconstruct the process of burial.
A rectilinear shaft was dug to a depth of about 10 metres. On one side a steeply sloping
or stepped passage ran down to the floor of the pit. On the floor, which was about 12
metres by 10 metres, a tomb-chamber was built, with stone walls and a brick vaulted
roof. This might occupy part or all of the floor with one or more chambers. The principal
body was laid in a chamber and often accompanied by other bodies. The door of the
chamber was then sealed. Bodies of more attendants were carefully laid on the floor
outside the chamber. Woolley suggests that they may have been poisoned or drugged
but they could have been killed by other means and carried into the pit. All the bodies
were dressed in the finest jewellery and surrounded by fabulous objects. Earth was then
thrown in from above. In some of the graves matting or mud brick structures and more
sacrificial bodies were laid out in the shaft as it was filled in with soil. It is possible that
the graves were originally marked at ground level by a monument.
The presence of sacrificial victims suggested to Woolley that these graves must belong
to Ur's kings and queens. The grave of Meskalamdug, who may have been a ‘lugal', was
not, he decided, a true royal grave as it lacked attendants. The one royal grave which
survived almost intact belonged to a woman, Pu-abi. She has the title ‘queen' or ‘lady'
carved on her cylinder seal.
An alternative to Woolley's theory is that these 16 graves belonged to holders of the
important office of high priestess of the moon god Nanna. At a slightly later date there is
evidence that the king's daughter was appointed to this role. Perhaps for a period it was
decided that the dead high priestess should be accompanied by her priestesses (the
majority of attendants were women) and be buried close to the sacred area of the god
they had served.
The graves are unique in Mesopotamia.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
According to some ancient Greek writers, one of the wonders of the world was an
enormous ‘hanging' or terraced garden. One description says it was built by a king to
please his wife who missed the wooded hillsides of her native land. The king has been
identified with Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 B.C.) who married a Median (Iranian)
princess. Nebuchadnezzar certainly rebuilt his capital of Babylon on a grand scale but
none of his inscriptions mention such a garden. A large area of Babylon was excavated
by German archaeologists at the beginning of the twentieth century and nothing has
been discovered to support the idea that the Hanging Gardens were in Babylon proper.
Indeed, many Greek writers imply that the Hanging Gardens were not in Babylon at all.
However, the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) describe in
detail how he diverted several mountain streams to bring water on an aqueduct into his
garden at Nineveh, raising it to the top of the garden by means of bronze screws, and
building artificial hills upon stone vaults. This garden was built for his Queen
Tashmetum-sharrat. He described it as a wonder for all peoples. This, therefore, may be
the origin of the story of the Hanging Gardens and many details of Sennacherib's
inscriptions confirm the later Greek accounts.
Whatever the origin of the story of the Hanging Gardens, parks and landscaped gardens
were a very important part of ancient Near Eastern royal building projects. Indeed, the
Persian word for garden gives us the word ‘paradise'. Exotic gardens continued to be a
feature of Arab culture for centuries.