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Mesopotamia
The first Civilization
• Farmers began to settle
the flat, fertile lands in
between the Tigris River
and Euphrates River.
• This became known as
Mesopotamia, or “Land
Between Two Rivers”.
• Located in modern-day
Iraq
The Fertile Crescent
• The two rivers flooded Mesopotamia at least once a
year.
• The flooding softened the soil, creating a thick bed of
mud called silt.
• Farmers irrigated the silt and grew massive amounts
of wheat.
• A surplus of food meant an
increase in population and
specialized workers.
Sumer
• The first cities began to appear
in southern Mesopotamia in a
region known as Sumer.
• Small farming villages
eventually grew into large,
walled cities with thriving
markets.
• THREE Challenges:
• Unpredictable flooding
• No natural barriers for protection
• Limited natural resources
The Sumerians
• Were the first people to form a civilization
• Leaders planned projects and oversaw production.
REMINDER: 5 Aspects of a Civilization
1.
Advanced cities
2.
Specialized workers
3.
Complex institutions
4.
Record keeping
5.
Advanced technology
• To provide water, they dug irrigation ditches that carried
water to their farms.
• For defense, they built city walls
• Sumerians traded their goods for
raw materials such as wood
and stone.
Sumerian civilization spreads
• The Sumerians built a number of
cities with similar characteristics:
• Shared the same culture.
• Developed their own governments
• Each with their own rulers.
• Each city and the surrounding land it
controlled formed a city-state.
Polytheism
• The Sumerians believed in many different Gods.
• Believed they controlled the forces of nature.
• An example: Enlil was the god of storms and air.
• Sumerians believed that their Gods fell in love,
had children, and fought.
• Believed that humans were their servants.
Enlil
ZIGGURAT OF Ur
• The largest city-state in Mesopotamia was Ur.
• The Ziggurat is a temple still standing in Ur
• Means “Mountain of God”.
• 100 mud brick stairs lead to the top
• The temple was used for sacrifices and storage
• Goats or sheep
• Stored grains and fabrics, and gems for the gods
A computer-generated image of
what the Ziggurat looked like in
ancient times.
The Ziggurat of Ur as seen today.
Cuneiform writing
• The earliest form of writing is called
cuneiform writing.
• They started out as simple pictures
representing real objects.
• Pictures eventually changed into wedgedshaped symbols.
• The symbols were inscribed one above the
other on a flattened piece of clay
• Later, turned to side-by-side to avoid smudging
Government of Sumer
• The early government in the city-states
were controlled by priests.
• The farmers believed that the
success of their crops depended
upon the blessings of the gods
• A portion of every farmer’s crop was
given to the priests as taxes.
• In times of war, the priests would
appoint a military leader to rule until
the fighting was over
From priests to warriors
• As wars became more frequent the warriors
ruled for longer periods of time
• Eventually they became rulers for life
• These rulers usually passed their power on to
their sons.
• A series of rulers from a single family is called a
dynasty.
Gudea of Lagash (c. 2140 BC)
The bronze age
• Sumerian metalworkers discovered that melting together certain
amounts of copper and tin made bronze.
• This discovery is the beginning of the Bronze Age
• Bronze weapons were much stronger and sharper than copper or
stone.
Sargon of Akkad
• For 1000 years the city-states of Sumer were almost constantly
at war with one another.
• The cities were so weak that they could no longer ward off
attacks from the people of the surrounding deserts and hills.
• Eventually, a man named Sargon of Akkad attacked and
conquered the city-states of Sumer
rise and fall of the world’s first empire
• Sargon led his army from Akkad and
conquered all of the city-states in Sumer.
• Akkad was in northern Mesopotamia
• Sumer was in southern Mespotamia
• By taking control of both
northern and southern Mesopotamia,
Sargon created the first empire.
• An empire is an extensive group of states
or countries under one ruler
• Sargon’s dynasty lasted only about 200
years.
• It eventually fell to internal fighting,
invasions, and famine.
• The Amorites invade the lands of Sumer
and Akkad, establish their rule in the city
of Babylon.
• Babylon began to conquer the
surrounding cities of Mesopotamia
during the reign of Hammurabi.
hammurabi’s code
• The oldest surviving legal record in the world
• Hammurabi’s best known achievement.
• He recognized that a single, uniform code of laws
would bring all the people under his empire
together, despite differences
• Featured 282 specific laws,
and their punishments.
• Hammurabi had the code
engraved in stone and copies
placed all over his empire
Hammurabi
Babylon after Hammurabi
• Nearly two centuries after Hammurabi’s reign, the Babylonian
Empire fell, was taken over by the neighboring Kassites.
• Over the years, new groups dominated the Fertile Crescent. These
new groups would continue many of the ideas and technologies of
the early Sumerians.
• Sumerian advancements:
• Engineering
city walls, buildings, and irrigation systems
• Architecture
arches, columns, ramps
• Cuneiforms
a system of writing