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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 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 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.