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Mesopotamia
The Land Between The Rivers
“The Cradle of Civilization”
The Fertile Crescent
f Mesopotamia
is the earliest of all
civilizations
f Where
people first formed permanent
settlements
f Mesopotamia
is the area between
the Tigris River and Euphrates River
(present day Iraq)
f Its
name is from two Greek words ”meso” and
“potamos”
f Combined they mean “between the rivers”
Geographic Conditions
f Little
f Hot
rainfall for crops
and dry climate in the summers
f Winters
brought fierce windstorms
leaving muddy river valleys
f Springs
brought catastrophic
flooding of the rivers
f Arid
f No
soil containing little minerals
stone or timber resources
Then why live here?
Natural Levees: natural buildup of sediment of
thousands of years of flooding
Natural Levees
Everything you need in one safe place.
f create a high and safe flood plain
f make irrigation and canal construction
easy
f provide protection
f the surrounding swamps were full of fish
& waterfowl
f reeds provided food for sheep / goats
f reeds also were used as building
resources
History of Mesopotamia
f Over
the centuries, many different
people lived in this area creating a
collection of independent states
f Sumer- southern part (3500-2000 BCE)
f Akkad- northern part (2340–2180 BCE)
f Babylonia- these two regions were
unified (1830-1500 BCE)
f Assyria- Assyrian Empire (1100-612 BCE)
Sumerians
f Established
the social, economic and
intellectual basis of Mesopotamia
f First to develop writing in the form of
cuneiform
f Sumerians are credited to have invented
the wheel
f Eridu became the first city of the world
f However, the Sumerians were not
successful in uniting lower Mesopotamia
Akkadians
f Leader:
Sargon the Great
f Sargon’s greatest achievement was the
unification of lower Mesopotamia (after
conquering Sumerians in 2331 BCE)
f Established capital at Akkad
f Spread Mesopotamian culture
throughout Fertile Crescent
f Dynasty established by Sargon was
short-lived… Akkadians were conquered
by the invading barbarians by 2200 BCE
f
Babylonians
f Babylonians
reunited Mesopotamia
in 1830 BCE
f Used
their central location to
dominate trade and establish
control over all of Mesopotamia
f King
Hammurabi
f conquered
Akkad and Sumer and gained control
of north and south
f His Legacy: created the first law code
Hammurabi’s
Law Code
Hammurabi’s Law Code
f Code
of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar
placed in the centre of town for all to see
f Stone depicts Hammurabi as receiving his
authority from god Shamash
f Punishments were designed to fit the crimes as
people must be responsible for own actions
f was the orginal “eye for an eye…” ie. If a son
struck his father, the son’s hand would be cut
off
f Consequences for crimes depended on rank in
society (ie. only fines for nobility)
Assyrians
Blood Thirsty Armies of Doom
f 10th century BCE, Assyria
emerged as dominant force
f Assyrian reunited
Mesopotamia and established
the first true empire
f Assyrian army was most
feared due to their brutal,
bloodthirsty & terrorizing
tactics and use of iron
weapons, battering rams,
chariots
Assyrians
f Assyrian
Empire stretched from Persian
Gulf north and west to Syria, Palestine and
Egypt
f However, states began to revolt and once
again, Assyrian Empire collapsed by late
7th century BCE
f By 539 BCE, Mesopotamia part of the vast
Persian Empire (led by Cyrus the Great)
f Persian Empire dominated for 800 years
until Alexander the Great
Government
Democracy to a Theocracy
f Early
political structure an early
form of democracy
f Council
of town members
f Frequent
wars led to the emergence
of warriors as leaders
f Elect
to rule during war, stays on afterwards
f Eventually
rise of monarchy and
theocracy
f King
= god
f Gov’t run by priests
Religion
Polytheistic
f over
3600 gods and demigods
f Include
gods from all different regions
f all of Mesopotamia shared the same religion and
the same main gods
f Position
of King was enhanced and
supported by religion
f Kingship
created by gods and the
king’s power was divinely ordained
f Enlil,
Mesopotamian Gods
supreme god & god
of air
f Ishtar, goddess of fertility
& life
f An, god of heaven
f Enki, god of water &
underworld
Gods and
goddesses were
f Shamash, god of sun and
worshipped at huge
giver of law
temples called
It was important for gods to be
ziggurats
honoured by religious ceremonies
Ziggurats
Where Ceremonies were performed by priests
f Temples
created from mud brick
and placed on platforms due to
constant flooding
f Temples
evolved to ziggurats-- a
stack of 1-7 platforms decreasing
in size from bottom to top
f Famous
ziggurat was Tower of
Babel (over 100m above ground and
91m base)
Social Structure
Nobles included the
king, his family, the
chief priests and the
high palace officials;
they had the best land
Nobles
Free Clients:
work for gov’t in
exchange for land
Commoners:
landowners and
craftsmen
Slaves
Slaves were
captured prisoners
of war used as
manual labourers
in military, civil
engineering, or
agricultural
projects, or as
household
servants.
Development of Writing
Writing
Dating to 3500 BCE
f First
form of writing was Cuneiform
(meaning “wedge shaped”)
f allowed the transmission of knowledge,
the codification of laws, and recording of
goods to facilitate trade
f Cuneiform spread to Persia and Egypt
f
lead to the exchange of ideas among cultures
The First Written Story
The Epic Story of Gilgamesh
f Gilgamesh
is the first known work of great
literature and epic poem
f Gilgamesh is a great king and hero
f Epic contains 1st mention of a great flood
f Gilgamesh parallels the story of Noah and the
Ark in the Old Testament (but much earlier)
f Modern science argues an increase in the sea
levels about 6,000 years ago
f the
melting ice drained to the oceans causing the sea level to rise
more than ten feet in one century
The Royal Tombs of
UR
f From
1922 to 1934, an
archaeologist named C. Leonard
Woolley excavated the site of
the ancient Sumerian city of Ur
f Found at Ur was a mass grave
containing the bodies of 6
guards and 68 court ladies
(servants of kings and queens)
f they
drank a poisoned drink and fell asleep
never to wake again, choosing to
accompany the kings and queens in the
afterlife
Legacies of Mesopotamia
f codified
laws
f the building of places of worship (ziggurats)
f the birthplace of writing (cuneiform)
f Invention of the wheel, plow and sailboat
f Oldest written records of a creation story
f First
great epic poem--Gilgamesh
f First
civilization based on large scale agriculture
f 12 month calendar
f number system based on 60
f 60
minutes, 60 seconds, 360 degree circle
f Water
clock