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Mesopotamia
“The Cradle of Civilization”
Significance of Mesopotamia
• Earliest of civilizations – permanent settlements
• “Mesopotamia” is Greek for “between the rivers”
• Tigris River and Euphrates River
• Lasted for approximately 3,000 years
• Its peoples were the first to…
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Irrigate fields
Devise writing system
Develop mathematics
Invent the wheel
Work with metal
Devise a written law code
Geographic Conditions
• Little rainfall
• Hot and dry climate
• Wind and rain storms in
winter
• Muddy river valleys
• Catastrophic flooding in
spring
• Arid soil containing few
minerals
• No stone or timber
resources
Why live in Mesopotamia??
Natural Levees! (embankments produced by build-up of
sediment from years of flooding)
• Create a high and safe flood plain
• Make irrigation and canal construction easy
• Provide protection
• Surrounding swamps full of fish and waterfowl
• Reeds provide food for livestock (sheep, goats)
• Reeds used for building materials
Religion
• Polytheistic
• Over 3600 gods and demigods
• Shows diversity of religion from different regions
• BUT all of Mesopotamia shared the same religion and same
prominent gods
Enki – water, life,
mediation
Enlil – supreme
god of air
Shamash – sun,
law giver
Ishtar – fertility,
war, sex
Religion, cont’d
• Kingship created by gods
• Therefore, the king’s power was divinely ordained
• Gods lived on the distant mountaintops
• Each city was ruled by a different god
• Kings and priests were interpreters
• Told the people what the god wanted them to do
• Message from liver or lungs of a slain sheep
Ziggurats
• Temples dedicated to the god of
the city
• Made of layers of mud bricks in
the shape of a pyramid
• On platforms due to constant
flooding
• Temple on top was god’s home
• Beautifully decorated
• Room for offerings of food and
goods
• Temples evolved into ziggurats
• Stack of 1-7 platforms decreasing
in size from bottom to top
• Famous ziggurat was the Tower
of Babel
Government
• Political structure: early form
of democracy
• Frequent wars led to the
emergence of warriors as
leaders
• Eventual rise of monarchy
• Followed leadership of god of
the city
• Interpreted by a council of
leading citizens or priests or
leader of the city (king)
Sumerians ~ 3500-2000 BCE
• Sumer, Southern Mesopotamia
• Irrigated fields and produced 3 main crops
• Barley, dates, sesame seeds
• Built canals, dikes, dams, drainage systems
• Abundance of food = population increase
• First city of the world - Sumer
Sumerians
• Developed cuneiform writing
• Invented the wheel
• Developed trade system with
bartering
• Mainly barley but also wool and cloth
for stone, metals, timber, copper,
pearls, ivory
• Individuals could rent land from
priests
• Controlled land on behalf of the gods
• Most of the profits of trade went to
the temple
• Established social, economic,
political basis of Mesopotamia but
were unsuccessful in uniting lower
Mesopotamia
Akkadians ~ 2340-2180 BCE
• Akkad, Northern Mesopotamia
• Leader: Sargon the Great
• Unified lower Mesopotamia after
conquering Sumerians in 2331 BCE
• Established capital at Akkad
• Spread Mesopotamian culture
• Dynasty was short lived when they were
conquered by invading barbarians by
2200 BCE
Babylonians ~ 1830-1500 BCE
• Reunited Mesopotamia in 1830 BCE
• Central location dominated trade and secured control
• BUT… Mesopotamia not unified for long
Babylonians, cont’d
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Economy based on agriculture and wool
Individuals could own land
Artisans and merchants could keep profits and formed guilds
Grain used as the medium of exchange (shekel – mina)
• Emergence of currency
• Shekel = 180 grains of barley
• Mina = 60 shekels
• Mina was eventually represented by metals – one of the first uses
of money
King Hammurabi
• Conqured Akkad and Assyria
• Built
• Walls to protect city
• Canals and dikes to improve crops
• Legacy: Law Code
Code of Hammurabi - 1800 BCE
• To enforce his rule, collected all the laws
of Babylon in a code that would apply
everywhere
• First and most extensive law code from
the ancient world
• 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar
placed in the public hall for all to see
• Set of divinely inspired laws and also
societal laws
• Punishments designed to fit the crimes
• Origin of “an eye for an eye”
• Consequence for crimes depended on
social rank
• Poor = hand cut off; Nobles = pay a fine
Assyrians ~ 1100-612 BCE
• City of Assur became important trade and political centre
• Iron changed lifestyles
• replaced wooden wheels, applied to chariots
• Resulted in superior weapons
• After Hammurabi’s death, Babylon fell apart and kings of
Assur controlled more of surrounding area and came to
dominate
Assyrians
• Made conquered land pay taxes
• Food, animals, metal, timber
• Rule by fear
• States began to revolt and Assyrian Empire collapsed by late
7th century
The Persian Invasion
• By 539 BCE, Mesopotamia was part of the Persian Empire
• Led by Cyrus the Great, Persian Empire dominated for 800
years until Alexander the Great and the Greeks took over
Mesopotamia’s
Legacies
Development of Writing
• Pictograms: picture to show meaning
• Ideograms: signs to represent words/ideas
• Phonetics: signs to represent sounds
Writing – 3500 BCE
• Allowed for
• Transmission of knowledge
• Codification of laws
• Records to facilitate trade and
farming
• CUNEIFORM meaning “wedge shaped”
• Wet clay tablets engraved with the
point of a reed
• Dried in the sun to make a tablet
• Scribes were only literate folks
• Priests, record keepers, accountants
• Spread to Persia and Egypt
• Vehicle for growth and spread of
exchange of ideas among cultures
Gilgamesh – the first epic poem
• Over 4000 years old, written on 12 clay
tablets
• Epic battle between Enkidu (wild man
with a good heart) and Gilgamesh
(controlling king)
• The two became friends and went on
adventures
• This made the gods angry so they killed
Enkidu causing Gilgamesh to wander the
underworld in grief
• Why is this important?
• Earliest known author: Sin-leqi-unninni
• Mentions a great flood similar to Noah’s
flood in Genesis
Mathematics & Science
• Mesopotamia, specifically Babylon, used a mathematical
system based on 60
• Some parts of the “base-sixty” system still remain:
• 360 degrees in a circle
• 60 seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour
• Calendar based on cycles of the moon
• Number of days between the
appearance of two new moons
was set as a month
• 12 cycles made up a year
Royal Tombs of Ur
• Home of Abraham (Israelite patriarch)
• Excavated from 1922 to 1934
• Extravagant jewelry of gold, cups of gold and
silver, bowls of alabaster, extraordinary
objects of art and culture
• Revealed full glory of ancient Sumerian culture
• Great Death Pit
• Mass grave containing bodies of 6 guards and
68 servants
• Drank poison to accompany the kings and
queens in the afterlife
Legacies of Mesopotamia
• Codified laws
• Concept of kingship and city-state government
• Ziggurats – places of worship
• Cuneiform writing
• Oldest written records of a creation story
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Irrigation
Metal working – tools
Trade networks
Transportation – the wheel
Mathematics and calendar
Prosperous living based on large scale agriculture
• First civilization to do so
Sources
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www.mrvanduyne.com
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www.bbc.co.uk
www.wikipedia.org
www.ancient.eu.com
www.ancienthistory.about.com
www.bible.ca
www.worldhistoria.ca
www.westcler.org
www.britannica.com
www.funsci.com
www.whatafy.com
www.arthistoryworlds.org