Download Sumerian, Egyptian, and Hebrew Literature

MESOPOTAMIA
Source: Literature: World Masterpieces. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.
The Origins of Mesopotamian Civilization (p. 4)
- Civilization means cities, or high degree of social
organization (temples, places, arts and crafts,
technology and systems of writing)
4000 years ago:
 several civilizations developed in the river valleys
of Southwest Asia
 One of the regions was between the Tigris and
Euphrates (Modern Iraq) This land was known as
Mesopotamia (Greek: land between the 2 rivers)
- Sumer: The need to coordinate the digging of
irrigation ditches resulted in . . . A large Sumerian
Civilization.
The Sumerians (pp. 4-5)
- They influenced the Babylonian and Assyrian
civilizations.
- Their “firsts” include;
o Region’s earliest system of writing
o Schools, called edubbas
o Developed a system of numeration based on sixty.
This lead to our 60 second minute, 60 min hour and
360 degree circle.
o Most famous first = creation of cities
- Worshipped many Gods
- Priest ruled city, until conflict when military leaders
replaced the priests which later became kings.
The Babylonians (p. 5)
- In Mesopotamia, there was a constant shift of power.
Sargon was their greatest king
- Sargon lived in the Akkad region and spoke Akkadian
- Many people spoke the Semitic language and the
majority of people who did migrate to Mesopotamia
- One of these groups, the Amorites, founded the village
of Babylon along the Euphrates River.
- The next great leader of Babylon, Hammurabi, created
a famous legal code, containing 282 laws covering daily
life. Describes as “eye for and eye”
- Babylonians thought kindly of Sumerian culture and
tried to preserve its language
- They later re-wrote a group of Sumerian tales, that we
know today as “The Epic of Gilgamesh”
The Assyrians (p. 8)
- Were a Semitic group
- Built city of Assur in Northern Mesopotamia
- Used iron weapons and cavalry to control land
between two rivers
- Recognized superiority of Babylonian and Sumerian
culture
- Assyrian king Assurbunipal (700 BC) assembled first
great library of ancient world