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Civilization in Mesopotamia The first true cities in human history were those built in the eastern portion of the Fertile Crescent known as Mesopotamia (MES oh poh TAY mi uh). Several rivers cut through this ancient land, but two were especially important: the Tigris and Euphrates. In fact, the word mesopotamia means “between rivers.” Both these rivers flow to the southeast and deposit their waters in the Persian Gulf. As the rivers approach the gulf, they broaden in a low-lying delta area where the rivers spread out in marshes and wetlands. Around 3500 B.C., in Mesopotamia, cities were built along the primary rivers where the land was rich for farming, and the river waters could be used to fill irrigation ditches to make up for a lack of rainfall. By 3000 B.C., a people known as the Sumerians were living in the southern Mesopotamian region they called Sumer. Here they established important cities such as Eredu, Ur, and Erech. (Erech is mentioned in the Bible and is often known as Uruk. The Bible also lists Ur as “Ur of the Chaldees.”) These urban centers develop around mud-brick temples where sacrifices and worship took place. Such cities were often called city-states since those who controlled the government of these cities also held sway over the people living in the surrounding farmlands. While it is not clear how these early city-states were ruled, it appears that some form of council government--perhaps made up of priests or all make citizens or even the elders of the city--provided the means for making decisions and directing political and economic policies. The most likely type of government in early Mesopotamian city-states was some form of theocracy or religion-controlled government. Under such a system, Sumerian cities were ruled by local gods. Each city had its own protector-god and the citizens of city might refer to themselves as the “people of the god X.” Under such a system, the local cult of priests and priestesses carried much power. By 2700 B.C., however, these ancient city-states were under the control of a new type of leader: a monarch--one who rules as a royal king. With such rulers, the Sumerian government was less a theocracy and based more on secular, or worldly, rule. Monarchs and their families lived in splendid palaces where the king ruled along with a council of elders. The citizens of a city-state lavished great wealth on the royal family. When archeologists uncover the tombs of some of these exalted kings, they find the bodies buried with gold and silver artifacts. Buries along with kings are their servants who were sacrificed so they could continue serving their kings in the afterlife. Daily Life in Mesopotamia The Mesopotamians of the third and fourth millennia B.C. (a millennium is 1000 years) created an intricate and highly specialized society. Living in complex city-states bought together many talented and creative people who were always looking for ways to improve their world. Through creativity and practical ingenuity, Mesopotamia flourished. For example, the practical use of the wheel began in Mesopotamia. By 3500 B.C., Sumerian potter were using a new invention: a wheel which turned horizontally, allowing craftsmen to make pots from wet clay. About 250 years later, Mesopotamians began using carts with solid wooden wheels, consisting of two sections of planking which formed a disk fastened together with wood and copper brackets. These were attached to the axle of the cart by linchpins. This basic technology--two- and four-wheeled carts--allowed the Mesopotamians to transport produce to market and carry people where they needed to go. Other improvements included the plow. By 4000 B.C., Mesopotamian farmers attached primitive plows behind teams of oxen to cut furrows across the fields of Sumerian farms. Meanwhile, Mesopotamian merchant were busying themselves with commerce: trading surplus grain for silver and lead from Turkey, lumber from Syria, copper and building stones from Oman, and semiprecious gems from Afghanistan. Great Sumerian trading ships--some capable of carrying up to 35 tons of grain and other produce--were sailing far from home, doing business with the people of the city of Mohenjo Daro, located in the Indus River valley. Much of this trade caused disunity and decentralization, however. Rivals for trade often went to war with one another. As the Sumerian city-states fought each other for dominance, the cities of Egypt to the southwest were coming together, creating a unified kingdom. Despite these political and economic rivalries, the city-states of Mesopotamia prospered and grew. Prominent among them was the city of Ur. With its great temple dominating the city’s center, this shining urban oasis could be seen for miles in the desert, home to 24,000 people. Sumerian Temples and Homes As civilization in Mesopotamia developed, so did life in the city-states. By 3000 B.C., most of the people in Sumer lived in one of over a dozen such towns. These cities were fiercely independent, each featuring its own type of government ruled by either a king, a class of priests, or some other leader. The people living in the city-states were divided into three classes, or groups. The most important class in status consisted of the nobility and the priests. The nobility were privileged landowners. The next class was made up of the commoners--those who labored in the fields of the nobility or worked in cities as artisans, craftsmen, or unskilled workers. The lowest class of Sumerians was made up of slaves. Just as a king might occupy the most important position in his city-state, so did a special type of building in Mesopotamia. Rising high above the streets of a typical city was a special temple called a ziggurat, from an Assyrian word ziqquratu, meaning “mountain top.” Similar to the massive stone pyramids constructed by ancient Egyptians, the Mesopotamians built multi-leveled complexes of baked mud bricks. The typical ziggurat had three long staircases leading to the top of the structure--a height of perhaps 80 feet. These great temples were massive, often measuring 700 feet around the base. The ziggurat was important to the Mesopotamians and their religion. The height of the temple symbolized the human desire to connect with heaven. Each ziggurat was dedicated to a special god. The stairs were an invitation to their god to come and visit them. Unlike the typical Egyptian pyramid which featured smooth, sloping sides, the ziggurat had several flat terraces which were places of constant activity where everyone--from slave to king--gathered to worship. Inside the ziggurat were special rooms and chambers, some serving as living quarters for temple priests. Other rooms were kept as sacred shrines and storage rooms. While ziggurats dominated the skyline of the Sumerian city-states, the people lived in much smaller homes. The Mesopotamians recognized the right of private ownership of property and the typical commoner lived in a one-story mud-brick home. Such houses were often crowded together and lined the city’s narrow streets. Wealthy citizens might live in larger, two-story houses, complete with bedrooms, a kitchen, bathrooms, an inside courtyard, and storage rooms. Underground cellars might also be part of the home, where certain household goods, including foods, were kept cool. Such homes commonly included a family chapel for private worship, as well as a family burial plot where the tombs of deceased family members served as a constant reminder of the family’s past. Sumerian Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic As trade in ancient Sumeria expanded in the third millennium B.C., the need for making accurate records of transactions also developed. In response, the early Mesopotamians created one of the first systems of arithmetic and writing in the history of early humans. Ancient Sumerian mathematicians developed the skills of addition, subtraction, and multiplication. They used 60 as the base of their number system, still used to day in our 60-minute hour and 360-degree circle. Math skills were necessary to do business in Mesopotamia. For example, suppose a merchant of Ur sells a trader from Egypt 10 head of cattle and 10 jars of olive oil in exchange for 20 large sacks of wheat and 5 necklaces of semiprecious gems. How does the merchant record the sale? Early Mesopotamian records might depict a picture of one head of cattle with 10 small marks next to it to denote a total of 10 cattle. The corresponding number of marks would be placed next to pictures of jars, sacks, and necklaces. This was a cumbersome system, however. Such records were made of soft clay tablets using a sharp reed stick which fit in the hand much like a pencil. Later, the tablets were baked in a kiln to make the records permanent. Originally, Mesopotamians “wrote” on their tablets in vertical columns going from the top-right, down, and to the left. By 3000 B.C., scribes turned their tablets and wrote horizontally from left to right. Scribes also began using a different type of writing tool, one with a wedgeshaped tip rather than a pointed one. (Such a tip left cleaner marks on the wet clay.) This writing, called cuneiform (meaning “wedge-shaped”) developed into a system of markings rather than pictures. Around 2500 B.C., scribes developed symbols which could be used to denote many different things. The wedge symbols were used in combination, their sounds serving to phonetically create other words. For example, if a scribe wished to write an abstract concept such as belief, he might depict the wedges for bee and leaf. With this adaption of the written word, scribes could more readily show ideas in their writings. In time, the Sumerian system of symbols developed into 600 different signs. This would be similar to our having an alphabet of 600 letters rather than 26. The system remained an awkward one--after all, they were writing on wet clay--but one which created a written language used not only by the Mesopotamians, but by others in the ancient Near East as well. The Rise of Babylon Although the Mesopotamians developed one of the most civilized cultures in the ancient world, it didn’t last forever. By 2000 B.C., two forces were pushing the civilization of the Sumer region out of existence: one force was human; the other ecological. Together they changed life for many people living in Tigris-Euphrates river valley. The second force--the ecological one--was one the Mesopotamians did not see coming. For centuries, the Sumerians of the southern Mesopotamian region irrigated their fields from the nearby rivers. While this diversion of water was necessary to produce bountiful harvests of grain and other crops, the water brought something else the Sumerians did not want--salt. Some of the irrigation water delivered to Sumerian fields dried in the burning desert heat, leaving behind salt deposits in the soil. The amount of salt deposited each year was imperceptible, yet significant. After centuries of irrigating the same region of farmland, the salt deposits caused the soil to become less fertile. This process of ever increasing the amount of salt in the soil is known as salinization. Even as early as 2350 B.C., the land was becoming noticeably less productive. By 2000 B.C., the Sumer valley had fallen into economic collapse, bringing an end to the Sumerian era of Mesopotamian history. Speeding along this process of destruction were a Semitic people called the Amorites. As Semites, they spoke a different language from the Mesopotamians. This tribe invaded Sumer, destroying its great cities, the cit of Ur among them. Soon the Amorites were busy establishing a new kingdom and civilization for themselves to the north of Sumer, in a region known as Akkad. In this region, the Amorites built a new capital called Babylon. The people who lived there soon became known as Babylonians, or, as modern archeologists refer to them, Old Babylonians. The founder and leader of this new civilization, which eventually developed into the Old Babylonian Empire, was a ruler known as Hammurabi. He ruled from approximately 1792-1750 B.C. In his early years, Hammurabi was merely the leader of one of several warring tribes in southern Mesopotamia. But by 1763, Hammurabi conquered all of the Sumerian region and within less than a decade was the dominant force in northern Mesopotamia as well. In time, Hammurabi began to refer to himself as “King of Akkad and Sumer.” Later, he exalted his title to a new height—“King of the Four Quarters of the World.” With the establishment of a new kingdom, the Babylonians created a civilization of their own. Mathematics developed further. The Babylonians understood the concept of square roots, cube roots, reciprocals, and exponential functions. In addition, they developed the idea of the 24-hour day, the 60-minute hour, and the 60-second minute. Also, they developed their concept of an accurate calendar, dividing their year into 12 months, based on 28-day cycles of the moon. With the passing of the Sumerian culture and the development of the Old Babylonian culture, humans in the ancient Near East continued the dramatic process called civilization. The Code of Hammurabi In A.D. 1901, French archeologists uncovered an eight-foot-tall shaft of basalt stone. Carved on the stone stele, or shaft, were 3600 lines of cuneiform writing. Known today as the Code of Hammurabi, the carvings list 282 laws created during the reign of this most important of Babylonian kings. Hammurabi’s Code represents one of the first organized systems of law in the history of Western civilization, dating at least three centuries before the Hebrew leader Moses an the Ten Commandments. Below are a few of the crimes and punishments included in Hammurabi’s Code. (Note: A seignior is a Babylonian nobleman.) 1. If a seignior accused another seignior and brought a charge of murder against him, but has not proved it, his accuser shall be put to death. 2. If a seignior bears false witness in a case, or cannot prove his testimony, if that case involves life or death, he shall be put to death. 22. If a seignior committed robbery and has been caught, that seignior shall be put to death. 25. If fire broke out in a seignior’s house and a seignior, who went to extinguish it, cast his eye on the goods of the owner of the house and has appropriated the goods of the owner of the house, that seignior shall be thrown into that fire. 53. If a seignior was too lazy to make the dike of his field strong and did not make his dike strong and a break has opened up in his dike and he has accordingly let the water ravage the farmland, the seignior in whose dike the break was opened shall make good the grain that he let get destroyed. 153. If a seignior’s wife has brought about the death of her husband because of another man, they shall impale that woman on stakes. 195. If a son strikes his father, they shall cut off his hand. 196. If a seignior has destroyed the eye of a member of the aristocracy, they shall destroy his eye. 200. If a seignior has knocked out the tooth of another seignior, they shall knock out his tooth.