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City-states in
Mesopotamia
The earliest civilization in Asia rose in Mesopotamia and
organized into city-states.
Area of land with great farmlands
 Tigris and Euphrates Rivers with a region
known as Mesopotamia in between

Fertile Crescent
Problem
Solution
Unpredictable floods
 Invasions
 Building materials
were scarce


Irrigation systems
 Built city walls
 Traded with other
people for what they
needed
Problem solving!!!!
Similar to an independent country today
 Center of town: ziggurat

City-state
Partial reconstruction of a ziggurat
Cuneiform tablet sent to the King of Lagash informing
him his son has been killed in battle.
Priests: whose job was to keep gods
happy
 Also ran day-to-day business
 Army was led by soldiers, some of whom
eventually became full-time rulers

Ruling class
Polytheism: belief in 2 or more gods
 Sumerian gods acted in same way as
humans but were immortal and powerful
 Humans were servants to gods
 Gloomy view of the afterlife

Religion
Sumerian statue from
2,500 B.C.
Cuneiform temple
hymn from 1800
B.C.
Ugallu: demons
who helped
humans
Sumerian god Enlil
with his wife
Created world’s first empire in 2350 B.C.
 Dynasty lasted for 200 years

Cuneiform sources agree
that Sargon was the official
in charge of wine for King
Ur-Zababa. It’s thought that
Sargon killed the king and
took this throne and ruled
for over 55 years.
Sargon of Akkad
Sargon’s Akkadian Empire: the yellow lines indicate
military campaigns undertaken by Sargon.
King of Babylon for 42 years
 Best known for his Code

Hammurabi took power after his
father abdicated the throne and
proceeded to extend the
Babylonian Empire to its greatest
extent. In this picture Hammurabi
is standing before the god
Shamash receiving his royal
insignia.
Hammurabi
282 laws dealing with business, family
relations, and crime
 Different punishments for rich and poor
 Established principle of retaliation
 Protect women and children from unfair
punishments

The Code

If a man bring an accusation against a
man and charge him with a (capital)
crime, but cannot prove it, he, the
accuser, shall be put to death.
Code #1

If a man charge a man with sorcery and
cannot prove it, he who is charged with
sorcery shall go to the river, into the river he
shall throw himself and if the river overcome
him, his accuser shall take to himself his
house. If the river show that man to be
innocent and he come forth unharmed, he
who charged him with sorcery shall be put to
death. He who threw himself into the river
shall take to himself the house of his accuser.
Code #2

If the brigand (burglar) be not captured,
the man who has been robbed shall in the
presence of god man an itemized
statement of his loss, and the city and the
governor, in whose province and
jurisdiction the robbery was committed,
shall compensate him for whatever was
lost.
Code #24

If bad characters gather in the house of a
wine seller and she does not arrest those
characters and bring them to the palace,
that wine seller shall be put to death.
Code #108

If a sister of god (nun) who is not living in
a convent opens a wine shop or enters a
wine shop for a drink, they shall burnt
that woman.
Code #110

If a man be in debt and is unable to pay
his creditors, he shall sell his wife, son or
daughter or bind them over to service.
For three years they shall work in the
houses of their purchaser or master; in
the fourth year they shall be given their
freedom.
Code #117

If the wife of a man be taken in lying with
another man, they shall bind them and
throw them into the water. If the
husband of the woman would save his
wife he may.
Code #129

If the woman has not been careful but
has gadded about, neglecting her house
and belittling her husband, they shall
throw that woman into the water.
Code #143

If a man takes in his home a young boy
as a son and rears him, one may not
bring a claim for that adopted son.
Code #185

If a son strikes his father, they shall cut
off his hand.
Code #195

If a man destroy the eye of another man,
they shall destroy his eye.
Code #196

If one break a man’s bone, they shall
break his bone.
Code #197

If a man knock out the tooth of a man of
his own rank, they shall knock out his
tooth.
Code #200

If a builder builds a house for a man and
does not make its construction sound and
the house which he has built collapses
and causes the death of the owner of the
house, the builder shall be put to death.
Code #229