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Mesopotamia
Chapter 1, Section 2
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Means “the land between the rivers”
A land that lies between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
Now Southern Iraq.
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Complex societies that have…
- cities
- organized governments
- art
- religion
- class divisions
- writing system
(What do these words remind you of ?)
Cultural universals
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Good farming conditions
Provided fish and freshwater to drink
Provided easy transportation routes for trade
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Floods often ruined crops.
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Farmers built irrigation systems to control
floods.
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Included walls, waterways and ditches to
bring water to their fields.
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Garlic and onions were grown to provide flavoring
for Mesopotamian cooking, as were many kinds of
herb and spice.
Grain crops were developed by farmers from wild
grasses, such as emmer.
Vegetable crops included peas, beans, and greens,
such as spinach.
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Fruits that thrived in Mesopotamia’s warm climate included dates,
grapes, and juicy figs. Farmers had to hand over a share of their
produce to government officials as taxes
Water carried along irrigation channels from canals and rivers
enabled produce such as pomegranates and pistachio nuts to be
grown in city gardens.
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Reed houses similar to those built by the
Mesopotamians thousands of years ago are still used
by the Madan people in the wetlands of southern Iraq.
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Ordinary Mesopotamians lived in mud-brick houses
with flat roofs. The same basic house design was used
across the Middle East for much of its history.
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Goats were first domesticated (bred as farm animals) around 8000
BCE. The first tame goats were short-horned varieties, whereas
their wild relatives had long, curved horns.
The Sumerians hunted deer and gazelles, but most meat came
from farm animals. Fish were caught in rivers and wetlands, and
along the coast.
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A region in southern Mesopotamia
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Cities formed there by 3000 B.C.
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Were isolated from each other because of geography
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Each Sumerian city became a separate City-State with its own
government.
The red area is Sumer; what do you
think the little white dots indicate?
City-States
ANY REGION THAT HAS ITS OWN
GOVERNMENT AND IS NOT PART OF A
LARGER UNIT.
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What do you notice about this ditch in relation to the river?
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Sumerian city-states often went to war with
each other.
Fought for glory and control of territory.
To protect their lands, each city-state
surrounded itself with a strong brick walls
made of river mud and crushed reeds.
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Believed in many gods.
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Each god had power over natural
forces or human activity (i.e.
flooding, basket weaving)
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Each city-state built a temple called
a ziggurat to honor its chief god.
Built to honor gods and served as the city’s treasury.
The word means “mountain of god”.
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Kings lived in palaces
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Ordinary people lived in mud-brick houses.
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Some people were artisans. Artisans are skilled
workers who make metal products, cloth or pottery.
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Most people farmed and others worked as merchants or
traders.
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The Mesopotamians invented the potter’s wheel
sometime before 3500 BCE.
Skilled goldsmiths in the Assyrian city of Ashur took
raw metal and worked it into delicate gold chains for
necklaces and fine gold settings to hold precious
stones.
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People were divided into three classes.
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Most stayed in the same class into which they were born.
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Kings
Priests
Warriors
Government Officials
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Artisans
Merchants
Farmers
Fishers
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Enslaved people who worked on farms or in the temples
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Forced to serve others
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Men headed the households
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Men decided whom their children would marry.
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Only males could go to school.
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Women could buy and sell property.
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Women could run businesses.
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Their writing was called
cuneiform.
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Only a few people learned
how to write, mostly boys from
wealthy families.
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These boys became scribes,
or record keepers.
Hundreds of wedge-shaped
characters helped people
keep records and share
their stories.
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Oldest known story comes from Sumer
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Epic of Gilgamesh is about a great
Sumerian king.
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An epic is a long poem that tells the
story of a hero.
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Wagon Wheel
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Plow
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Sailboat
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Geometry
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Number system based on 60
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12 month calendar
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their letters, Mesopotamian numbers were
cuneiform (wedge-shaped) symbols. The main
counting system used the number 60 as its
base.
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The land to the north of Sumer was called Akkad. At its
greatest extent, the Akkadian Empire stretched from
the Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
The area outlined in
red is the area known
as Akkad.
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The Akkadians from Northern Mesopotamia
launched attacks on Sumerian City-States.
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Sargon, king of Akkadians, conquered all of
Mesopotamia and created the world’s first empire.
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An empire is a group of many different lands
under one ruler.
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Sargon’s empire lasted 200 years.
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A new group of people took over Mesopotamia in 1800s
B.C. and built the city of Babylon.
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The Babylonian king was Hammurabi.
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Hammurabi created the Babylonian empire.
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Mesopotamian cities, such as Babylon, were protected
by massive walls. At the center were temples, ziggurats,
and palaces. Around these were offices, workshops,
and housing.
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Hammurabi is best known for his
“eye for an eye” philosophy.
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Covered crimes, farming and
business activities, and marriage
and the family.
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Influenced later law codes,
including those of Greece and
Rome.
Statue of King Hammurabi