Download Mesopotamia - Mr. BH Gard

Mesopotamia:
“The Cradle of Civilization”
Earliest Civilization: the
Fertile Crescent
• earliest of all civilizations as people formed
permanent settlements
• Mesopotamia is a Greek word that means
“between the rivers”, specifically, the area
between the Tigris River and Euphrates River
(present day Iraq)
• Lasted for approximately 3000 years
• Its peoples were the first to irrigate fields,
devised a system of writing, developed
mathematics, invented the wheel and learned to
work with metal
Beginnings
▪ About 5000 BC
herders and nomads
began to settle in the
crescent shaped strip
from the
Mediterannean to the
Persian Gulf.
Geographic Conditions
• Little rainfall
• Hot and dry climate
• windstorms leaving muddy river valleys in
winter
• catastrophic flooding of the rivers
in spring
• Arid soil containing little minerals
• No stone or timber resources
▪ Many of these
people chose to
settle in
Mesopotamia, the
eastern part of the
Fertile Crescent.
▪ Unpredicatable
floods meant
dams, ditches and
canals had to be
built to irrigate
the crops.
Then why live in
Mesopotamia?
NATURAL LEVEES: embankments produced by build-up of sediment
over thousands of years of flooding
Natural Levee
•
create a high and safe flood plain
•
make irrigation and canal construction easy
•
provide protection
•
the surrounding swamps were full of fish & waterfowl
•
reeds provided food for sheep / goats
•
reeds also were used as building resources
Sumerians
Around 3500 B.C. Sumerians began to settle in
the lower part of the Tigris-Euphrates river
First cities
▪ 3000 B.C. A
number of city
states have been
established
–Ur, Uruk and Eridu
with populations
ranging from 20250,000
Map
Map
Cities
▪ common culture, language and same
gods and goddesses
▪ rectangular in shape
▪ ziggurats
▪ usually governed independently from
others
▪ threat of foreign invaders led to
unification and kingships
▪ kings were military and religious
leaders (theocracy)
government
• early government was democratic, ruled by citizens
• as cities grew, more government and more protection
from outsiders was needed
• bravest citizen was selected as “lugal” or king…kingship
is born
– powers limited
– kings only served as kings for a short time in crisis then went
back to being a regular citizen
– as civilization and conflicts grow, kingship becomes
permanent
– each city-state has its own king and kings fought among other
12 Sumerian city-states to gain power over the entire area
Society
▪ male and female roles clearly defined
▪ men heads of households
▪ women could buy and sell property, own
businesses and slaves
▪ Importance of commerce and trade leads to
development of writing system -cuneiform
Writing
•
Greatest contribution of Mesopotamia to
western civilization was the invention of
writing
•
allowed the transmission of knowledge, the
codification of laws, records to facilitate
trade / farming
•
Sumerians wrote on wet clay tablets with
the point of a reed > then dried in the sun
to make a tablet
•
Scribes were only ones who could read and
write and served as priests, record keepers
and accountants
•
As society evolved, the first form of writing
was developed called CUNEIFORM
(meaning “wedge shaped”), dating to 3500
BC
•
Cuneiform spread to Persia and Egypt and
became the vehicle for the growth and
spread of civilization and the exchange of
ideas among cultures
Cuneiform: “Wedge-Shaped”
Writing
Cuneiform
Cuneiform
Cuneiform Writing
Deciphering Cuneiform
Cuneiform
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
• Gilgamesh is an ancient
story or epic written in
Mesopotamia more than
4000 years ago
• Gilgamesh is the first
known work of great
literature and epic poem
• Epic mentions a great flood
• Gilgamesh parallels the
Nippur Tablet, a sixcolumned tablet telling the
story of the creation of
humans and animals, the
cities and their rulers, and
the great flood
Gilgamesh Epic Tablet:
Flood Story
Religion
• Position of King was enhanced and
supported by religion
gods were worshipped at
huge temples called
ziggurats
Polytheistic religion consisting of
over 3600 gods and demigods
• Kingship believed to be created by
gods and the king’s power was
divinely ordained
• Belief that gods lived on the distant
mountaintops
• Each god had control of certain
things and each city was ruled by a
different god
Prominent Mesopotamian gods
•Enlil (supreme god & god of air)
•Ishtar (goddess of fertility & life)
•An (god of heaven)
•Enki (god of water & underworld)
•Shamash (god of sun and giver of law)
• Kings and priests acted as
interpreters as they told the people
what the god wanted them to do
(ie. by examining the liver or lungs
of a slain sheep)
The Sumerians believed they had been created to
serve their gods, and they served their gods with
sacrificial offerings. They believed that the gods
controlled the past and the future, that the gods had
revealed to them the skills that they possessed,
including writing, and that the gods had provided
them with all they needed to know. They had no
vision of their civilization having developed by
their own efforts. They had no vision of
technological or social progress.
http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch01.htm
religion
The Mesopotamians believed:
•The world was a flat disk that was surrounded by a
vast hollow space and that this was enclosed in an
over-arching heaven.
•The sea was all around the earth...top bottom and
sides.
•The universe had been born of these waters.
Daily menu for the god Anu at Uruk:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
12 vessels of wine 2 vessels of milk
108 vessels of beer
243 loaves of bread
29 bushels of dates
21 rams
2 bulls
l bullock
8 lambs
60 birds
3 cranes
Do not copy, interest only. I
7 ducks
found it interesting, anyway
4 wild boars
3 ostrich eggs
3 duck eggs
Ziggurat at Ur
 Temple
 “Mountain
of
the Gods”
Ziggurats
•
•
Ziggurat of Ur -2000BCE
•
•
•
•
Large temples dedicated to
the god of the city
Made of layer upon layer of
mud bricks in the shape of a
pyramid in many tiers
(due to constant flooding and
from belief that gods resided
on mountaintops)
Temple on top served as the
god’s home and was
beautifully decorated
Inside was a room for
offerings of food and goods
Temples evolved to zigguratsa stack of 1-7 platforms
decreasing in size from
bottom to top
Famous ziggurat was Tower
of Babel (over 100m above
ground and 91m base)
Science and innovations
▪ wagon wheel
▪ arch
▪ sundial
▪ potter's wheel
▪ number system (base 60)
▪ 12 month calendar
▪ bronze
Mesopotamian Harp
Board Game From Ur
Sophisticated Metallurgy
Skills
at Ur
Empires
Sargon Arsenault
▪ 2000s B.C.Sumerian city-states fall to foreign
invaders
▪ Akkadians
Sargon I (of Akkad) conquers
Sumer in the south and then north, uniting all city
states of Mesopotamia
–First empire builder (many different peoples, lands controlled by one ruler)
Kingdom of Ebla
resisted Sargon, but fell to his grandson and eventually to the
Amorites (Hyksos)
▪ Amorites destroy Ebla and continue south to
conquer Sumerian cities including Babylon, which
would be their new capital and name of their empire
Amorite Empire/Early Babylonian
▪ under Hammurabi, the sixth king of the
Babylonian dynasty, the entire Mesopotamian region
is brought under central control
▪ Appointed governors, tax collectors and judges to
control lands
▪ Babylon becomes major trade centre
Code of Hammurabi
•
To enforce his rule, Hammurabi collected all the laws of Babylon
in a code that would apply everywhere in the land
•
Most extensive law code from the ancient world (c. 1800 BC)
•
Code of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar placed near temples
for all to see.
•
Hammurabi Stone depicts Hammurabi as receiving his authority
from god Shamash
•
Set of divinely inspired laws; as well as societal laws
•
Punishments were designed to fit the crimes as people must be
responsible for own actions
•
Consequences for crimes depended on rank in society (ie. only
fines for nobility)
•
Established the idea that rule of law is an important part of
society.
Hittites (1600 B.C.)
• Hittites (pronounced
Hit ites) invaded from
Asia Minor and raided
Babylonia then went
home
– First to have iron
weapons
– Spoke wheeled
chariots
– Legal system
emphasized payment
over punishment
Assyria
• Assyrian Empire replaced Babylonian Empire
• Assyria located in hilly northern Mesopotamia
– Powerful horse and chariot army to protect lands
– Soldiers only ones with iron swords and spear tips
– Battering rams, ladders and tunnels to overcome
city walls
Sennacherib (son of Sargon II)
•
•
•
•
•
•
made Nineveh among the most splendid capitals
captured 46 cities in Palestine
captured 200,150 people
demanded massive tributes
totally destroyed Babylon
killed by his own sons
Esarhaddon (son of Sennacherib)
2Kings 19:37
And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that
Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into
the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
•
•
•
•
rebuilt Babylon in splendor
used diplomacy and words to secure borders rather
than terror
671 B.C. invaded Egypt because rest of lands were
secure
overtook Egypt in less than a month, conquered
Memphis (capital) in less than a day
Assyrian Empire
• 850-650 BC Assyrians conquer most of Fertile
Crescent
– Syria, Babylonia, Egypt, Israel
• Peak under Ashurbanipal
• Chose native kings , governors to rule
conquered lands
• Conquered rulers paid tribute
– No tribute led to destruction and exile
Enemies
• Assyrian cruelty led to increased enemies
– Exiled peoples tried to gather forces to fight
Assyrians
– Assyrians had to continuously put down revolts.
• Assyrian Empire falls in 609 B.C.
– Defeated by combined forces of the Medes and
Chaldeans
– Nineveh is burned to the ground
FYI
Why so unpopular?
• Ashurnasirpal (r. 884-860 B.C.): “I flayed the
chief men of the rebels and I covered the walls
with their skins. . . . Some of them were
enclosed alive within the bricks of the wall,
some were crucified with stakes along the wall
. . . From some of them I cut off their hands
and fingers, from others their noses and ears,
of many I put out their eyes.”
www.britannica.com
Assyrians
www.johnpratt.com
Neo (New) Babylonian Empire 612538 BC
• King Nebuchadnezzar
– Greatest Babylonian king
– Extended empire to greatest
limits
– Captured Jerusalem
– Built great wealth and turned
city of Babylon into one of
greatest cities in the world
www.about.com
Babylon
• Babylon home to two of
the Seven Wonders of
the Ancient World
• walls of Babylon
• hanging gardens of
Babylon
Persian Empire (550-331 BC)
• Persians and Medes
warriors and
cattle herders
• migrated from central Asia to modern day Iran
Cyrus: The Achaemenid Empire
• emerges as Persian leader and conquers the
Medes and Babylonian empire
– Benevolent ruler; allows Jews to return an rebuild
Solomon’s temple
– Organizes empire into satraps
• Son Cambyses conquers Egypt (525 BC)
• Son in Law Darius had the task of organizing
the vast empire
Darius (the Great)
• divided empire into twenty provinces
(satrapies)
• Governors (satraps) were Persian, minor
officials were locals
• Improved and expanded old Assyrian roads
• Dies in 486 BC while Empire is in conflict with
the meddlesome Greeks.
FYI Xerxes 486-465 BC et al.
• Continues war against the Greeks
– Setback at Thermopylae
– Disaster at Salamis
• Artaxerxes (son) sees gradual decline of Persian Empire
• Artaxerxes dies, his son Xerxes II murdered by his half
brother, Sogdianus. Only after a few weeks, he was murdered
by his another half brother Ochus. Ochus was one
of Artaxerxes' illegitimate sons. On ascending the throne he
changed his name from Ochus to Darius II. Indeed, his name
in Greek was Nothos meaning "bastard".
FYI Down and downer
• Darius II
– Peloponnesian War
alliance with Sparta
• Artaxerxes II
– Gradual decline
• Artaxerxes III
– Gradual decline
• Darius III
– Mano to mano with Alexander the Great
Religion
• Persians were tolerant of other beliefs and allowed
conquered peoples to keep own languages, religions
and laws.
• Zoroaster, a religious reformer, taught that world was
divided between good (Mazda and his angels) and
evil (Ahriman and his demons)
• Every good man was to side with Mazda and when
he died his good deeds would be weighed against his
bad deeds.