Download Mesopotamian laws brought stability to the region

Mesopotamian laws brought stability to the region. The first official
laws were created during the reign of Babylonian King Hammurabi. His
laws seemed to be based on a principle of punishments resembling their
crime know as the law of retaliation. A record of a court case between a
noble and a peasant would show bias between higher and lower social
statuses. A map of the Mesopotamian levee system (document 6) supports
the dependence on agriculture. Thus examining sections from the code of
Hammurabi (document 5) there were laws in place to regulate agricultural
interactions. Another example would be provided by tablet inscription of
Queen Shagshag (document 3) indicating 150 slave women, which were
regulated by civil laws. All of these laws that were put into place caused the
society to flourish.
Religion played an important role in Mesopotamian society.
Mesopotamians believed in many gods. “Nergal pulled out the dams of the
nether waters, Ninurta the war-lord threw down the dykes, and the seven
judges of hell, the Annunaki raised their torches…” This excerpt from the
Epic of Gilgamesh shows that not only were several gods worshipped but
that each god represented a different nature. There were also temples built
which honored a certain dieity. People would go to one of the temples to
honor a god. Mesopotamians held rituals organized by priests in honor of the
gods. The article on domestic staff of the Temple Goddess shows how there
would be slaves making foods for certain gods. Overall gods were soon as
good in ancient society, but this is found bias because according to the
Excerpt from the Sumerian Epic the Lord of Gods cause the terrible storm.
This shows how gods punished and didn’t act towards the good of the
people. It would have been useful to have an article on rituals honoring gods.
because it would have given us a better idea of how important the gods were.
Culture was the basis of society, so many elements contribute to it.
Agriculture was the base of everything. Development of agriculture led to
specialization. This was where people could focus on other projects besides
agriculture, such as pottery, metallurgy, and expanding trade. Ways of
forging iron were improved with specialization. This led to the use of iron
in weapons. With the weapons, city states attacked one another to gain
wealth. Quotes “Gilgamesh…built a wall around the city to make it safe
against attack.” (Doc 1) Yet another example of thee Mesopotamian culture
is their reliance on water. They used levee systems to transport water form
the rivers to the crops. Evidence such as (doc 3) shows the land of ancient
Mesopotamia. Additional records of ancient laws in the Code of
Hammurabi showed the importance of water and laws, as well as
consequence associated with it. Mesopotamian culture was somewhat
similar to ours today. The tablet inscription of Queen Shangshag’s domestic
staff shows how Mesopotamians value such things as health, entertainment,
and personal appearance. This table inscription of Queen Shangshag’s could
be found bias due to the fact that women did not have the same level of
power as men. A male priest would have had more staff and wealth. It
would have been nice to have an extra document as a journal entry that
would help depict daily life.