Mesopotamian Civilization

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Mesopotamian Civilization

• Primary Phase lower Tigris-Euphrates river
  valley
• Persian gulf to modern Baghdad
• habitable area app. 10,000 sq... miles
• bottom 1/3 of the river valley

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Mesopotamia 3 parts

• Sumer
• Akkad
• Sumer and Akkad eventually form Babylon
• Earliest human occupation
• ca. 7000-6000 B.C.
• archaeologists detect several different phases
• settlement from north to south, downriver

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Mesopotamia
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Proto-literate Period

• ca. 3500-3100 B.C.
• most characteristics of Mesopotamia have
  developed
• towns and cities
• rudimentary system of writing and metal
  technology
• temple architecture

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The Early Dynastic Period

• ca. 3100 B.C.
• the Sumerians
• not the first inhabitants
• arrived by sea ??

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Sumerian language

• unique
• unrelated to any known language
• but we cannot read it

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Pre-Sumerian element

• Semites?
• continues to survive
• but dominated by Sumerians
• until 2350 B.C., more or less

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Political organization

• city-states
• ruled by kings
• (lugals)
• who fought more or less
  constantly
• over land and
  water-rights

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Political organization, cont

• territorial acquisition by conquest
• gradual incorporation and civilizing of Semites
• ca. 2350 B.C., Semites become dominant

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Map of ancient Nippur
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Sargon of Akkad

• name means True King
• first empire in history
• first personality in history
• legendary figures
• Miracle birth, evil king, baby-in-a basket, found
  eventually becomes the leader of his people
• The original story from which all others are
  copied
• dynasty ruled until 2200 B.C.

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Sargon the Great King of Akkad
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Third Dynasty of Ur

• Sumerian renaissance
• claim to be kings of Sumer and Akkad
• influence on northern Tigris-Euphrates

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Ur III , cont

• provinces, with royal governors
• moved regularly
• kings claim to be divine, unlike earlier kings
• Ur-Nammu most significant
• built a great city and issued a code of laws

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Collapse of Ur III

• civilization over 1,000 years old
• but much of what developed survives into modern
  times
• math, time-keeping, beer (!!!), astronomy,
  astrology, medicine, etc.

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Sources of Information

• archaeological remains
• texts stone, metal, clay, tablets
• cloths, art, etc.
• remember our archaeological lesson ?

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Problems

• evidence not equal for all times and all places
• hard to interpret
• but some things can be known

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Architecture

• lack stone and wood
• use sun-dried brick
• resulting in a somewhat ruined state of things
• focal point of the city the Temple complex
• successive temples built on the same holy spot

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Architecture, cont

• the temple form ziggurat
• a sort of step-temple
• usually seven layers,
• with a shrine on top
• a magic mountain
• a landing place for the god/goddess

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The great ziggarut at the city of Ur ca.
1200only partially surviving
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Ziggarut of king Ur-Nammu,
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The ziggarut at Ur from a city wall
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ziggurat of Choga Zambil, ca. 1250 B.C
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The ziggarut at Ur
For an extra 2 points on the first test, tell me
the first year in which this photo could have
been taken. First person only. Think like an
historian...
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Sculpture

• crude and primitive
• clay, not stone
• metal sculpture and jewelry more
  sophisticated

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Front-piece Harp
Gold lapis-lazuli wood
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Cylinder Seal
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Goat in a tree...
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Lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Ur
Sacrificed and buried with the Queen at the time
of her death
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Clay tablets

• writing medium
• religious texts to contracts
• with written texts we enter History
• documents as insights into peoples thoughts
• as well as records

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Cuneiform Writing

• different from modern scripts
• written on damp clay with a wedge-shaped stick
• cuneiform (wedge-shaped writing)

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Cuneiform, cont

• evolved from use of simple symbols
• rebus theory
• eventually became conventionalized abstract
  shapes
• used first for business, trade, records
• literature came later....

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Partial text of Hammurabis law code
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Tokensfor games?
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Game board with counters Ur
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Bullae with tokens token shapes pressed into the
outside of each
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flattened-out bulla a tablet
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A rebus

-)
--more
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What does this one say?
Two extra points on the first test for the first
person to figure it out.
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Evolution of symbols from simple line drawings to
cuniform
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Fully developed cuniform tablet
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Agriculture

• grain, mostly barley, planted in the fall
• land prepared by hand tools and intensive labor
• irrigated by complex system
• harvest in the spring
• the whole community helps with planting,
  harvesting, etc.

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Development of irrigation systems
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Agriculture, cont

• average crop 25 to 30 bushels per acre
• land controlled by large, temple corporations

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Bureaucracy

• fundamental to efficiency
• necessary for urban living and for the temple
  corporation
• and the civil government

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Social Classes

• freemen
• priest, aristocrats and warriors, commoners
• slaves

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Religion

• polytheistic
• hundreds of deities
• each usually had a special function
• but you could have your own, special god
• to get lucky translates as to get a god
• Ex. Yahweh as the god of Abraham

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Religion, cont

• ancient religion (and modern) is contractual
  quid pro quo
• Nippur was the religious center of Mesopotamia
• major deities associate with major heavenly
  bodies
• and with specific cities

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Religion, cont

• gods and humans were similar
• but gods were more powerful and immortal
• gods were the masters
• humans were the slaves
• gods were ill-tempered, erratic, and very
  dangerous

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Worshippers from the ziggarut at Ur
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Goddess figure northern Mesopotamia fertility?
Or water goddess?
Skirt decorated with fish and stylized
water centerpiece in a fountain
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Religion the afterlife

• cold and dark
• believed in ghosts of dead relatives
• demons

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Literature began in Sumer

• priests began to try to explain the how and why
  of things
• creation stories Enuma Elish and other stories
• flood stories Utnapishtim (etc.)
• practical works farmers almanacs
• medicine, divination, astronomy, math, astrology,
  etc.

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Literature, cont

• Epic of Gilgamesh
• the first piece of literature
• dealing with comic questions
• more later

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Literacy

• taught in temple schools
• to scribes and priests
• we do not know the percentage of literacy
• probably fairly small

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Ur III, collapse

• assaults of peripherial peoples
• internal localism
• desires for independence

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Hammurabi

• most successful leader
• king of the Amorites
• a Semitic people
• ruler of Babylon

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Hammurabi, cont

• sixth king of Babylon, of his line
• 1800s B.C.
• ruled for 43 years

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Hammurabi, cont

• capable administrator
• legal reformer
• (Hammurabis Law Code)
• military leader

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The Law Code

• his most famous achievement
• fusion of Sumerian and Semitic customs and usages
• designed to render justice
• that is, what a person deserved
• what is appropriate to the circumstance

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An example of columns (stelae), which were set up
in public places, on which were inscribed the
laws of Hammurabi. Hammurabi receiving the
law from the God Shamash, who lives on a
mountain. Predates the Moses story by over one
thousand years, and is probably the model for it.
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His rule

• to legitimize a revision of traditional theology
• substitution of Babylonian Marduk
• for the older Sumerian god Enlil
• in a new version of the Enuma Elish
• common practice in the ancient world
• similar to later Old Testament stories
• Yahweh assumes the place of El and of Baal

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The Enuma Elish

• describes the creation of the universe
• in a system based on sevens
• the first three generations gods of water,
  earth, sky
• next three gods of moving things
• finally Marduk make man so the gods can rest

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The Enuma Elish, cont

• corresponds with early Hebrew stories
• with which you are more familiar
• which are much later, derived from Sumerian
  models
• creation based on a system of sevens
• corresponding to the creation story in Genesis

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Changes during the era of Hammurabi

• development of agriculture
• trade and commerce
• private enterprise
• private property

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Changes, cont.

• writing more widely adopted (cunieform)
• algebra and astronomy were developed
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• the first tragic hero
• earlier edition of many Genesis stories

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Questions about Life

• the Epic of Gilgamesh
• containing everything from the original flood
  story
• to the tree of life
• stolen by a serpent

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Gilgamesh and mythical animals
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Mesopotamian Empires1800-600 BCE
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More books to read

• The Cambridge Ancient History
• J.N. Postgate. Early Mesopotamia Society and
  Economy at the Dawn of History
• Samuel Noah Kramer. The Sumerians Their History,
  Culture, and Character.
• A. Leo Oppenheim. Ancient Mesopotamia Portrait
  of a Dead Civilizastion.
• A. Bernard Knapp. The History and Culture of
  Ancient Western Asia and Egypt
• Jean Bottero. Mesopotamia Writing, Reasoning,
  and the Gods
• J.B. Pritchard. Ancient Near Eastern Texts
  Relating to the Old Testament
• J.B. Pritchard. The Ancient Near East, 2 vols.,
  An anthology of Texts and Pictures

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More good books to read

• Robert M. Seltzer. Religions of Antiquity
• Guy E. Swanson. The Birth of the Gods
• Alexander Heidel. The Babylonian Genesis
• Maureen Gallery Kovacs. The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Hans J. Nissen. The Early History of the Ancient
  Near East
• Georges Roux. Ancient Iraq
• Robert M. Seltzer. Religions of Antiquity
• Ancient Religions bibliography online
• www.etsu.edu/cas/history/religionbib.htm