The Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia

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The Ancient Near East Mesopotamia Egypt
HIST1002 Tradition and Transformation in Western
History
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Ancient civilizations

• Mesopotamia (Tigris Euphrates Rivers)
• Egypt (Nile)
• (China Yellow River)
• (India Indus River)

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Ancient civilizations

• civitas (Latin) city
• Bronze Age
• Tin, copper, use of metal tools/weapons
• Mesopotamia
• 4,000 to 2,800 B.C.

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Mesopotamia location

• meso middle
• potamoi rivers
• between the rivers (Tigris Euphrates)
• The Tigris-Euphrates Valley was a long strip of
  fertile lowlands with a highland region to the
  Northeast and the Arabian Desert to the Southwest

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Mesopotamia

• Soil rich, because of flooding each year
• BUT, also uncertainty! wars
• Therefore insecure
• Many Gods polytheism

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Mesopotamia nature and threats

• In Sumer, the Sumerians were pessimistic
• Perhaps because of nature (violent
  unpredictable, with wars and flooding)
• (No matter how they tried, they could never
  really tame the unpredictable floods and Mother
  Nature!)
• sometimes, drought
• extreme contrasts (long weeks of blistering
  heat, then, torrential rain which caused floods)
• furious wind suffocating dust storms
• periodic conquests by nomadic peoples from the
  Northeast

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Mesopotamia gods

• Therefore, insecure helpless
• Many Gods of Nature (mountains, trees, rivers,
  stones, wind, sky, earth, sun, moon, etc.)
  invincible power
• Men were only play things and slaves to the
  gods.

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Mesopotamian literature

• Mesopotamian literature darkness gloom
• For example, Epic of Gilgamesh
• A powerful tragedy that describes a Sumerian
  heros courageous but fruitless search for
  immortality and includes an early version of the
  flood version

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Gilgamesh

• Gilgamesh (the hero)
• Love, conflict,
• friendship loyalty,
• joy sorrow,
• courage fear
• and ultimately, the horror of mystery of death

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Gilgamesh

• Gilgamesh, King of Uruk (at first, proud tyrant),
  then God Anu sent Enkidu (or Engidu) fought with
  Gilgamesh the two became inseparable friends
• Together, they fought against monsters
• Then, because Gilgamesh refused Goddess Ishtars
  love, thus, hatred, and Enkigu died
• Enkidu described afterlife dark and gloomy
• Many Gods (polytheism)

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Mesopotamia gods

• Chief deity Anu (sky god)
•  
• Earth Goddess Inanna (fertility)
• God of Storms Enlil (destruction, force,
  wildness, and violence)

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Mesopotamia Mathematics

• Numbers
• Decimal (10) system
• Decade 10 years
• Decameron (by Bocaccio)
•  
• also 6, 60, 600, 3600
• (12)
• (360)
•  
• weight measure
• addition subtraction
• fraction

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Mesopotamia Lunar calendar

• Ziggurats terraced temples (to heaven)
  architecture of clay-bricks (because stone and
  thick wood were scarce in Mesopotamia)
•  
• Sumerian writing temple scribes, wedge-shaped
  marks, inscribed on clay tablets, called
  cuneiform
•  
• Cuneus (Latin) wedge
•  
• So, History begins at Sumer
• (i.e., with written sources)

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Mesopotamia politics

• Hierarchy priests, nobles, freemen, peasants
  (majority)
• 2,370 to 2,230 B.C. Political unification under
  Akkadian King Sargon
•   then Northeast unrest again
• then, 2,100 B.C., Kingdom of Ur
• then, the Amorites from Syria built Babylon
• The Ablest of the Amorite kings of Babylon was
  Hammurabi (c. 1,792-1,750 B.C.) conquered all,
  thus, the Babylonian Empire
• Hammurabi created a political structure of
  exceptional efficiency

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Mesopotamia law

• Law Codes of Hammurabi based on a series of
  earlier shorter Sumerian codes and customs
• protected people
• Enforcement of the law made all men subject to
  know law
• reflected active complex commercial life
• harsh,
• a high degree of authoritarianism
• retributive justice (for example, an eye for
  an eye, a tooth for a tooth)

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Mesopotamia law

• 196 If a man destroys the eyes of another man,
  they shall destroy his eyes
• 197 If he breaks a mans bone, they shall break
  his bone
• 198 If a man knocks out a tooth of a man of his
  own rank, they shall knock out his tooth
• (Later, Hebrew laws, too, 24 Wherever hurt is
  done, you shall give life for life, eye for eye,
  tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
  burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for
  wound.)
• Then, about 1,750 to 1,550 B.C., Northern
  invasion again by the Indo-Europeans

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Egypt (??)

• The Egyptian civilization, centering on the Nile
  ???valley, developed around c. 4000B.C., and
  political unification
• c. 3200 B.C.
• Old Kingdom (c. 2850-2200 B.C.)
• Egyptian civilization
• Dignified, self-confident, optimistic
• (-----gtMesopotamia pessimistic)
• Perhaps ? political
• Stability continuity
• weather, climate, soil, Nile
•  
• Herodotus (????) ?????? Greek historian,

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• Egypt is the gift of the Nile
• Egyptian hymn Hail to thee, O Nile.
• Rich soil
• ?annual flooding (predictable)
• Famous for astronomy
• Solar calendar
• 365 days / year
• (more efficient than the lunar calendar of the
  Mesopotamian)
• numbers (1-9)

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Egypt

• Physiology
• Medicine (especially, surgery) (????)
• Sculpture
• Architecture pyramids???
•  
• The Old Kingdom
• c. 2700-2200 B.C.
• Middle Kingdom
• c. 2050-1800 B.C.

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Indo-European Invasion

• c. 1750-1550 B.C.
• The Hyksos brought horses and chariots into
  Egypt (new military techniques)

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New Kingdom

• c. 1550-1150B.C.
• under Akhnaton (pharaoh???), c. 1379-1361 B.C.
  almost monotheism
• Monotheism, the belief in one God, is a system
  we take for granted today, but for thousands of
  years, polytheism, the belief in many Gods, was
  much more common (or normal). We tend to think
  of polytheism, it provided the fundamentals of
  religion explanation. In fact, in some ways it
  did it better, for a polytheistic system, there
  is no need to explain the existence of evil, or
  why God lets the wicked prosper and the good
  suffer.

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To Aton

• Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of
  heaven,
• Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
• O sole god, like whom there is no other!
• Thou didst create the world according to thy
  desire.

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To Aton

• Akhnaton deliberately rejected other gods had a
  new god (a single, all-powerful, merciful
  creator)
• the Aton
• a solar disc
• god of all men,
• god of the universe
• creator of the world
• essence of maat (truth)

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To Aton

• O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou
  didst create the world according to thy desire
  whilst thou wert alone.
• Theological revolution?
• Or political?
• trying to destroy the ever-increasing power of
  priesthood?
• BUT once Akhnaton died,
• Egypt ? back to polytheism
• Yet, Atons theory probably had influenced the
  Hebrews who were then slaves in Egypt.

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• Universe orderly benevolent
• Maat truth, justice, harmony, balance,
  righteousness
• Re sun-god
• ( pharaoh ??? is a living god)
• Osiris a great benevolent pharaoh god killed
  by a brother, but miraculously resurrected by
  Isis (sister? Wife - magical)
• ?theme of death resurrection
• perhaps ? vegetation cycle (4 seasons) Nature
  ???

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Mesopotamia and Egypt Similarities
Mesopotamia Egypt
1. River-Valleys Euphrates Tigris Nile
2. Agriculture Rich soil ?floods Rich soil ?floods
3. Kings priests Pharaohs priests
4. Weather / environment / nature Weather / environment / nature
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Mesopotamia and Egypt Differences
Mesopotamia Egypt
Kinder floods annually Winds softer Sky clearer
Open to attack Surrounding deserts protection from outside invasion ?political stability
?insecure ?secure, confident, pragmatic
Pessimistic Optimistic
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Mesopotamia and Egypt Differences
Mesopotamia Egypt
?confident affirmation of life life after death ?elaborate burial procedure e.g. mummification (???) pyramids (???)
Polytheism (more natural or much easier to explain ancient happenings)