Transcript Mesopotamia “the land between the rivers”

Mesopotamia
“the land between the rivers”
Key Terms
City-state: Each Sumerian city was considered a state; each state consisted of a city
surrounded by farm land.
Ziggurat: Meaning “Mountain of God,” A ziggurat was a Sumerian temple.
Cuneiform: Sumerian writing made up of markings shaped like wedges.
Priest-kings: Sumerian priests were originally kings of their city-state. However, in
time, kingship became hereditary.
Empire: Group of states under one ruler.
Reform: Improvement.
Geography
About 9,000 years ago, wandering tribes
settled in the river valley between the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
This area, also known as the “Fertile
Crescent”, is now part of the countries of
Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.
The northern region was a plateau with a
mild climate while the southern region had
a hot climate
 The plains were flooded each year by the two
rivers making the soil fertile and creating valuable
farmland.
Sumer
Sumerian civilization is the oldest known on earth.
For the first time, people began to control their
environment.
When the rivers flooded each spring, they
increased the natural levees to control flooding.
In the summer, they poked holes in the levees,
which created natural canals, which were used
to irrigate their crops.
The Sumerians grew barley, wheat, sesame, flax, fruit
trees, date palms, and vegetables, and they
domesticated cattle, sheep, goats and pigs
Cities
Each Sumerian city was a city-state.
Houses and public buildings were made of
bricks made from mud and crushed reeds.
Each city was surrounded by a high wall with a
bronze gate, built for protection from invaders.
The cities had narrow winding streets leading
from the gates to the center of the city.
At the center of each Sumerian city was a
ziggurat.
Near the center were the houses of the upper class:
priests and merchants. Houses were two stories and
had balconies which looked out over courtyards.
Behind them were the one-story homes of the middle
class: government officials, shopkeepers, artisans.
These were also built around courtyards.
Farther out were the houses of the lower class: farmers,
fishermen, and unskilled workers.
The husband was the head of the household, could sell
or rent his wife and children as slaves for up to three
years, and arranged the marriages of his children.
Women could buy and sell property, run businesses,
and own and sell slaves.
Children were expected to support their parents when
they became old, and to obey older family members.
City plans for Babylon
“Floor plan” of a city
Cities were surrounded by walls.
City walls were functional and
decorative….
Ceremonial or main gate
This is the Ishtar gate of Babylon
Government
They set up governments to organize their system of
irrigation, to make laws, and to plan cities.
At first, Sumerian priests were also the kings of the citystates.
Sumerian priest-kings received advice from an assembly
made up of free men, who would choose a military
leader to serve during a war.
Eventually, military leaders stayed in charge and
became the kings.
At the same time, kingship became hereditary.
Gilgamesh of Uruk was a very famous priest-king.
One tale written about him around 1700 BC is the oldest
known story in the world.
Writing
The priests ran schools called “tablet houses”.
Their main purpose was to teach students how to write.
They wrote with sharp-ended reeds on clay tablets.
Their writing was called “cuneiform” which means
“wedge-shaped”.
Schools were only for the sons of the rich.
When a student graduated from school, he became a
scribe and could work for the temple, the palace, the
government, the army, a merchant, or set up his own
business as a public writer.
Cuneiform
Scribes drew the sign on
soft clay tablets using a
pointed tool, probably
made out of a reed.
A reed stylus was the
main writing tool used
by Mesopotamian
scribes
At first they used pictures to represent
objects, then ideas, and later, syllables.
Knowledge of cuneiform was lost
until AD 1835, when Henry
Rawlinson, an English army
officer, found some inscriptions on
a cliff (shown above) at Behistun
in Persia. Carved in the reign of
King Darius of Persia (522-486
BC), they consisted of identical
texts in three languages: Old
Persian, Babylonian and
Elamite. After translating the
Persian, Rawlinson began to
decipher the others. By 1851 he
could read 200 Babylonian signs
What does it say?
(part of this says….)
Sargon, mighty king, king of Agade, am I.
My mother was a high priestess, my father I
knew not;
My father's brothers live in the mountains;
My city is Azupiranu, situated on the banks
of the Euphrates
My mother, the high priestess, conceived
me, in secret she bore me;
She placed me in a basket of rushes, she
sealed the lid with bitumen;
She cast me into the river which did not rise
over me;
The river bore me up and carried me to
Aqqi, the water-drawer.
Aqqi, the water-drawer, lifted me out as he
dipped his bucket;
Aqqi, the water-drawer, adopted me,
brought me up;
Aqqi, the water-drawer, set me up as his
gardener.
As a gardener, Ishtar, loved me;
For 55 years I ruled as king.
Gudea of Lagash
The inscription extends over part of the right shoulder and onto the left side of
the robe. The upper part, the cartouche, gives the name of the ruler, while the
lower, main text speaks of the reasons for the creation of this particular statue.
The text translates as follows:
Gudea, city ruler of
Lagash, built to
Geshtinanna, the queen
a-azi-mu-a, the beloved
wife of Ningishzida, his
queen, her temple in
Girsu. He created for her
[this] statue. "She granted
the prayer," he gave it a
name for her and brought
it into her temple.
Cuneiform numbers
Cuneiform numbers were written using a combination of two signs:
a vertical wedge for “1” and a corner wedge for “10”.
Remember, their number system was based on 60.
They also invented decimals and fractions!
1
5
9
13
17
30
2
3
4
6
7
8
10
11
12
14
18
40
15
19
50
16
20
60
Some variants
for 4
Fractions
1/2
for 7
1/3
for 8
2/3
5/6
Larger Numbers
For writing numbers greater than 60, they just
repeated the symbols in different columns, just
as we do, except that where for us a '1' in the
'tens' column means 10, for the Babylonians
a in the 'sixties' column meant 60. Each
column increased the value of the number by a
factor of 60, and the Babylonians wrote their
numbers with the largest values to the left, just
as we do. Here are some examples of larger
cuneiform numbers. See if you can figure out
what they represent.
1,15
16,43
44,26,40
75
1003
160000
Religion
The Sumerians believed that the forces of nature
were gods.
They had more than 3000 gods.
Humans were made from the mud of the rivers
to be the servants of the gods.
The goal of each Sumerian was to please the
gods so that their crops would grow.
The priests were very powerful because only
they knew the will of the gods, and they
controlled and administered the land in the
name of the gods.
Ziggurats
Ziggurat: Meaning “Mountain of God,” A ziggurat
was a Sumerian temple.
Each ziggurat was made up of a series of
square levels, each being smaller than the one
below it.
Stairways led to the top, which was believed to
be the home of the city’s chief god.
Only priests could enter the home of the god.
Around the ziggurat were the courts where
artisans worked, children went to school, goods
were stored, the poor were fed, and great events
were celebrated.
Ziggurats
Tower of Babel?
Ziggurat for Marduk
Tower of Babel
Later Empires
About 2400 BC, new civilizations began to develop in Mesopotamia as
other conquerors moved in.
About 2400 BC, new civilizations began to
develop in Mesopotamia as other
conquerors moved in.
About 2300 BC, Sargon I from
Akkad in northern
Mesopotamia moved south
and began to conquer the citystates of Sumer, and then
united them with Akkad,
creating the first empire. He
extended his empire to include
all of Mesopotamia. Sargon’s
empire lasted for more than 50
years, and fell apart shortly
after his death.
Babylon….
…..the city of Hammurabi
In 1800 BC, people called Amorites entered the river
valley and built cities of their own.
One of these cities was Babylon.
The king of Babylon, Hammurabi, conquered Akkad and
Sumer and created a new empire.
His empire extended to the Mediterranean Sea.
Babylon became a center of trade – they traded their
surplus for gold and silver with countries as far away as
India and China.
After Hammuarabi’s death, the empire declined and was
again divided into city-states.
The Code of Hammurabi
Hammurabi is best known for
his Code of Law
He took the best laws from the
codes of the various city-states
and created one code which
everyone in the empire was to
live by.
He appointed royal judges to
make sure his laws were
carried out justly.
Written on a large slab of
stone, the code explained
specific crimes and
their required punishments
His code covered almost everything in daily life
282 laws in all
Punishments ranged from fines to death... there
were no prisons
Most were “Eye for an eye” and included death,
disfigurement, and torture
The upper-class were punished more severely
than middle/lower classes.
A person was innocent until proven guilty
One of the goals was that the strong may not
oppress the weak.
Some examples……
1 If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not
prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
6 If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be
put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from
him shall be put to death.
8
If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it
belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold; if they
belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief
has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.
25 If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out
cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take
the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that
self-same fire.
53 If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does
not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded,
then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money,
and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be
ruined.
54 If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions
shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.
55 If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and
the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his
neighbor corn for his loss.
56 If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of his
neighbor, he shall pay ten gur of corn for every ten gan of land.
196 If a (noble) man put out the eye of another (noble) man, his eye shall
be put out. [ An eye for an eye ]
197 If he break another (noble) man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
198 If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed
man, he shall pay one gold mina.
199 If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's
slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
200 If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked
out. [ A tooth for a tooth ]
201 If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a
gold mina.
202 If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall
receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
203 If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal
rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
209 If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child,
he shallpay ten shekels for her loss.
210 If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
195 If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
110 If a “sister of a god” (nun) open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink,
then this woman be burned to death.
229 If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it
properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner,
then that builder shall be put to death.
230 If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to
death.
231 If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to
the owner of the house.
232 If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been
ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house
which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own
means.
Contributions
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Mesopotamia is known as the “cradle of civilization”
Sumerian civilization is the oldest known on Earth.
The oldest written records known are Sumerian, and
cuneiform became the model for other people’s writing
systems.
The Sumerians were the first to write down their laws
They invented the wheel, the plow, sailboat, chisel,
saw, lever, pulley.
They developed a number system based on 60 (60 sec.
minute/60 min. hour/360 degree circle)
They developed a decimal system.