Transcript Mesopotamian Civilization

Mesopotamian Civilization
Primary Phase: lower TigrisEuphrates 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
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– Sumer and Akkad: eventually form Babylon
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Earliest human occupation
– ca. 7000-6000 B.C.
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archaeologists detect several
different phases
– settlement: from north to south, downriver
Mesopotamia
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”
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– (lugals)
who fought more or
constantly
 over land and
water-rights
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less
Political organization, con’t
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
Sargon of Akkad
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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
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dynasty ruled until 2200 B.C.
Sargon the
Great
King of
Akkad
Third Dynasty of Ur
Sumerian renaissance
 claim to be kings of Sumer and
Akkad
 influence on northern TigrisEuphrates
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Ur III , con’t
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, 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, con’t
the temple form: ziggurat
 a sort of “step-temple”
 usually seven layers,
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– 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. 1200…only partially surviving
Ziggarut of king Ur-Nammu,
The ziggarut at Ur
from a city wall
ziggurat of Choga Zambil, ca. 1250 B.C
The ziggarut at Ur
Sculpture
crude and primitive
 clay, not stone
 metal sculpture and
jewelry more
sophisticated
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Frontpiece
Gold
lapislazuli
Harp
wood
Cylinder Seal
Goat in a
tree...
Lady-inwaiting
to the
Queen of
Ur
Sacrificed
and
buried
with the
Queen at
the time
of her
death
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 wedgeshaped stick
 cuneiform (“wedge-shaped writing”)
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Cuneiform, con’t
evolved from use of simple symbols
 eventually became
conventionalized abstract shapes
 used first for business, trade,
records
 “literature” came later....
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Partial text of Hammurabi’s law code
Tokens…for games?
Game board with counters: Ur
Bullae
with
tokens
token
shapes
pressed
into the
outside
of each
“flattened-out” bulla = a tablet
A ‘rebus’
*-)::;
--more
What does this one say?
Two extra points on the first test for the first person to
figure it out….
Evolution of
symbols from
simple line
drawings to
cuniform
Fully developed
cuniform tablet
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
Agriculture, con’t
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”
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• Ex. Yahweh as the “god of Abraham”
Religion, con’t
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, con’t
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
Goddess
figure
northern
Mesopotamia
fertility? Or
water
goddess?
Skirt
decorated
with fish
and
stylized
water
centerpiece
in a
fountain
Religion: the afterlife
cold and dark
 believed in ghosts of dead relatives
 demons
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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, con’t
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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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Hammurabi
most successful leader
 king of the Amorites
 a Semitic people
 ruler of Babylon
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Hammurabi, con’t
sixth king of Babylon, of his line
 1800’s B.C.
 ruled for 43 years
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Hammurabi, con’t
capable administrator
 legal reformer
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– (Hammurabi’s Law Code)
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military leader
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.
Hammurabi rule
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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
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similar to later Old Testament stories
– Yahweh assumes the place of El and of
Baal
Changes during the era of
Hammurabi
development of agriculture
 trade and commerce
 private enterprise
 private property
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Changes, con’t.
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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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: farmer’s almanacs
 medicine, divination, astronomy,
math, astrology, etc.
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Literature, con’t
taught in temple schools
 to scribes and priests
 we do not know the percentage of
literacy
 probably fairly small
 Epic of Gilgamesh
 the first piece of literature
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Questions about Life
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the Epic of Gilgamesh
– containing everything from the
original flood story
– Tried to live forever, in the end he had
to face the fact that he was a mortal.
Elements of Literature
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setting (time) · 2700 b.c.
setting (place) · Mesopotamia
protagonist · Gilgamesh, king of Uruk
major conflict · Gilgamesh struggles to avoid death.
rising action · In the first half of the poem, Gilgamesh bonds with
his friend Enkidu and sets out to make a great name for himself. In
doing so, he incurs the wrath of the gods.
climax · Enkidu dies.
falling action · Bereft by the loss of his friend, Gilgamesh
becomes obsessed with his own mortality. He sets out on a quest
to find Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah who received eternal
life from the gods, in the hope that he will tell him how he too can
avoid death.
themes · Love as a motivating force; the inevitability of death; the
gods are dangerous
Gilgamesh and
mythical
animals
Mesopotamian Empires
1800-600 BCE
More books to read
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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
More good books to read
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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