Transcript ANT/HIST 500

ANT/HIST 500
The Ancient City
Day 5
Mesopotamia
From Ur to the Iron Age
Bronze Age
• Early Bronze Age: 2900-2000 BC
• Middle Bronze Age: 2000-1600 BC
• Late Bronze Age: 1600-1200 BC
• Not really used in reference to
Mesopotamia, but in Levant
Mesopotamia Polity
• Expansion and Recession of Social
Complexity
• Noticeable as rise of territorial states and
regression to city states
• Third Dynasty of Ur ca. 2100-1950 BC
• City States until Hammurabi & rise of
Babylon around 1800 BC
Mesopotamia Polity
• Hammurabi & Babylon: Babylon is a minor
city state before 1800 BC; not mentioned
in earlier texts
• Hammurabi consolidates Old Babylonian
Empire
• Babylon will be central to southern
Mesopotamia, hereafter known as
Babylonia
Ishtar Gate, Babylon
Code of Hammurabi
• Law codes are common
before Hammurabi as well
• Written on stele as act of
propaganda to show how
merciful a ruler he was
•
If any one bring an accusation of any crime before
the elders, and does not prove what he has charged,
he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to
death.
•
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.
Mesopotamia Polity
• Participation in global system of economic
and social contacts
• Some societies considered “equal,” such
as Egypt, the Hittites, and other
Mesopotamian states such as Mari and
Assyria
• At its peak in Late Bronze Age
Mesopotamia Economy
• Global trade in luxury goods and food
products
• Mesopotamia had a thriving textile
industry, pottery, jewelry
• Imports included Lapis Lazuli (a jewel)
from Afghanistan, wine and olive oil from
southern Levant, wood from Turkey and
Lebanon, spices from Arabia, among other
societies such as Egypt and Mycenae
Mesopotamia Economy
• The “Basic” economy stayed much the
same as before, with food and most
manufactured products being produced
locally
• Stratification intensifies
• “Amnesties” required through 3rd and 2nd
Millennium; custom largely disappears by
Iron Age
Mesopotamia Culture
• Religion continues with minor elaboration
(examples)
• Major exception: Enuma Elish, written
perhaps as early as Hammurabi, creates
the theological justification for the rise of
Babylon and its patron god, Marduk
• Why did Babylon need such justification?
Mesopotamia Culture
Ziggurat at Ur
Mesopotamia Culture
Mesopotamia Culture
ca. 2500 BC
Mesopotamia Culture
Inanna (Sumerian)/Ishtar (Akkadian)
Mesopotamia Environment
Mesopotamia Environment
Mesopotamia Environment