Transcript document

Ancient Mesopotamia
Presented by
Md. Rabiul Islam Rabi
Senior Lecturer, GED
Northern University Bangladesh
E-mail: [email protected]
Cell: 01712-541463
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Ancient Mesopotamia
Introduction
Mesopotamian civilization is one of the ancient
civilizations.
"Mesopotamia" is derived from two Greek terms
mesos, meaning ‘middle’ and potamoi,
‘rivers’, so the name literally means ‘land
between the rivers.’
Mesopotamia was geographically located
between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,
largely corresponding to modern Iraq.
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Ancient Mesopotamia
The Sumerians
The first true civilization on planet earth (of which we
are aware) developed in Mesopotamia, and the
people who built this first civilization are known as the
Sumerians.
Ironically, little more than a century ago, nothing was
known of the Sumerians.
The first civilization in history had been lost to history.
Slowly, over the past hundred years, and largely due to
the efforts of the Universities of Chicago and
Pennsylvania, the puzzle has been slowly pieced
together.
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Ancient Mesopotamia
Government
Sumerians tradition tells the story of a long period of
prosperity and a well developed orderly society.
Sumerian civilization were not ruled under a definite central
government most often.
City states were emerged taking a few cities. Main cities
among these were Ur, Lagash, Umma, and Nippur. These
divided city states were Free and self dependent.
The chief of the city state were called the Patesti .
He was the Priest, chief of the military, and the chief of
irrigation and agricultural system.
Patesti can not be said the king but the chief of the City state.
Any powerful ruler may combined the City states into a
single empire. This was how a united government
administration established in the Sumerian civilization.
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Sumer, 3200-2350 B.C.
Sargon’s Empire, 23502320 B.C.
Reign of Hammurapi of Babylon,
The Dynasty of Ur,
2100-2000 B.C.
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Sumerians City States
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Characteristics of Sumerians City states
ALWAYS IN CONSTANT CONFLICT
OVER WATER RIGHTS AND LAND
 CREATED WALLS FOR PROTECTION,
WITH MOATS ALONG THE OUTSIDE
 FARMS WERE LOCATED ALONG THE
OUTSIDE OF THE CITY.
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Ancient Mesopotamia
Sumerian Society
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The Sumerian society can be divided into
three groups. They are The Elite class,
The Middle class and
The lowest class.
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The rulers, the Priests, The Imperial advisors
and all the officers were in the elite class.

The doctors, the teachers, Small businessmen,
landowners and all the labors were in the
middle class.
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All types of the slaves were in the lowest class.
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Ancient Mesopotamia
Sumerian Culture
The most important contribution of the Sumerians were
in their writing system which is known as Cuneiform.
Different designs or signs represents different symbols
were developed into graphs representing people,
animals, plants temples, gods and cities.
They preserved the symbols after burning the plate of
mud. The cuneiform was not universal written system
because it was very difficult.
It was limited among the activities of the Priests and the
officials.
Though they introduced the written system, they failed to
invent a particular alphabet.
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF CUNEIFORM:
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CUNEIFORM: The Sumerian
writing system during the early
periods was constantly in flux.
The original direction of writing
was from top to bottom, but for
reasons unknown, it changed to
left-to-right very early on
(perhaps around 3000 BCE).
This also affected the orientation
of the signs by rotating all of
them 90° counterclockwise.
Another change in this early
system involved the "style" of
the signs. The early signs were
more "linear" in that the strokes
making up the signs were lines
and curves. But starting after
3000 BC, these strokes started
to evolve into wedges, thus
changing the visual style of the
signs from linear to "cuneiform".
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Cuneiform alphabet
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Sumerian Mythology
Sumerian religion were mainly nature worship. They
had the faith that every Gods had particular
characteristics.
They thought that man has been created for the prayer
of gods. Their main gods were Shamash, Enlil,
Eshtar, Nargal, and Enki.
According to their thought Shamash was the source of
light and temperature.
Other gods were the sources of various opportunities
such as rainfall, protection of flood, land fertility, wind
etc. The main temple was called the Ziggurat.
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Sumerian Ziggurat
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Shamash
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The Babylonians
Over the centuries the ability of the "Kings of Sumer
and Akkad" to maintain order in Mesopotamia
gradually weakened, a new tribe of Semites began to
descend into the Euphrates Valley, just as the
Akkadians had done under Sargon.
These were the Amorites from Syria near the
Mediterranean. They seized the city of Babylon,
which is about 50 miles south of Baghdad, the
current capital of Iraq.
The Amorites established their capital and their king,
thereby establishing what historians know as the Old
Babylonian Empire.
Eleven kings would occupy the throne of Babylon, and
the sixth of these was Hammurabi.
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Sargon of Akkad unifies
Mesopotamia: world’s first
empire, ca. 2240 B.C.
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Akkadians rise to dominance
 Semitic speaking people from
“upstream”
 Kingdom centered at Akkad
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 Near
the site of the later city of Babylon
2,300 BCE – Sargon conquers the
Sumerians
 Establishes a 200 years empire
 External attack and internal weakness
end the dynasty
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Hammurabi:
Hammurabi reigned from 1792-1750 B.C. His name
means "My father, the Amorite."
From the new-fortified city of Babylon, Hammurabi
moved south into the Sumerian cities, which had been
occupied by a militant tribe known as the Elamites,
who had moved in from the eastern mountains.
For thirty years he waged war against these hill
people. When he was finally victorious, Babylon
achieved such pre-eminence that the entire TigrisEuphrates valley, both lands of Sumer and Akkad,
were now known as Babylonia.
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Once he had consolidated his position through war he
established his kingdom upon order, justice, and
peace.
From this time there survives a large body of
correspondence and, more importantly, an eight foot
column of black stone engraved with some 282 laws
and statutes.
The top of the stone shows Hammurabi receiving the
law from the sun god, Shamesh.
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The Code of Hammurabi
He tried to make his subject believe that the laws were
divine thus giving them sanctity and enhancing the
position of the king.
Hammurabi did not originate all the laws but many of
them appeared in old Sumerian records.
 Harsh punishment for crimes.
 Based on equal retaliation.
 “ If a man bring an accusation against a man and
charge him with a capital crime, but cannot prove it,
the accuser, shall be put to death”
 “If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a
freed man, his ear shall be cut off”
 Laws were varied for the wealthy and powerful.
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The Code o f Hammurabi
If a man knocks the teeth out of another man, his own
teeth will be knocked out.
If anyone commits a robbery and is caught, he shall
be put to death.
If a judge tries a case, reaches a decision, and
presents his judgment in writing; and later it is
discovered that his decision was in error, and it was
his own fault, he shall pay twelve times the fine set
by him in the case and be removed from the
judge's bench.
If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
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The Code o f Hammurabi
If during an unsuccessful operation a patient dies, the
arm of the surgeon must be cut off.
If a freeborn man strikes the body of another freeborn
man of equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
If anyone brings an accusation of any crime before the
elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he
shall, if a capital offense is charged, be put to death.
If a man takes a woman to wife, but has no
intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.
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.
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Nebuchadnezzar II(634 – 562 BC) was a ruler of
Babylon in the Chaldean Dynasty, who reigned 605
BC – 562 BC. According to the Bible, he conquered
Judah and Jerusalem, and sent the Jews into exile.
He is credited with the construction of the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon for his wife.
The Akkadian name, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, means "Oh
god Nabu, preserve/defend my firstborn son". Nabu
is the Babylonian deity of wisdom, and son of the
god Marduk.
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Nebuchadnezzar II
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606 BC - When King Nebuchadnezzar captured
Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 606 BC, he
left a small number of vinedressers there to keep
the land from going fallow, and he put a governor,
Gedaliah, in charge.
562 BC - The first documented experiment
resembling a clinical trial was conducted by King
Nebuchadnezzar who ruled Babylon for almost 60
years, his reign ending in 562 BC. According to the
Book of Daniel in the Bible,
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Religion
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The Babylonians had many practices and beliefs in
their religion. But their chief god was Marduk.
The chief objective of the Babylonians behind their
worship were to get more benefits from god to
escape their sin.
They excused their sin that they were not god and
could do no better.
They were relatively uninterested in after life. They
concentrated on improving man’s existence on
earth.
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Ancient Mesopotamia
Causes of Decline
The decay and death of the Mesopotamian civilization
can be ascribed to three main causes:
the absence of a national government,
the foundation by Alexander and his successors of new
cities competing with and eventually superseding the
older settlements, and
the profound ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural
changes introduced by successive waves of invaders
--- Persians, Greeks, Arameans, pre-Islamic Arabs --who could neither be kept at bay not assimilated.
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Persians
Akkadians
Babylonians
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Sumeria
Hittites
Mesopotamian
Civilization
Chaldeans
Lydians
Phoenicians
Assyrians
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