Transcript Mesopotamia - A Cultural Approach

Mesopotamia
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Time and Geography
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The Ancient Near East
The fertile crescent
Earliest development of city life known
• “Land Between the Rivers” Tigris and Euphrates
rivers (southeastern Iraq)
NEOLITHIC SOUTHWEST ASIA
Global Warming – 15,000 BCE
• Melted Ice Age grasslands
• Natufians hunted and harvested
• Dryas Event led to first farming
settlements
• Population grew due to
abundance
• People began to congregate in
towns and cities
• Earliest recorded civilizations
The end of the ice age heralded the
beginning of a new era
NEOLITHIC SOUTHWEST ASIA
The fertile crescent
Levantine Corridor, Near East
• present day Israel, Syria, and southeastern Iraq (Tigris
and Euphrates rivers called Mesopotamia)
POLITICAL
SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION
Sumerians in lower Mesopotamia 5000 BCE
• Agrarian civilization
• Small competing kingdoms or city-states
• Ideas and techniques created distinct influential
civilization
• First at:
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large cities
sophisticated system of writing
monumental buildings
probably invented the wheel
irrigation system using gravity
use of plow
among first to make bronze utensils, weapons
Tell Asmar votive sculpture 2750-2600 BC.
Mesopotamia under Sumerians
• strife, disunion, wars and water
disputes
• Sargon the Great unified region
2300 BCE
(capital in Akkad, near modern-day
Baghdad)
• Akkadian Empire spread Sumerian
culture from Mesopotamia to Egypt
(Fertile Crescent)
Sargon
the Great
ECONOMIC
Earning a Living
• Livelihood came from land,
directly or indirectly
• Trade in foodstuffs, grain,
imported commodities
• Some occupations required
education, formal training,
apprenticeships: scribes,
priesthood, metalworking
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin celebrating
victory against the Lullubi from Zagros 2260
BC. He is wearing a horned helmet, a
symbol of divinity, and is also
portrayed in a larger scale in
comparison to others to emphasize his
superiority.
RELIGIOUS
Religion and the Afterlife
• Polytheism – religion of many gods
• Nature gods: Innana (love and fertility) and Enki (water-god)
• Ziggurats – pyramids where gods reside and priests made offerings
– most famous - Babylon (Tower of Babel)
• Mesopotamian religion - not optimistic
– No personal loving relationship between humans and gods
– Men and women slaves of their god-creators
– No evidence of ethics - not about good/evil
– Punishments were in natural catastrophes: droughts or floods
– Gods appeased with rituals and ceremonies by priests/rulers
• Epic of Gilgamesh – creation myth
– First epic poem in world literature
– A king’s desire for the secret of immortal life
– Gods jealous of king’s power defeat him
Great Ziggurat of Ur
Ziggurat
INTELLECTUAL
Chronology, Mathematics, Writing
Chronology
• Time - cyclic nature of seasonal change
• Calendar - lunar months between full
moons
Mathematics - influential in western
science
• Based on units of 60 (60 seconds and
60 minutes)
• Basic geometry and trigonometry
(360ºcircle)
Sun and Moon, Schedel's
Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493
Chronology, Mathematics, Writing
Evolution of Writing
• Records: taxation,
marital/inheritance, calendar,
seasonal changes
• cuneiform - script in wedgeshaped characters after 3500 BCE
• Sumerian cuneiform remained
basic script of most Near and
Middle Eastern languages until
about 1000 BCE
Early writing tablet recording the
allocation of beer, probably from
southern Iraq, Late Prehistoric
Law
Emperor Hammurabi’s reign,1700 BCE
Early complete code of laws:
Principles
– Punishment depends on social rank (commoners,
slaves treated harsher than nobles)
– “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”
– Victim’s right to personal compensation
– Government is impartial referee
– Not equal before the law: husbands over wives,
fathers over children, rich over poor, free citizens
over slaves
POLITICAL
Hammurabi’s Empire
Government and Social Structure
• Two types
– Theocracy of early city-states
– Kingdom-empires beginning with
Sargon the Great
• Three classes
– Priests, noble landlords
– Freemen (majority)
– Slaves
Sargon the Great
Status of Women
Change in status over time
• At early stage: more or less equal
• With militarized society - patriarchy trend
Household
• Artisan occupations - open to women, with limitations
• Adultery - worst crime in marriage
• Divorce - lawsuits initiated by husbands
– Reasons: childless wives, other lovers, unable or unwilling to support
first wife
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Sexual and Marital Life
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Different attitude toward sex
Arranged marriages
Dowry and bride money
Bride expected to be a virgin
ECONOMIC
TRADE AND AN EXPANSION OF SCALE
• Sumerians extended domain into Semite- regions
• Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians united Mesopotamia
and expanded it
• Mesopotamian trade stretched from the Indus Valley
(modern day Pakistan) to Nile Valley and eastern
Mediterranean
• Sumerian culture followed with trade
Artwork depicting
trading
POLITICAL
SUCCESSORS TO SUMERIA
• Successors
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Amorites, or Old Babylonians
Hittites
Assyrians
Chaldees or New Babylonians
• Decline of Mesopotamia in World History
– Ceased to be important after Persian conquest
– Largely caused by long-term environmental damage,
decline in food supply
SUMMARY
• Sumerians - earliest agriculturalists and skilled traders
founded towns and cities in Mesopotamia (4000 BCE)
• Led by theocratic priesthood and later by warrior-kings
• City-states left new techniques and viewpoints: loadbearing wheel, first sophisticated writing system,
chronology and mathematics, and architectural skills
• Religion was harsh and pessimistic
– reflected fears of natural and manmade disasters
– gods cared little for their human slaves
Discussion Questions
1. Sumerians built the first cities, and today a large
percentage of the world’s population is urban.
How would a Sumerian have found city life
different from their rural existence? What would
have been the benefits of city life? What would
the disadvantages have been?
2. Hammurabi’s Code is one of the very first
written law codes. Why is it so important to have
law in written form? What difference, if any,
would it have made to the average Babylonian
to have written law?