Mesopotamia:

“The Cradle of Civilization”

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 earliest of all civilizations as people formed
permanent settlements

 Mesopotamia is a Greek word that means

“between the rivers”, specifically, the area
between the Tigris River and Euphrates River
(present day Iraq)
 Lasted for approximately 3000 years
 Its peoples were the first to irrigate fields,
devised a system of writing, developed
mathematics, invented the wheel and learned to
work with metal

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 Little rainfall
 Hot and dry climate
 windstorms leaving muddy river valleys in
winter
 catastrophic flooding of the rivers
in spring
 Arid soil containing little minerals
 No stone or timber resources

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NATURAL LEVEES: embankments produced by build-up of sediment
over thousands of years of flooding

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 create a high and safe flood plain

 make irrigation and canal construction easy

 provide protection
 the surrounding swamps were full of fish &
waterfowl
 reeds provided food for sheep / goats
 reeds also were used as building resources
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 Over the centuries, many different people
lived in this area creating a collection of
independent states
 Sumer- southern part (3500-2000 BCE)
 Akkad- northern part (2340 – 2180 BCE)
 Babylonia- these two regions were unified

(1830-1500 BCE and 650-500 BCE)

 Assyria- Assyrian Empire (1100 -612 BCE)

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  Position of King was
enhanced and supported by
religion

gods were worshipped at

 Kingship believed to be
created by gods and the
huge temples called king’s power was divinely
ziggurats ordained

Polytheistic religion consisting of  Belief that gods lived on the

over 3600 gods and demigods distant mountaintops

Prominent Mesopotamian gods

 Each god had control of
certain things and each city
Enlil (supreme god & god of air)
was ruled by a different god
Ishtar (goddess of fertility & life)
An (god of heaven)  Kings and priests acted as
Enki (god of water & underworld)
interpreters as they told the
people what the god wanted
Shamash (god of sun and giver of law) them to do (ie. by examining
the liver or lungs of a slain
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  Large temples dedicated
to the god of the city
 Made of layer upon layer
of mud bricks in the
shape of a pyramid in
many tiers
(due to constant flooding
Ziggurat of Ur -2000BCE and from belief that gods
resided on mountaintops)
 Temple on top served as
the god’s home and was
beautifully decorated
 Inside was a room for
offerings of food and
goods
 Temples evolved to
ziggurats- a stack of 1-
7 platforms decreasing in
size from bottom to top
 Famous ziggurat was
Tower of Babel (over
100m above ground and
91m base)
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 Political structure an early form
of democracy
 Frequent wars led to the
emergence of warriors as
leaders
 Eventually rise of monarchial
system
 co-operation was the basis of
government
 Followed leadership of god of
the city which was interpreted
by a council of leading citizens
> or > priests > or leader of
the city (ie. king)
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 social, economic and intellectual basis
 Irrigated fields and produced 3 main
crops (barley, dates and sesame seeds)
 built canals, dikes, dams and drainage systems
 develop cuneiform writing
 invented the wheel
 Abundance of food led to steady increase of population (farm,
towns, cities)
 first city of the world
 Developed a trade system with bartering: mainly barley but also
wool and cloth for stone, metals, timber, copper, pearls and ivory
 Individuals could only rent land from priests (who controlled land
on behalf of gods); most of profits of trade went to temple

 However, the Sumerians were not successful in uniting lower

Mesopotamia
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 Leader: Sargon the Great
 Sargon unified lower Mesopotamia (after conquering
Sumerians in 2331 BCE)
 Established capital at Akkad
 Spread Mesopotamian culture
 However, short-lived dynasty as Akkadians were conquered
by the invading barbarians by 2200 BCE

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 KING HAMMURABI’S BABLYON

 (6th Amorite king) who conquered

Akkad and Assyria (north and
south)
 He build new walls to protect the
city and new canals and dikes to
improve crops
 Economy based on agriculture and
wool / cloth
 individuals could own land around
cities
 Artisans and merchants could keep
most profits and even formed
guilds / associations
 Grain used as the medium of
exchange > emergence of
• Babylonians reunited Mesopotamia in measurement of currency: shekel =
180 grains of barley; mina = 60
1830 BCE shekels
 Mina was eventually represented by
• central location dominated trade and metals which was one of first uses
secured control of money (but it was still based on
grain)
• YET AGAIN, Mesopotamia was not  Hammurabi’s Legacy: law code
unified for long…
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 To enforce his rule, Hammurabi collected all the laws
of Babylon in a code that would apply everywhere in
the land

 Most extensive law code from the ancient world (c.

1800 BCE)
 Code of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar placed in
the public hall for all to see
 Hammurabi Stone depicts Hammurabi as receiving his
authority from god Shamash
 Set of divinely inspired laws; as well as societal laws
 Punishments were designed to fit the crimes as people
must be responsible for own actions
 Hammurabi Code was an origin to the concept of “eye
for an eye…” ie. If a son struck his father, the son’s
hand would be cut off
 Consequences for crimes depended on rank in society
(ie. only fines for nobility) ASIAN CIVILIZATION
 10th century BCE, Assyria emerged as dominant force in the north
 City of Assur- became important trading and political centre
 After Hammurabi’s death, Babylon fell apart and kings of Assur
controlled more of surrounding area and came to dominate
 Made conquered lands pay taxes (food, animals, metals or timber)
 Rule by fear as kings were first to have a permanent army made
up of professional soldiers (estimated 200 000 men)
 Made superior weapons of bronze and iron
 iron changed lifestyles in Mesopotamia in weapons and in daily
life ie. replaced wooden wheels and applied to horse drawn
chariots

• Assyrian reunited Mesopotamia and

established the first true empire
• However, states began to revolt and
ONCE AGAIN, Assyrian Empire collapsed
by late 7th century BCE

• By 539 BCE, Mesopotamia part of the

vast Persian Empire (led by Cyrus the
Great)
• Persian Empire dominated for 800 years
until Alexander the Great

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Development
Of
WRITING
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 Click here to see the
development of writing
from pictograms to
cuneiform

 Pictograms: picture to show meaning

 Ideograms: signs to represent words / ideas

 Phonetics: signs to represent sounds

*Phonetics are the basis of most writing

systems
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 Greatest contribution of Mesopotamia
to western civilization was the
invention of writing

 allowed the transmission of

knowledge, the codification of laws,
records to facilitate trade / farming
 Sumerians wrote on wet clay tablets
with the point of a reed > then dried
in the sun to make a tablet
 Scribes were only ones who could
read and write and served as priests,
record keepers and accountants
 As society evolved, the first form of
writing was developed called
CUNEIFORM (meaning “wedge
shaped”), dating to 3500 BCE
 Cuneiform spread to Persia and Egypt
and became the vehicle for the
growth and spread of civilization and
the
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  Gilgamesh is an ancient story or epic
written in Mesopotamia more than
4000 thousand years ago

 Gilgamesh is the first known work of

great literature and epic poem
 Epic mentions a great flood

 Gilgamesh parallels the Nippur Tablet, a

six-columned tablet telling the story of
the creation of humans and animals,
the cities and their rulers, and the great
flood

ANALYSIS
 Gilgamesh and the Nippur tablet both
parallel the story of Noah and the Ark
(great flood) in the Old Testament of
the Jewish and Christian holy books
 Modern science argues an increase in
the sea levels about 6,000 years ago
(end of ice age)
 the melting ice drained to the oceans
causing the sea level to rise more than
ten feet in one century

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 From 1922 to 1934, excavation of the
ancient Sumerian city of Ur

 City famed in Bible as the home of

patriarch Abraham
 discoveries such as extravagant
jewelry of gold, cups of gold and
silver, bowls of alabaster, and
extraordinary objects of art and
culture
 opened the world's eyes to the full
glory of ancient Sumerian culture

Great Death Pit

 mass grave containing the bodies of
6 guards and 68 servants
 grave was a great funeral procession
 drank poison, choosing to accompany
the kings and queens in the afterlife
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 Mesopotamia, specifically Babylon used a
mathematical system based on sixty as all
their numbers were expressed as parts of or
multiples of sixty
 Some parts of the ‘base-sixty’ system still
remain today: 360 degrees in a circle, 60
seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in 1 hour
 Devised a calendar base on cycles of the
moon (number of days between the
appearance of two new moons was set as a
month; 12 cycles made up a year

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Sumer Babylon Assyria
 Closely tied to  Production of
environment food through
 Kings conquered
farming lands to create
 Irrigation empire of Assyria
techniques for  Private ownership  Cooler climate could
farming of land vs
ownership by the produce crops with
 wheel little irrigation
 Trade- bartering gods
 Deposits of ore
Writing-
 Developed

mathematics and allowed for
cuneiform development and use
calendar system
 Religion tied to and system of
government as units for currency of iron
priests and  Assyrian army
kings made
 Hammurabi’s law
code became most
decision for effective military
gods force
 ziggurats

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Revolutionary innovations emerged in
Mesopotamia such as:
 codified laws
 ziggurats
 Cuneiform
 Irrigation
 Metal working, tools
 Trade
 transportation
 wheel
 Writing
 mathematics
 prosperous living based on large scale
agriculture
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