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The Ancient Middle East

Goal : Understand the characteristics of the early Sumerians and their influence on later civilizations. Focus Question : Why did the first civilization emerge here?. The Ancient Middle East. Early Civilizations Learning Target 7e. The Ancient Fertile Crescent Area.

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The Ancient Middle East

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  1. Goal: Understand the characteristics of the early Sumerians and their influence on later civilizations. Focus Question: Why did the first civilization emerge here? The Ancient Middle East Early Civilizations Learning Target 7e

  2. The Ancient Fertile Crescent Area The Middle East: “The Cradle of Civilization”

  3. Mesopotamia • Geography - Fertile Crescent - “Land Between Two Rivers” - Tigris & Euphrates flooded  fertile mud known as silt - Surplus crops Euphrates River

  4. Sumer Jordan River

  5. Sumerians First arrived in Sumer in 3300 BC

  6. Challenges Solutions Unpredictable flooding, little/no rain Dug irrigation ditches to carry water to fields No natural barriers for protection/defense Built city walls for defense Limited natural resources Traded surplus goods, cloth, & crafted tools with other people

  7. Advanced Cities • By 3,000 BC, Sumerians > 12 cities - Ur, Uruk, Kish, Lagash, & Umma • City & surrounding land = city-state • Built out of sun-dried mud-brick

  8. Trade important for Sumerian cities - Traded surplus crops for needed goods - Barter system • Cultural Diffusion = spread & exchange of ideas & products among cultures Ashur was a main trade center Artifacts from Ur

  9. Mesopotamian Trade “The Cuneiform World”

  10. Record-Keeping • Cuneiform – Sumerian writing (“wedge-shaped”) • Stylus – Sharpened reed was used to press symbols into the clay tablets • Why was writing necessary? Sumerian relief sculpture ~ cuneiform writing

  11. Cuneiform Wedge shaped writing

  12. Sumerian Signature Seal The seal was used to sign a cuneiform tablet

  13. Cuneiform Writing

  14. Deciphering Cuneiform

  15. Specialized Workers • Artisans = skilled workers, made goods by hand • Scribes = professional writers • Prestigious position in Sumerian society • Years of training • Priests, shopkeepers, traders Scribe Edubba, school or “tablet house”

  16. Technology • Wheel • Sail • Plow • Irrigation • Lunar calendar • Number system (geometry, trig) • Arch, post-and-lintel construction

  17. Sumerian Wheel Used first for pottery making and later for transportation

  18. Complex Institutions • 1st to develop governments w/officials & laws - Theocracy – rule by gods or their priests - Priest-kings (“lugals”) • Tax system Sumerian priest Sumerian votive figures

  19. Sumerian religion = polytheistic • gods represented forces of nature • gods acted like humans, but immortal & all-powerful • Humans were merely servants to gods • Offerings at ziggurats (temples) • Demons (ugallu) Ziggurat (temple)

  20. The gods protected Sumerians in life • No help in afterlife • Souls went to “land of no return” • The richest accounts of Mesopotamian myths and legends appear in a long poem known as the “Epic of Gilgamesh”

  21. Sumerian Class Structure Kings, Priests, Wealthy Landowners Wealthy Merchants Artisans & Farmers Slaves

  22. Become slave by… - Captured as prisoner of war - Sold by parents to pay debts • Slaves could earn their freedom • Sumerian women were somewhat equal to men • could be artisans, merchants, farmers, lower priesthood Sumerian sculptures

  23. Sumerian classroom

  24. Sumerian Art

  25. Jewelry of a Sumerian attendant

  26. Headdress of a Sumerian Queen

  27. Sumerian dagger and earrings

  28. Standard of Ur – from the royal tombs The Banquet side

  29. The War side

  30. Detail from the royal tombs

  31. Sumerian Lyre from the royal tombs of Ur

  32. Game board from the royal tombs at Ur

  33. Sargon of Akkad • Sumerians conquered by Sargon of Akkad • Sargon created kingdom-empire (Babylonian) • Long series of invasions by barbaric nomads • Amorites, Hittites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians • Culture was adopted & adapted by invaders

  34. Hammurabi’s Code • Babylonian Empire reached its peak during the reign of Hammurabi • Written collection of laws known as Hammurabi’s Code • These laws regulated all aspects of life Statue of Hammurabi

  35. Principles of Hammurabi’s Code 1) Retaliation (eye for eye) 2) Applied to all (except different punishments) 3) Gov’t responsible for maintaining order (impartial referee)

  36. Hammurabi’s Code • #3: If any one may 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.

  37. Hammurabi’s Code • #15: If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death. • #16: If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.

  38. Hammurabi’s Code • #21: If any one break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hole and be buried. • #22: If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death. • #23: If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim under oath the amount of his loss; then shall the community, and…on whose ground and territory and in whose domain it was compensate him for the goods stolen.

  39. Hammurabi’s Code • #142: If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: “You are not congenial [kind; polite] to me,” the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry and go back to her father’s house.

  40. Hammurabi’s Code • #143: If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.

  41. Hammurabi’s Code • #195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off. • #196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. [An eye for an eye] • #197. If he break another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.

  42. Hammurabi’s Code • #198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina. • #199. If he put out the eye of a man’s slave, or break the bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

  43. Hammurabi’s Code • #230. If it kill the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death. • #231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house. • #282. If a slave say to his master: “You are not my master,” if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.

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