Mesopotamia “the land between the rivers”

1. Mesopotamia “the land between the rivers”

2. Key Terms • City-state: Each Sumerian city was considered a state; each state consisted of a city surrounded by farm land. • Ziggurat: Meaning “Mountain of God,” A ziggurat was a Sumerian temple. • Cuneiform: Sumerian writing made up of markings shaped like wedges. • Priest-kings: Sumerian priests were originally kings of their city-state. However, in time, kingship became hereditary. • Empire: Group of states under one ruler. • Reform: Improvement.

3. Geography • About 9,000 years ago, wandering tribes settled in the river valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. • This area, also known as the “Fertile Crescent”, is now part of the countries of Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. • The northern region was a plateau with a mild climate while the southern region had a hot climate

4. The plains were flooded each year by the two rivers making the soil fertile and creating valuable farmland.

5. Sumer • Sumerian civilization is the oldest known on earth. • For the first time, people began to control their environment. • When the rivers flooded each spring, they increased the natural levees to control flooding. • In the summer, they poked holes in the levees, which created natural canals, which were used to irrigate their crops. • The Sumerians grew barley, wheat, sesame, flax, fruit trees, date palms, and vegetables, and they domesticated cattle, sheep, goats and pigs

6. Cities • Each Sumerian city was a city-state. • Houses and public buildings were made of bricks made from mud and crushed reeds. • Each city was surrounded by a high wall with a bronze gate, built for protection from invaders. • The cities had narrow winding streets leading from the gates to the center of the city. • At the center of each Sumerian city was a ziggurat.

7. Near the center were the houses of the upper class: priests and merchants. Houses were two stories and had balconies which looked out over courtyards. Behind them were the one-story homes of the middle class: government officials, shopkeepers, artisans. These were also built around courtyards. Farther out were the houses of the lower class: farmers, fishermen, and unskilled workers. The husband was the head of the household, could sell or rent his wife and children as slaves for up to three years, and arranged the marriages of his children. Women could buy and sell property, run businesses, and own and sell slaves. Children were expected to support their parents when they became old, and to obey older family members.

8. City plans for Babylon

9. “Floor plan” of a city

10. Cities were surrounded by walls.

11. City walls were functional and decorative….

12. Ceremonial or main gate

13. This is the Ishtar gate of Babylon

14. Government • They set up governments to organize their system of irrigation, to make laws, and to plan cities. • At first, Sumerian priests were also the kings of the city-states. • Sumerian priest-kings received advice from an assembly made up of free men, who would choose a military leader to serve during a war. • Eventually, military leaders stayed in charge and became the kings. • At the same time, kingship became hereditary. Gilgamesh of Uruk was a very famous priest-king. • One tale written about him around 1700 BC is the oldest known story in the world.

15. Writing • The priests ran schools called “tablet houses”. • Their main purpose was to teach students how to write. • They wrote with sharp-ended reeds on clay tablets. • Their writing was called “cuneiform” which means “wedge-shaped”. • Schools were only for the sons of the rich. • When a student graduated from school, he became a scribe and could work for the temple, the palace, the government, the army, a merchant, or set up his own business as a public writer.

16. Cuneiform

17. Scribes drew the sign on soft clay tablets using a pointed tool, probably made out of a reed. A reedstylus was the main writing tool used by Mesopotamian scribes

18. At first they used pictures to represent objects, then ideas, and later, syllables.

19. Knowledge of cuneiform was lost until AD 1835, when Henry Rawlinson, an English army officer, found some inscriptions on a cliff (shown above) at Behistun in Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522-486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in three languages: Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite. After translating the Persian, Rawlinson began to decipher the others. By 1851 he could read 200 Babylonian signs

20. What does it say?(part of this says….) • Sargon, mighty king, king of Agade, am I. • My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not; • My father's brothers live in the mountains; • My city is Azupiranu, situated on the banks of the Euphrates • My mother, the high priestess, conceived me, in secret she bore me; • She placed me in a basket of rushes, she sealed the lid with bitumen; • She cast me into the river which did not rise over me; • The river bore me up and carried me to Aqqi, the water-drawer. • Aqqi, the water-drawer, lifted me out as he dipped his bucket; • Aqqi, the water-drawer, adopted me, brought me up; • Aqqi, the water-drawer, set me up as his gardener. • As a gardener, Ishtar, loved me; • For 55 years I ruled as king.

21. Gudea of Lagash

22. The inscription extends over part of the right shoulder and onto the left side of the robe. The upper part, the cartouche, gives the name of the ruler, while the lower, main text speaks of the reasons for the creation of this particular statue. The text translates as follows: • Gudea, city ruler of Lagash, built to Geshtinanna, the queen a-azi-mu-a, the beloved wife of Ningishzida, his queen, her temple in Girsu. He created for her [this] statue. "She granted the prayer," he gave it a name for her and brought it into her temple.

23. Cuneiform numbers • Cuneiform numbers were written using a combination of two signs: a vertical wedge for “1” and a corner wedge for “10”. • Remember, their number system was based on 60. • They also invented decimals and fractions!

24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 15 19 20 18 17 60 30 40 50

25. Some variants Fractions for 4 1/2 for 7 1/3 for 8 2/3 5/6

26. Larger Numbers   For writing numbers greater than 60, they just repeated the symbols in different columns, just as we do, except that where for us a '1' in the 'tens' column means 10, for the Babylonians a  in the 'sixties' column meant 60. Each column increased the value of the number by a factor of 60, and the Babylonians wrote their numbers with the largest values to the left, just as we do. Here are some examples of larger cuneiform numbers. See if you can figure out what they represent.

27. 1,15 75 1003 16,43 160000 44,26,40

28. Religion • The Sumerians believed that the forces of nature were gods. • They had more than 3000 gods. • Humans were made from the mud of the rivers to be the servants of the gods. • The goal of each Sumerian was to please the gods so that their crops would grow. • The priests were very powerful because only they knew the will of the gods, and they controlled and administered the land in the name of the gods.

29. Ziggurats • Ziggurat: Meaning “Mountain of God,” A ziggurat was a Sumerian temple. • Each ziggurat was made up of a series of square levels, each being smaller than the one below it. • Stairways led to the top, which was believed to be the home of the city’s chief god. • Only priests could enter the home of the god. • Around the ziggurat were the courts where artisans worked, children went to school, goods were stored, the poor were fed, and great events were celebrated.

30. Ziggurats

32. Tower of Babel?Ziggurat for Marduk Tower of Babel

33. Later EmpiresAbout 2400 BC, new civilizations began to develop in Mesopotamia as other conquerors moved in.

34. About 2400 BC, new civilizations began to develop in Mesopotamia as other conquerors moved in. • About 2300 BC, Sargon I from Akkad in northern Mesopotamia moved south and began to conquer the city-states of Sumer, and then united them with Akkad, creating the first empire. He extended his empire to include all of Mesopotamia. Sargon’s empire lasted for more than 50 years, and fell apart shortly after his death.

35. Babylon….

36. …..the city of Hammurabi

37. In 1800 BC, people called Amorites entered the river valley and built cities of their own. • One of these cities was Babylon. • The king of Babylon, Hammurabi, conquered Akkad and Sumer and created a new empire. • His empire extended to the Mediterranean Sea. • Babylon became a center of trade – they traded their surplus for gold and silver with countries as far away as India and China. • After Hammuarabi’s death, the empire declined and was again divided into city-states.

38. The Code of Hammurabi • Hammurabi is best known for his Code of Law • He took the best laws from the codes of the various city-states and created one code which everyone in the empire was to live by. • He appointed royal judges to make sure his laws were carried out justly. • Written on a large slab of stone, the code explained specific crimes and their required punishments

39. His code covered almost everything in daily life • 282 laws in all • Punishments ranged from fines to death... there were no prisons • Most were “Eye for an eye” and included death, disfigurement, and torture • The upper-class were punished more severely than middle/lower classes. • A person was innocent until proven guilty • One of the goals was that the strong may not oppress the weak.

40. Some examples…… 1  If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death. 6  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. • 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. 25 If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.

41. 53  If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined. 54 If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded. 55 If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his neighbor corn for his loss. 56 If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of his neighbor, he shall pay ten gur of corn for every ten gan of land.

42. 196 If a (noble) man put out the eye of another (noble) man, his eye shall be put out. [ An eye for an eye ] 197 If he break another (noble) man's bone, his bone shall be broken. 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. 200  If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. [ A tooth for a tooth ] 201  If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina. 202  If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public. 203  If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina. 209 If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shallpay ten shekels for her loss. 210  If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.

43. 195 If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off. 110 If a “sister of a god” (nun) open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then this woman be burned to death. 229  If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. 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. 232 If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means.

44. Contributions • Mesopotamia is known as the “cradle of civilization” • Sumerian civilization is the oldest known on Earth. • The oldest written records known are Sumerian, and cuneiform became the model for other people’s writing systems. • The Sumerians were the first to write down their laws • They invented the wheel, the plow, sailboat, chisel, saw, lever, pulley. • They developed a number system based on 60 (60 sec. minute/60 min. hour/360 degree circle) • They developed a decimal system.