Mesopotamia

GeographyTimelineReligionWriting

Art & Architecture

GeographyMesopotamia is made up of different regions, each with its own geography.

The geography of each area and the natural resources found there affected the ways that people lived.

Northern Mesopotamia is made up of hills and plains.

The land is fertile due to seasonal rains, and the rivers and streams flowing from the mountains. Early settlers farmed the land and used timber, metals and stone from the mountains nearby.

Southern Mesopotamia is made up of marshy areas and wide, flat, barren plains.

Cities developed along the rivers which flow through the region. Early settlers had to irrigate the land along the banks of the rivers in order for their crops to grow. Since they did not have many natural resources, contact with neighboring lands was important.

Tigris-Euphrates River Valley

Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning 'between the rivers'.

Modern Boundaries

The Tigris and Euphrates flow through modern Iraq. The Euphrates also flows through much of Syria.

Timeline in Mesopotamia 3500-2000 B.C. (5500-4000 B.P.)

3500 B.C. Cities growing across Mesopotamia

3200 B.C. Pictographic record keeping

3000 B.C. Signs used to write Sumerian

2800 B.C. Legendary rulers like Gilgamesh

2600 B.C. Royal Tombs of Ur

2400 B.C. Signs become cuneiform

2300 B.C. Sumerian cities united by King Sargon of Agade (Akkad) 

Cities 3000-2300 B.C.

Timeline

2200 B.C. Agade Empire expands and declines

2100 B.C. Ur becomes the capital of a new empire

2000 B.C. Ur destroyed by Elamites & Amorites 

Agade Empire 2250 B.C.

Empire united by King Sargon of Agade (Akkad) 

Kingdoms 1800 B.C.

1800 B.C. Hammurabi unites much of Mesopotamia

1500 B.C.

1500 B.C. Mitannian Empire controls north Mesopotamia Kassites control south Mesopotamia

1200 B.C.

1300 B.C. Assyrians conquer much of Mesopotamia   1100 B.C. Aramaean and Chaldaean  tribes become important  

650 B.C.

1000 B.C. Assyrians begin reconquest of Mesopotamia Babylon rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II 

550 B.C.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire

500 B.C.

Mesopotamia becomes part of the Achaemenid Persian empire

ReligionThe people of Mesopotamia believed that their world was controlled by gods and goddesses, demons and monsters. There were hundreds of gods who were responsible for everything in the world, from rivers and trees to making bread and pottery. Each city was protected by its own special god or goddess and their family.

Large temples were built in the centre of the city for these gods to live in. Priests looked after the gods with special rituals. There were also smaller temples throughout the city where ordinary people could make offerings.

Demons were created by the gods with human bodies and animal or bird heads. They could be either evil or good. Monsters were a mixture of animals and birds.

Anu is the sky god•The supreme ruler of all the gods. •His symbol is the horned cap.•Mesopotamian myths tell the story of how the earth was separated from heaven at the beginning of time.

•In these myths, heaven becomes Anu's home. •Anu controls shooting stars, called 'kishru'. •Anu is also in charge of the Bull of Heaven who can be sent to earth to avenge the gods.•Although Anu is an important Mesopotamian god, there are no known pictures of him.

Lama

•A goddess people prayed to for their own personal protection. •She appears as a woman in a long, tiered skirt. •Lama is often shown on cylinder seals leading people into the presence of important gods and goddesses.

Ugallu-Demon

•The Ugallu has a human body with the head of a lion and the feet of a bird.

•He is a demon who protects people against evil demons and illnesses.

WritingOver five thousand years ago, people living in Mesopotamia developed a form of writing to record and communicate different types of information. The earliest writing was based on pictograms. Pictograms were used to communicate basic information about crops and taxes. Over time, the need for writing changed and the signs developed into a script we call cuneiform. Over thousands of years, Mesopotamian scribes recorded daily events, trade, astronomy, and literature on clay tablets. Cuneiform was used by people throughout the ancient Near East to write several different languages.

Seal-Signatures

Curriculum Tablets

•This is known today as a 'curriculum tablet'.

•It was used in Mesopotamian schools to teach pupils about the different types of texts written by scribes.

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.

The Translation for this particular tablet is:

•This part of the tablet is a spelling exercise:•A cuneiform sign, which can be read as 'nish', is repeated down the left hand side. •Other signs are written beside it to make different words. •For example, half way down this section the signs read:       nish-gil      nish-gi-il      nish-shi-ish      nish-shish•Scribes practiced writing the same words in many ways which helped them learn different cuneiform signs.

Reed Stylus

•A reed stylus was the main writing tool used by Mesopotamian scribes. •Scribes created the wedge shapes which made cuneiform signs by pressing the stylus into a clay or wax surface.

Writing Board•Scribes sometimes used cuneiform on writing boards.

•These boards were made of wood or ivory with a writing surface covered with wax.

•The wax could be melted and reused.

•This is an ivory writing board from about 715 B.C. It was found in a well at Nimrud.

Mathematics

This sign represents 1

This sign represents 10

This sign represents 60

This sign represents 360

This sign represents 3600

•This tablet is a multiplication table for the number 13. •It was very important for scribes to know and understand the number systems so they could work out mathematical problems and record numbers properly.

ArchaeologyLarge cities in arid regions

Multiple structures

Layered on top of one another

Tell-A heap of compacted bricks, pottery and stones formed by remains from ancient settlements.

Tell Brak, Syria

Tell Brak, ancient Nagar, located in northeastern Syria, was one of the royal centers of northern Mesopotamia during the fourth and third millennia B.C. The site was part of a major route connecting the mountains of Anatolia with the large cities of southern Mesopotamia, and was also located at the boundary between the rainfall agriculture zone and the arid steppe, used by nomads for pasture land.

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Tell Brak location

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Occupation of Tell Brak

One of the largest sites in the region, it was also one of the first to attract archaeological attention.

Max Mallowan excavated at the site in 1937 and 1938 (sponsored primarily by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq), recovering evidence of the “Eye Temple” The Eye Temple is named for the hundreds of small "eye idol" figurines found mixed into the mortar of the temple itself.

Excavations at the site were resumed in 1976 by David Oates of the University of London, and are currently continuing under the field direction of Geoff Emberling of the University of Michigan.

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

View of Tell Brak

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Computer Reconstruction

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Palaces of Assyria

Assyrian palaces are some of the largest and most important ancient buildings found in Mesopotamia. They demonstrate the wealth and achievements of the Assyrian empire in the first millennium B.C. In the palace the king took care of the business of the empire, received foreign visitors and performed religious rituals.Palaces were built to show the power of the king as well as to inspire loyalty and fear in ordinary people and visitors.

In about 875 B.C. King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria built a palace at Nimrud. The palace was made of mud-brick and baked brick walls. These walls were lined with large stone wall reliefs.

North Suite:•Some of these rooms were used by the palace administrators.•Nearly four hundred cuneiform tablets were found here as well as a set of weights. •There were workshops, a bathroom and storage areas. •At the entrance there were probably guardrooms as well as storerooms for grain and oil.

Nimrud

Queen’s Palace•This area of the palace was probably the royal harem where the palace women lived. Pieces of ivory which had once decorated furniture were found in some of these rooms.

•Archaeologists have also discovered very rich burials of some of the royal ladies in tombs beneath the floor of several rooms.

Warfare•The Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, draws back the string of his bow and gets ready to shoot.

•The king's bodyguard stands next to him holding a shield and a spear, ready to defend him.

•Two attendants stand behind the king. One holds a quiver full of arrows. The other holds a parasol to protect the king from sun or rain.

Trade and Transport

Mesopotamia was a region which did not have many natural resources. Therefore, the people who lived there needed to trade with neighboring countries in order to acquire the resources they needed to live.

Grain, oils and textiles were taken from Babylonia to foreign cities and exchanged for timber, wine, precious metals and stones. In addition, merchants from other countries travelled to Babylonia to exchange their goods.

Merchants used several different methods for transporting their goods depending on what they were transporting. For example, grain was quite bulky and was best transported on a boat, whereas precious stones were likely to be small, so they could be transported on foot or by donkey.

The Royal Tombs of Ur

From 1922 to 1934, an archaeologist named C. Leonard Woolley excavated the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. He made many great discoveries about the people who lived there.

Among the 1800 graves he discovered, there were 16 tombs which had very special and valuable objects in them. He called them the 'Royal tombs'.

This tomb is known as the 'Great death pit' because so many bodies were found. There were 74 bodies, 68 of them women.

PG 800

In front of the sledge were the bones of two oxen which had pulled it. There were also the bodies of two grooms who had looked after the animals.

PG 800-A large pit was discovered which had been filled in with earth.

•At one end of the pit was a tomb chamber made of blocks of stone. Inside were the remains of a wooden bier. The skeleton of a woman was laid out on the bier surrounded by objects.

•She must have been an important person, perhaps a queen. She may have been called Pu-abi.

Ziggurats

Temples were originally built on platforms. During the third millennium B.C., these were made higher and bigger. Eventually it was decided to build even higher temples on platforms which were stepped. These stepped towers we call ziggurats. By 2000 B.C. mud-brick ziggurats were being constructed in many Sumerian cities. Later, ziggurats were constructed in Babylonian and Assyrian cities. No one knows for certain why ziggurats were built or how they were used. They are part of temple complexes, so they were probably connected with religion.

Ziggurats

The Ziggurat of Ur

Around 2100 B.C. king Ur-Nammu built a ziggurat in honour of the god Sin in the city of Ur. It was called 'Etemennigur', which means 'House whose foundation creates terror'.

The Ziggurat of Ur today

In the 1960's and 1970's, the first stage of the ziggurat was reconstructed by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities. This restoration was based upon the ideas of the teams who had excavated over the past two hundred years.

Loss of National Treasures

The war in Iraq has caused the loss of an as yet unknown amount of national treasures. Though certainly not comparable to the loss of life and general destruction, it exemplifies the impact to Iraqi culture.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2942449.stm