Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

• This is known as the “cradle of civilization” or the location for the emergence of civilization.

• When did this civilization emerge?– http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/time/explo

re/frame_mes.html

• Where was this civilization?– It was the area between the Tigris and

Euphrates Rivers.–Mesopotamia literally means “land

between two rivers.”

Religion

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Religion – These people were polytheistic – worshipped many gods.

• Actually they worshipped hundreds of gods.

• Every city even had its own god.• Yet, only certain gods received major

attention. Like god of the sky, sun etc.• Main god = Anu father of the gods

and god of the sky.

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Cities• They were the first to develop cities

among anyone else.• Babylon was a famous city – It was considered a marvel of the

ancient world with a population of 200,000.

– Defensive walls around the city for 10 miles.

Babylon

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Farming• They were the first farmers in the

world.• They domesticated animals such as

cattle, goats, and pigs.• Some of Mesopotamia did not have

steady rainfall in the summer, so they were the first to come up with irrigation.

Irrigation

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Writing – Developed the first form of writing.

• It was known as cuneiform – wedge shaped symbols.

• They wrote on clay tablets, and eventually had a very systematic form of record keeping.

• Wealthy students went to school as scribes which was very important and a very difficult job.

Cuneiform - Very hard to decipher

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Literature• The first piece of literature was

developed here.• It was passed down orally, but written

on clay tablets around 2000 bc, 1,000 years before the Illiad or Odyssey.

• It is called the Epic of Gilgamesh• It describes a part man, part god as he

journeys through life facing obstacles.

Gilgamesh

This one is Gilgamesh

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Laws• Laws of Hammurabi - The longest

and best organized written laws that survived from Mesopotamia.

• It details crimes and punishments.• It also has a prologue stating that

laws very divine from the gods.

Code of Hammurabi

Characteristics of Mesopotamia

• Architecture• They made structures out of the mud

bricks which was good because they had a lot of it.

• They also made structures called Ziggurats – Stepped towers made of mud-bricks, every city had one, and it was part of a temple complex.

Ziggurats

Politics

• Mesopotamia was a region that contained city-states similar to Ancient Greece.

• There was no centralized government.

• They had kings that ruled over each city-state.

Economics• They had a surplus of

crops, so they had plenty of workforce.

• They had an extensive trade network that reached to the Indus Valley where they would get gold.

• Recorded business transactions.

Social Structure

• Three types of people in society.

1. The nobility, or patrician (a member of one of the landholding families),

2. The free citizen, or plebeian (a citizen who was free but did not possess land),

3. The slave (a member of society who neither owned land nor was free).