Mesopotamia Powerpoint

Mesopotamia
The Land Between Two Rivers

Indo-European Migrations: 4m-
2m BCE
The Middle East: “The Crossroads of Three

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

Location of Mesopotamia
● “The Land Between Two Rivers”: The Tigris and
Euphrates
● Empires: Sumeria followed by Akad then Assur (Assyria)

Sumerian
Civilization
●AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.-
Nomadic herders settled in the
Southern part of Mesopotamia and
gradually changed the farming way of
life
●IRRIGATION- use of canals and
waterways to bring water to land.
They built dams and dikes to keep
the rivers from flooding their fields.
●The farming villages emerged along
the river and grew into 12 city-states

Sites of Mesopotamia
● This map shows Eridu Ur and
Uruk in south in Sumer
●
● Babylonia (Babilonia) to the
northwest
● Home of the lawgiver
Hammurabi

Uruk and Vicinity: Trade
● Resource poor itself, Sumeria
relied on trade
● Main routes: the rivers
(especially the Euphrates)
and overland east-west
● Products imported
● Persian Gulf
● Precious metals and stone:
gold, silver, carnelian, lapus
lazuli, onyx, alabaster
● Textiles, skins, and ivory
● Timber
● Northern regions: copper

Mesopotamian Trade
“The Cuneiform
World”

Cuneiform: “Wedge-Shaped”
Writing
- The Sumerians used a system of
record-keeping that used baked
clay
-These tablets are invaluable
record of history of the Sumerian
and of later peoples of
Mesopotamia

Cuneiform: “Wedge-Shaped”
Writing
Steps in Evolution of Writing
1. Draw picture of object (star)
2. Combine with another
picture (man+river+fish=
fisherman)
3. Used IDEOGRAMS,
conventional signs used to
represent ideas (heart=love,
passion, life)
4. Use of ideograms sound to
make new words
1.

Cuneiform Writing

Deciphering Cuneiform

SCHOOLS WERE ESTABLISHED:
●
●Students were sons of UPPER CLASS
(priest, temple and palace officials, army
officers, sea captains and other scribes)
●
●The students who learned the art could
work as scribes for the temple, the royal
court or wealthy merchants

Sumerian Scribes
“Tablet House”

Sumerian Cylinder Seals

Enki
Sumerian Religion - Polytheistic
Anthropomorphic
Gods- like humans
the belief in many gods
●Enki - the god of rain
●Marduk - principal god of Babylon
● Ashur - god of the Assyrian
empire
● Gula (in Sumerian) or Shamash
(in Akkadian) - sun god and god
of justice
●Ishtar - goddess of war
●Ereshkigal- goddess of the
underworld
●Nabu- god of writing
●Ninurta- Sumerian god of war and
god of heroes
●Iškur- god of storms
●Pazuzu - an evil god who brought
diseases which had no known cure

EPIC OF
GILGAMESH was
one of the earliest
literary works
-Epic poem, narration
of achievements,
labours, failures of
heroes that embodies
a culture's conception
of their own past
-

The Epic of Gilgamesh I
● Gilgamesh represents a theme of the
enjoyments of life That ends sooner or
later
●
● Gilgamesh is one-part human, two-part
god, blessed with beauty and courage
● When he spurns the love of Ishtar (the
Queen of Heaven) and kills the Bull of
Heaven, (upper left)
●
● He is punished with the loss of his
dearest (male) companion, Enkidu
(depicted above right)

Epic of Gilgamesh II
● Gilgamesh then goes on a quest
for everlasting life
● When he finds a plant that
promises everlasting life, a
serpent snatches it away (Left)
● He is left with a vision of death, a
“house of dust,” and a place of
inescapable sadness
● The snake recurs in the Book of
Genesis and leads to the Fall of
Man

THE PREVAILING THEME:
ENJOYMENT AND DESPAIR
●Michael Wood: The theme dominates the
history of Iraq
●The video shows how the theme of
greatness followed by disaster recurs
throughout Mesopotamian/Iraqi history
●Another theme: constant warfare
●Much of the art emphasizes battles,
symbolic lions, and other manifestations of
war.

Gilgamesh Epic Tablet:
Flood Story

GOVERNMENT
CITY-
STATESwith
hereditary
rulers.
Ruler led army
in war and
enforced laws.
Complex
government
with SCRIBES
to collect taxes
and keep
SOCIAL
STRUCTURE
Each state had distinct
social hierarchy, or
system of ranks.
1. Nobles
2. Clients (freemen
dependant on nobles)
3. Commoners did not
work for nobles
4. Slave Class
RELIGION
Worshiped many gods.
Believed gods
controlled every aspect
of life.
Saw afterlife as a grim
place. Everybody
would go into darkness
and eat dust.
To keep the gods
happy,
each city built a
ziggurat, or pyramid
temple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKqGpsU91cE&feature=related
List the many reasons Sumerians
used writing.

The Royal Standard of Ur

Mesopotamian Harp

EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD (3100-
2370)
●City states dominated Mesopotamia
●10-15 were present various times
●URUK- first city-state to increase to 50,000 inhabitants
●Defensive walls were constructed
●Monarchs became independent of temple rule
●City states rose and fell
●Uruk: Challenged by other city states around 2700 BC
●Ur: Located 75 miles away, became Uruk’s principal
economic and military rival
●Bands of highwaymen, possibly pastoralists, raided the
merchants en route

Ur
● Site of the “Royal Cemetery”
uncovered by Sir Leonard Woolley,
English archaeologist
● Site contained chariots, headdresses,
lyres, jewelry
● Classic example: lyres with bearded
bull (upper left)
● The blue is constructed from lapis
lazuli crystals
● Lower graphic is a typical Sumerian
theme: animals with human faces
● This comes from the front panel of a
lyre

Evidence of Extreme Stratification:
Burials
● Sir Leonard Woolley unearthed 2500 burials
● Fewer than 20 were of royalty
● Queen Shub-ad (upper left) was lying on a bed
accompanied by female attendants
● 2 wagons drawn by oxen driven by male servants
backed down into entry ramp
● 59 bodies, mostly female, were on the ground near the
tomb
● All retainers were lavishly bedecked with crafted
elements
● Oxen dispatched, then all in the party consumed poison
● Lyre with bull’s head (lower left) was associated with
the Good Queen
●
MAIN IDEA: UPPER CLASS SUMERIANS CELEBRATED
WITH LAVISH BURIALS

LOWER CLASS GRAVES
●Of the other graves in the site
●A large number contains modest quantity of
goods
●A far larger number contain none at all

Board Game From Ur

Sophisticated Metallurgy
Skills
at Ur

■ Temple
■ “Mountain
of
the Gods”
Ziggurat at Ur

Ziggurat: Structure
● Note the stairs and levels of the Ziggurat at Ur

The Ziggurat of Ur: A Contrast with
●The ziggurats became ritual
and administrative centers
●The massive structure was
intended to inspire awe among
the subjects
●The pyramids were to be
eternal homes of the pharaohs
●Ziggurats were built in states;
pyramids were not
●Egypt’s pyramids were of
stone; ziggurats were built of
mud bricks in a stone-poor
region
Egypt’s Pyramids

SUMER FALLS TO
CONQUERORS
● They did not form a strong and unified
government
● War between city-states
Sargon the Great was the ruler of
the kingdom of Akkad who invaded the city-states
● He established the world’s first empire
● from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean
Sea
● lasted for only about 100 years

Sargon of Akkad:
The World’s First Empire
[Akkadians]

Lagash
● Lagash, ruled by Gudea, succeeded
Akkad
● Gudea drew a temple plan from a
vision of the gods (upper)
● Lower: Gudea with temple plan on
his lap
● Represents a model of the
inspiration of heaven on earth
through Gudea as a channel

SUMER FALLS TO
CONQUERORS
●Ur was the city-state that was able to
regain power and ruled both Summer and
Akkad
●Hammurabi was the ruler from
Babylonia who conquered and united the
whole Mesopotamian Peninsula

Babylon: Code of Hammurabi
● Hammurabi: The
Lawgiver
● Criminal law was
instituted
● Lex talonis—"eye
●
for an eye"—
became one of the
cornerstones

Hammurabi, the Judge

Hammurabi’s Code (1792-1750 BCE)

Hammurabi’s Code (1792-1750 BCE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDALXORbtR4
Describe two ways/contributions Hammurabi's Law
influenced legal codes in Western Civilization.

The Babylonian Empires

Babylonian Math
●They drew up
multiplication and division
tables and making
calculations using
geometry

Babylonian Numbers

Babylon: Tower of Babel
● Babylon was the site of
another ziggurat, the
Tower of Babel
● Biblical interpretations:
humankind’s intellectual
arrogance
● Unknow why constructed
halted
●

Warlike Themes: The Assyrians
● Under Assurnasirpal II, the
Assyrians expanded his
empire throughout
Mesopotamia
● -Cruelty cited in his boast
that he dyed the mountains
red with blood
● -Combined war with culture,
creating the largest library
of the time
● -Included the creation
myths and epics of
Mesopotamia
● Added to the arts reflecting
war (left)
as Extreme Types

Warlike Themes: The Assyrians
● http://www.
youtube.
com/watch?
v=wksHEDgBRn
M
Why were the Assyrians able to defeat
the Babylonians and conquer
Mesopotamia?
TEACHER NOTE: START CLIP AT 6:16
as Extreme Types

Neo-Babylonian Empire
● A ziggurat dedicated to the
god Marduk, thought to be
the Tower of Babel in biblical
lore
●

Neo-Babylonian Empire
● The Hanging Gardens
●
●

●
●
●
The Hanging Gardens

CONCLUSION
●Themes of Mesopotamia are very different from those of
Egypt
●Egypt was relatively stable; Mesopotamia comprised
warring city states
●Empires rose, did not last long, fell to others
●Mesopotamia was inventive; resource-poor, wealth had to
come from technological innovations and trade
●War was often the motor force for innovation
●Art—depicting themes of war and powerful monarchs
●Ishtar/Innana: “Make love and war”