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MESOPOTAMIA
Political
SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION
Sumerians in lower Mesopotamia 5000 BCE
Agrarian civilization
Small competing kingdoms or city-states
Ideas and techniques created distinct influential civilization
First at:
- large cities
- sophisticated system of writing
- monumental buildings
- probably invented the wheel
- irrigation system using gravity
- use of plow
- among first to make bronze utensils, weapons
Mesopotamia located
“Land Between the Rivers” Tigris and Euphrates rivers (southeastern Iraq)
Economic
Earning a Living
- Livehood came from land, directly or indirectly
- Trade in foodstuff, grain, imported commodities
- Some occupations required education, formal training, apprenticeships, scribes, priesthood , metalworking.
The merchants traded food, clothing, jewelry, wine and other goods between the cities. To buy or trade these goods, the ancient Mesopotamians used a system of barter.
Merchant
Pictures
Religion and the Afterlife
Religious
- Polytheism – religion of many gods
- The three main gods were Ea (Sumerian: Enki), the god of wisdom and magic, Anu (Sumerian: An), the sky god, and Enlil (Ellil), the god of earth, storms and agriculture and the controller of fates.
- Ziggurats – pyramids where gods reside and priests made offerings
- most famous - Babylon (Tower of Babel)
- Mesopotamian religion - not optimistic
Chronology, Mathematics, Writing
Intellctual
Chronology
- Time - cyclic nature of seasonal change
- Calendar - lunar months between full moons
- Mathematics - influential in western science
- Based on units of 60 (60 seconds and 60 minutes)
- Basic geometry and trigonometry (360ºcircle)
Records: taxation, marital/inheritance, calendar, seasonal changes
cuneiform - script in wedge-shaped characters after 3500 BCE
Sumerian cuneiform remained basic script of most Near and Middle Eastern languages until about 1000 BCE
Evolution of writing
Government
and Social Structure
Political and
social
Two types
- Theocracy of early city-states
- Kingdom-empires beginning with Sargon the Great
Three classes
- Priests, noble landlords
- Freemen (majority)
- Slaves
Emperor Hammurabi’s reign,1700 BCE
Early complete code of laws:
Principles
Punishment depends on social rank (commoners, slaves treated harsher than nobles)
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”
Victim’s right to personal compensation
Government is impartial referee
Not equal before the law: husbands over wives, fathers over children, rich over poor, free citizens
over slaves