Mesopotamia - Cradle of Civilization

Civilization is a developed society, characterized by a high level of political organization and material culture

Cradle of Civilization

This region was the original site of human civilization, and the peoples who created the first cities, writing systems, religions, and methods of scientific study.

It was here that people first gathered in big cities, learned to write and formed governments. For this reason Mesopotamia is often called the "Cradle of Civilization".

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Agriculture and irrigation systems

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The ancient Mesopotamians are known for establishing the world's first irrigation systems, a technology that diverted and delivered vital amounts of water to settlements for use in farming and other forms of sustainable living.

Study and mathematics

4100 BCE - 2900 BCE

Mesopotamian science and technology first appears in the Uruk Period of Sumer.

2900 BCE - 1750 BCE

Mesopotamian science develops with the rise of the cities during the Early Dynastic Period.

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Doctor's Medical Recipe from Babylon

The Mesopotamians developed a highly sophisticated sexagesimal mathematical system, which inspired them to create time based on the concept of 60. This system included addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, geometry, reciprocals, squares, and quadratic equations.

This same model applies to healthcare in that many of the practices associated with Egypt and Greece originated in Mesopotamia.

Here were two types of doctors in Mesopotamia:

• Asu – a medical practitioner who prescribed various treatments for illness or injury
• Asipu – a holistic healer who relied on magical spells, amulets, and incantations.

'Cuneiform'

Since the discovery and decipherment of cuneiform, the history of civilization has never been the same.

The name comes from the Latin word cuneus for 'wedge' owing to the wedge-shaped style of writing. In cuneiform, a carefully cut writing implement known as a stylus is pressed into soft clay to produce wedge-like impressions that represent word-signs (pictographs) and, later, phonograms or "word-concepts" (closer to a modern-day understanding of a "word").

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Cartography

There are around one hundred and seventy extant examples preserved in collections across the world.

Over one hundred and seventy maps and plans are preserved from the ancient Near East, drawn on clay tablets or inscribed in stone.

There was a coherent documentary genre in Mesopotamia which was cartographic in nature, and which served a variety of administrative and planning purposes. The Near Eastern cartographic corpus takes place in the global development of graphic mapping.

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Signs of the Zodiac

Astronomy/Astrology

Piece of planisphere

The charting of the stars was interpreted by Mesopotamians, like everything else, as acting in accord with the will of the gods and so it was only natural that, eventually, diviners would come to interpret certain astronomical phenomena as messages from the gods – and so astrology was created.

Astrology, however, came to dominate divination because the signs were seen as a clearer message directly from the gods regarding a nation’s or an individual’s future and even character. The signs of the zodiac were concepts first created in Mesopotamia before being developed later by the Egyptians and the Greeks.

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Sailboats

This crucial invention largely helped in making Mesopotamian civilization a great empire and civilization along with the society’s other contributions.

The sailboats of Mesopotamia were simple in design, the sails were square in shape and made of cloth. The angle and direction of the sails coul not be changed.

Their sailboats were as simple as they needed to be, but they introduced plank construction and square sails. Even though the vessels were of limited capacity, these ships revolutionized water travel. The basic design of their sailboats is still in use even today.

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The wheel

The chariot

The chariot, The wheel, The plow

• The Sumerians didn’t invent wheeled vehicles, but they probably developed the first two-wheeled chariot in which a driver drove a team of animals.
• The first wheel wasn’t used for transportation. The wheel was first invented as a potter’s wheel and was believed to have existed around 3500 BC.
• The Sumerians invented the plow, a vital technology in farming. They even produced a manual that gave farmers detailed instructions on how to use various types of plows. In Mesopotamia, man first harnessed the ox and developed the first plow called the “ard.”

The plow

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Cities

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The inhabitants of Mesopotamia, known as the Sumerians, arrived in the fourth and third thousand B.C. They founded the first city-states. They were also famous for their brick buildings. The biggest and the most impressive are the so-called ziggurates, i.e. temples where hanging gardens called Semiramis were built. Interestingly, these gardens were inscribed in the seven wonders of the world.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon