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Contributions of the Civilizations of Mesopotamia

Three Main Civilizations

The City-States of Sumer

Invented the wheel and axle...

The Babylonians

Studied astronomy and mathematics...

The Assyrians

They created the first library...

History

They invented the battering ram...

Written Language

How and Why

Writing Was Invented

  • They needed a way to keep track of their crops and livestock.
  • Began to use writing symbols by about 3100 B.C.
  • They first used symbols to represent objects such as grain, oxen, water, or stars.
  • Over time, the symbols evolved into the language of cuneiform.

This one written language could represent several spoken languages and was useful to traders.

Scribes

~professional writers

Very important and highly respected people

The cuneiform script was very complicated and took a great deal of time and effort to learn.

Not everyone had the time or the opportunity to learn it.

People would hire scribes to read or write for them.

Tools of the Scribes

They did not have paper (it hadn't been invented yet). They wrote on clay tablets.

They carved the wet clay with a sharpened reed called a stylus.

Clay Tablets

The size and shape of the tablet depended on the purpose of the writing on the tablet.

The clay came from the bottom of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

  • It contained 282 laws and punishments.
  • King Hammurabi claimed that the laws had been given to him by Shamash, the god of the sun and justice.
  • The laws were based on the idea of "an eye for an eye."
  • The punishment should be similar to the crime that was committed.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/hammurabi.html

195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.

196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. [ An eye for an eye ]

197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.

198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.

199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. [ A tooth for a tooth ]

201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.

202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.

203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.

204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.

205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.

The Phoenicians

The First Alphabet

  • They developed a written language that used 22 symbols to represent the sounds of the language.

It became the basis of many modern alphabets, including English.

It was easier to learn than cuneiform because cuneiform used hundreds of symbols representing objects.

This meant that more people could learn how to read and write (not just scribes).

It simplified trade among people who spoke different languages.

Purple Dye

The Phoenicians discovered how to make a beautiful purple dye using snails that lived in the Mediterranean Sea.

It took 10,000 snails to dye one garment. As a result, it was very expensive. Only very wealthy people could afford it.

Purple became the color of royalty.

Sea Trade

The Phoenicians built ships that could travel all around the Mediterranean Sea.

They traveled to places all over Europe and traded with them.

They traded their purple dye and cedar wood from the forests of Phoenicia.

Their widespread trade also caused their alphabet to spread throughout Europe and be adopted by other civilizations, especially the Greeks.

  • The Greeks used the alphabet as the basis for their own.
  • The Romans used the Greek alphabet as the basis for the Latin alphabet.
  • The English alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet.

http://allmesopotamia.wordpress.com/tag/library-of-ashurbanipal/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Battering_ram.jpg/220px-Battering_ram.jpg

Cuneiform

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Marsh_Arabs_in_a_mashoof.jpg/300px-Marsh_Arabs_in_a_mashoof.jpg

~a civilization that lived on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in present-day Lebanon

http://ancienttechnology.net/wp-content/uploads/writing_hebrew_phoenician_greek_latin.jpg

http://www.richeast.org/htwm/cune/cune.html

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps236507.jpg&retpage=18706

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cuneiform+tablet&view=detail&id=C6320BDC2C86E6C997C56EC07FAF28F67519D28C&first=309

http://archaeology.csumb.edu/Courses/AncientCivilizations/Syllabus/Cuneiform_Slideshow/CuneiformStylusUsage.jpg

http://0.tqn.com/d/ancienthistory/1/G/y/k/2/cuneiform.jpg

http://www.crystalinks.com/CuneiformFloodTablet.jpg

Hammurabi's Code

~a set of laws and punishments created by Hammurabi, the King of Babylonia, and then written down for the people of the Empire to see

http://www.legalnurse.com/vickiesblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/9-9-09-hammurabi.jpg

http://www.cyberwitchcraft.com/image-files/shamash.jpg

http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/gaddis/HST210/Sept12/Phoenician%20Alphabet%20Chart.gif

http://ptl2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/murex-snail.jpg

http://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/tyrian-purple/

http://riversfromeden.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/democracy-and-maritime-power-in-the-near-east-part-2/

http://www.mediastorehouse.com/r1/phoenician_ship_in_the_mediterranean/print/5886635.html

http://civilizations-nippurean.blogspot.com/2010/09/mediterranean-bginnings.html

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