Unit 8: Mesopotamia
It is childish to assume that science began in Greece; the Greek "miracle" was prepared by millenia of work in Egypt, Mesopotamia and possibly in other regions. Greek science was less an invention than a revival.
George Sarton: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece
1. The first historical civilizations
1.1) River civilizations.
They arose in the basins of the great rivers, once the peoples have learned to build irrigation canals to cultivate their lands. The abundance of the crops produced an increase in population and trade. The number of people favored the appearance of the first cities, and large-scale commerce favored the appearance of writing and numbering, since it was necessary to keep accounts of what was bought and sold. Life in large communities gave rise to the formation of the first organized governments and religions. With the combination of all these factors we can speak of civilization.
These first river civilizations were:
-Egypt: Nile basin.
-Mesopotamia: basin of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
-India: basin of the Indus and the Ganges.
-China: Huang He basin.
Situation of the states that emerged in Mesopotamia and the current map of the same area.
Elements of civilization
1.2) Political changes.
The first thing to keep in mind to understand these historical processes is that Mesopotamia is the name of a region (from the Greek "mesos" = in the middle, and "potamos" = river, therefore 'Land between rivers' -Tigris and Euphrates-) in which many peoples developed, some of them simultaneously. In this unit, we are going to study the most relevant ones. In the video on the right, you can see the evolution of Mesopotamia over time.
Societies have become more complex: increased food production leads to demographic growth, and with it, the division of labor. This requires the presence of strong leaders and organized states. In Mesopotamia the first kings appear, considered semi-divine creatures and with great armies at their disposal. These kings will be responsible for the creation of the first empires.
2) The first city-states
and the first empires.
(3500 - 539 BCE)
2.1) Sumer (3500-2300 BCE): The Sumerians settled in Lower Mesopotamia and founded important cities, although they did not constitute an empire as such. There they built dams and irrigation canals that allowed them to have a very efficient agriculture.
Other inventions or improvements that we owe to the Sumerians are: cuneiform writing (the first known), the wheel, the sailing ship, buildings and temples, the sexagesimal system and astronomy.
Some of their most important city-states were: Ur, Uruk, Lagash and Eridu. These cities had an independent economy and political system.
Sumerian system of irrigation canals
Sumerian system of cuneiform writing
Standard of Ur. Up: war side. Down: peace side.
The first empires:
1) Akkadian Empire: ca. 2334 King Sargon I took the great Sumerian cities: Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Umma... and extended his empire to the northwest, covering the entire basin of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and establishing the capital in Akkad. He was succeeded by his grandson Naram-Sim, who maintained the empire, however, after his death, the ancient Sumerian cities regained their independence.
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Akkadian Empire
King Sargon I of Akkad, he The Victory stele of Naram-Sin. It depicts founded the Akkadian empire his victory over the Lullubi
2) Sumerian rebirth: from 2112 the ancient Sumerian cities became independent from the Akkadians and flourished again. These are the years of Gudea, ensi (priest-king) of Lagash, a powerful ruler who was considered an intermediary between the gods and the people, or Ur-Nammu, who held the titles of king of Ur, Sumer and Akkad. This period is also known as the Third Dinasty of Ur, or Neo-Sumerian empire.
Gudea, ensi of the city-state of Lagash. Notice the strength of his arms, his gaze of determination, and the symbolism of the flowing water.
On this seal, Ur-Nammu, seated, founder of the III Dinasty of Ur, king of Ur and king of Sumer and Akkad, is granting a ruling position to Hashhamer, who is led into the presence of the deified king by a goddess or priestess. A similar figure appears in an adoring position behind both of them. Ur-Nammu has the crescent, symbol of the god Nanna/Sin, above him.
3) First Dynasty of Babylon: This empire lasted 300 years (1830-1530 BC) and became very powerful and welathy. King Hammurabi reigned between 1792 and 1750 BC, conquered all of southern Mesopotoamia, including the cities of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Hammurabi, who was also considered an intercessor between gods and men, promulgated a famous legal code very strict, which was one of the first written laws to be preserved.
Stele from the Code of Hammurabi (1780 BC).
King Hammurabi receives the law directly from Shamash the sun god. He wears a large crown of horns and flames appear from his shoulders. Hammurabi, standing and in a position of worship, is seen as a powerful figure, having direct contact with the gods, which other mortals cannot do.
The code is located below the relief in cuneiform writing.
Law #3: "If a man has borne false witness in a trial, […] that man shall be put to death."
Law #15: "If anyone takes a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death."
Law #22: "If anyone is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death."
Law #129: "If the wife of a man has been caught lying with another man, they shall bind them and throw them into the waters."
Law #196: “If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone.”
Some articles of the Hammurabi Code that show how strict it was.
4) Assyrian Empire (1800-612 BC)
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Old Assyrian Empire (1800-1375 BC): They settled in northern Babylon after the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Their god Assur is the one who gives their name to the empire and its capital, on the banks of the Tigris.
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Middle Assyrian Empire (1375-1047 BC): New territories were conquered in the name of the god Assur, brutally exterminating their enemies. King Tiglatpileser I expanded the empire to the Caucasus and the Mediterranean Sea.
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Neo-Assyrian Empire (883-612 BC):
After a time of defeats and territorial decline, the cruel King Ashurnasirpal II defeated the Babylonians using, for the first time in history, cavalry. One of his successors, Sargon II, defeated the Medes and controlled the Mediterranean coast (see map). As early as the 7th century BC, King Ashurbanipal invaded Egypt and made Nineveh the flourishing capital, with an immense library, containing 22,000 tablets of cuneiform writing (see map). His successors had to face civil wars and internal disorders, which was used by the Babylonian king Nabopalasar to invade the Assyrian Empire and destroy all its cities, such as Assur or Nineveh.
God Assur. Although the Assyrians were polytheistic, Assur was the most important deity.
Digital reconstruction of the city of Assur, on the banks of the Tigris river.
A proof of the contact between civilizations: this relief shows us the human-divine representation in the Egyptian style, while the writing that accompanies it is cuneiform.
The Assyrians were fierce warriors and very cruel to their enemies. In this relief you can see two prisoners being skinned alive.
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In this relief from the 8th century BC we can appreciate the use of cavalry in warfare. It seems that Ashurnasirpal II, in the 9th century BC, was the first to use it.
The city of Nineveh, capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Ashurbanipal, in the 7th century BC.
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These two reliefs are a good example of the power and divinization of Ashurbanipal. On the left, the king hunting a lion with his bare hands. On the right, celebrating in his palace in Nineveh, together with the queen, his victory against the Elamites.
5) Neo-Babylonian Empire (625-539 BC): After the Assyrian decline, the Babylonian king Nabopalasar devastated and conquered Assur and Nineveh between 625-605 BC. His son Nebuchadnezzar II secured Babylonian power by defeating the Judah-Egypt alliance. It was the king who made Babylon a great and beautiful city: the Avenue of Processions, the Ishtar Gate, the Etemenanki ziggurat (called "Tower of Babel" in the Bible) and the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the wonders of the Ancient world. After his reign, the decline began and the Persians (also known as the Achaemenid Empire) conquered Babylon under the command of their king Cyrus II.
Nabopolassar took over Nineveh in 612 BC. Notice the advanced military technology he possessed: catapults, battering rams, etc.
Nebuchadnezzar II and the ziggurat of Etemenanki (the Tower of Babel) in the background. He was one of the most powerful kings of the Neo-Babylonian period, but after his death in 562 BC there was a decline that led to the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus II.
3D digital reconstruction of Babylon. Notice the famous architeture elements: Etemenanki ziggurat, gate of Ishtar, Hanging Gardens.
Cyrus II, king of the Persians (his empire was called Achaemenid) conquered and entered Babylon in 539 BC. This event ends the history of Mesopotamia
3) Economy
It was based on agriculture, which, thanks to the irrigation canals and the fertility of those lands, reached a development never seen before. The most frequent crops were cereals (barley and wheat), vegetables and fruit trees.
On the other hand, the invention and development of the wheel, the chariot and the sailing ship favored trade. The largest empires, such as the Neo-Assyrian or Neo-Babylonian, had trade routes that connected the Persian Gulf with the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
The camel and the donkey, very resistant animals, were used to carry merchandise in land trade.
On the left, the symbol of barley in a Sumerian ideogram (before cuneiform writing). To the right, the long trade routes that started from Ur in all directions.
4) Religion
The first gods were, as is common in the first civilizations, linked to nature: the Sumerian Ishkur (Adad in Akkadian) was the god of thunder and storm; Amaushumgalna, the one of palm trees, and Inanna, the goddess of stored fruit. Inanna ended up being identified with Ishtar by the Akkadians. The planet Venus was associated with Ishtar, who eventually became the goddess of fertility, love, and war. His father was the moon god Nanna (or Sin) and his brother the sun god Utu (or Shamash). Other important gods were An, father of the gods; Enki (or Ea), god of irrigation canals; Enlil, son of An, who separated heaven from earth; or Nergal, god of the underworld.
The kings used religion for their own benefit: Akkadian Naram Sin, grandson of Sargon of Akkad, was represented in reliefs as if he were a god: he wore horns on his head (divine symbol) and dominated men in the field battle.
In Assyrian and Babylonian religion, another god (Assur / Marduk) replaced Enlil as the supreme god.
The Babylonian poems Enûma Elish (When in the heights) and Epic of Gilgamesh narrate episodes such as the origin of the world, the creation of the human being or the flood, which later appear in the book of Genesis.
5) Art and culture
The legacy of the Mesopotamian civilizations that endures to us is impressive. If you look at the date the unit begins with, it places much of the credit for Greek culture in the inheritance received from Mesopotamia. The most relevant achievements were:
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Cuneiform writing: It is the oldest writing system to date. In Sumer, they started by noting ideograms and, over time, they developed a whole system that allowed the exchange of ideas and information and allows us to learn about broad aspects of their culture. Cuneiform means "wedge-shaped" because of the triangular appearance of the characters. They were written on clay tablets that were then left to dry in the sun to harden.
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Adobe architecture: This material, a mixture of mud and straw dried in the sun, is very resistant and insulating from both cold and heat. It was used as early as the 7th millennium BC, but in Mesopotamia it was used on a large scale. The main buildings were the royal palaces and the ziggurats. The function of these tall buildings in the form of a stepped pyramid is unknown, although it is believed that they could have been temples or astronomical observatories. The palaces of Khorsabad, Babylon or Nineveh, the Etemenanki ziggurat or the Ishtar gate, decorated with enameled brick, stood out.
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Sculpture: The relief was worked on the walls of the palaces. The figures are almost always two-dimensional and in profile position, and represent scenes of war or worship of the gods.
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Mathematics: they introduced the use of the sixtieth system and already knew the Pythagorean theorem. They were able to make the first calendars, dividing the day into hours and minutes.
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Astronomy: they studied the movements of the stars and their cycles with great accuracy. According to some scholars, they even had primitive telescopes. They developed the zodiac and associated it with agricultural work, although they also practiced divination.
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Literature: Apart from the Code of Hammurabi, of which we have already spoken, they left us two great poems: The Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the adventures of King Gilgamesh of Uruk in his search for immortality; and the Enuma Elis, about the creation of the world and the glory of Marduk as supreme god.
Assyrian clay tablet from 7th century BC in cuneiform script. The text talks about how to break a spell.
Cylinder seal from the city-state of Uruk.
Before the invention of cuneiform writing, they made clay tablets where they printed representative figures of power with a cylindrical seal like the one seen in the picture.
Adobe bricks
Palace of the Assyrian King Sargon II. 8th century BC
Ziggurat of Etemenanki, in Babylon. 6th century BC
The wounded lioness. Relief of the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, in Nineveh. 7th century BC
Winged bull from the palace of Assyrian king Sargon II in Khorsabad, 8th century BC
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