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What Was Life Like in Ancient Mesopotamia?
Evidence of over three millennia of cultural development and change in Mesopotamia lie buried in the cities of the ancient Tigris and Euphrates.Stephen Bertman, 2005. Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Oxford University Press.https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/handbook-to-life-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780195183641?cc=us&lang=en&
Mesopotamia was the home of a succession of glorious civilizations—Sumeria, Babylonia, and Assyria—which flourished together for more than three millennia. Sumerian mathematicians devised the sixty-minute hour that still rules our lives; Babylonian architects designed the famed Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; Assyrian kings and generals, in the name of imperialism, conducted some of the shrewdest military campaigns in recorded history. Readers will identify with the literary works of these civilizations, such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Epic of Gilgamesh, as they are carried across centuries to a period in time intimately entwined with the story of the Bible. The land of the Bible was part of the "Fertile Crescent", the continuum of arable land that arced from the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to the valley of the Nile. In short, the Bible was not born in a cultural vacuum. Though its spiritual message was unique, the experience and consciousness of its authors were conditioned by the Mesopotamian context in which they grew up.What was life like in ancient Mesopotamia? The Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia describes the culture, history, and people of this land, as well as their struggle for survival and happiness, from about 3500 to 500 BCE. The book is formatted for easy reference of topics ranging from the Geography of Mesopotamia (Chapter 1), Archaeology and History(Chapter 2), Government and Society(Chapter 3), Religion and Myth (Chapter 4), Language, Writing, and Literature(Chapter 5), Architecture and Engineering(Chapter 6), Sculpture and Other Arts (Chapter 7), Economy (Chapter 8), Transportation and Trade (Chapter 9), Military Affairs (Chapter 10), Everday Life (Chapter 11), Mesopotamia and Sacred Scripture (Chapter 12) and to the Legacy of Mesopotamia (Chapter 13). Each chapter presents the subject under consideration broken into sub-sections for ease of reference. Chapter 1, for example, provides a table listing the ancient and modern names of the cities of Mesopotamia and then brief descriptions of each city which provide a reader with a mini-history of each. These small histories are then expanded upon throughout the rest of the book.On the name of MesopotamiaToday, most of ancient Mesopotamia lies within the borders of modern Iraq, with some parts—to the west and north—in Syrian and Turkish territory.It was ancient Greek travelers and historians who first gave the land the name by which we know it: Mesopotamia. The name means "the land between the rivers" (from mesos, the Greek word for "between" or "in the middle"; potamos, the Greek word for "river"; and ia, a suffix that the Greeks attached to the names of places). The rivers that defined Mesopotamia were the Tigris and the Euphrates.
The river valleys of Mesopotamia are framed by the desert, the mountains, and the sea. To the west is the Syrian Desert; to the north and east, the mountains of Turkey and Iran; to the south, the Persian Gulf. Rising in the mountains, the rivers descend through foothills and steppe and flow toward the southeast through a flat, alluvial plain until they empty through marshes into the sea.The Assyrians lived in the north and the Sumerians and later the Akkadians, who conquered the Sumerians, lived in the south. Nineveh was the largest city in Assyria, located on the banks of the Tigris River. The city of Babylon was the largest city in Babylonia and was located on the banks of the Euphrates River.One of the first cities in the worldEvidence of over three millennia of cultural development and change in Mesopotamia lie buried in the cities of the ancient Tigris and Euphrates
Mesopotamia was one of the regions that gave birth to the world's earliest cities, and archaeologist Gordon Childe who proposed the ten defining characteristics that determine the first cities can all be observed in ancient Mesopotamian cities.1) In point of size the first cities must have been more extensive and more densely populated than any previous settlements, although considerably smaller than many villages today.2)In composition and function the urban population already differed from that of any village. Very likely indeed most citizens were still peasants…but all cities must have accommodated classes who did not procure their own food, full-time specialist craftsmen, transport workers, merchants, officials and priests. All these were supported by the surplus produced by the peasants.3)Each primary producer paid over the tiny surplus he could wring from the soil with his still very limited technical equipment as tithe or tax to an imaginary deity or a divine king who thus concentrated the surplus.4)Truly monumental public buildings not only distinguish each known city from any village but also symbolize the concentration of the social surplus.5)Priests, civil and military leaders and officials absorbed a major share of the concentrated surplus and thus formed a "ruling class". Unlike a palaeolithic magician or a neolithic chief, they were exempt from all manual tasks. The ruling classes did confer substantial benefits upon their subjects in the way of planning and organization.6)The mere administration of the vast revenues compelled them to invent systems of writing and numeral notation.
The development of cuneiform characters7)The invention of writing enabled the clerks to proceed to the elaboration of exact and predictive sciences – arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Calendrical and mathematical sciences are common features of the earliest civilizations.8)Other specialists, supported by the concentrated social surplus, developed conceptualized and sophisticated styles of art.9)Regular "foreign" trade over quite long distances was a feature of all early civilizations. While the objects of international trade were at first mainly "luxuries", they already included industrial materials. To this extent the first cities were dependent for vital materials on long distance trade as no Neolithic village ever was.10)So in the city, specialist craftsmen were both provided with raw materials needed for the employment of their skill and also guaranteed security in a state organization based now on residence rather than kinship. Peasants, craftsmen, priests and rulers form a community, not only by reason of identity of language and belief, but also because each performs complementary functions, need for the well-being of the whole.How were ancient Mesopotamia cities built?Mesopotamia was . . . "the most densely urbanized region in the ancient world".The natural resources of Mesopotamia largely determined the structural materials used by its architects and engineers. In turn, the structural materials determined the basic size, shape, and style of the works they produced.Southern Mesopotamia was an alluvial plain that was bereft of stone. Large forests that could yield construction grade timber (of oak, pine, or cedar) were likewise lacking. In place of wood, Mesopotamian builders used bundles of river-grown reeds; in the place of stone, brick made from riverine clay. The shape of Mesopotamian bricks changed over the course of history. Mesopotamian bricks—like their clay cousins, the potsherds—helped archaeologists date the structures and strata where they occurred.
Bitumen is another name for ancient asphalt. It is a petroleum-like substance that occurs naturally in the Near East, especially in Iraq, where it seeps to the earth's surface and forms blackish, sticky deposits. The aboveground presence of this substance is, of course, connected to the underground presence of the oil that is the greatest source of Iraqi wealth today.The ancients who found these deposits discovered in them the properties of a powerful adhesive that bonded to brick better than did ordinary mortar and was, moreover, waterproof. Bitumen thereafter became the premium adhesive for laying brick walls and floors. Additionally, it was applied as a coating to make walls and pipes watertight. Among the ancient civilizations of the world, bitumen was used almost exclusively by the Mesopotamians, probably because it was found in their country in such abundance.Though humanity first expressed its artistic impulses in the Old Stone Age, architecture began in the New. The New Stone Age, or Neolithic Period, began in the Near East in the seventh millennium B.C.E. and was marked by a radical change in the way people lived. In earlier times, people had lived by hunting and gathering their food. But in the seventh millennium B.C.E., the principles of agriculture were discovered as well as the ways to domesticate animals. Practicing agriculture meant living in one place, and that in turn led to the construction of permanent dwellings and the beginning of village life.In the fertile alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, once the methods of irrigation agriculture had been mastered these villages grew to the size of cities. Thus the "Neolithic Revolution" gave way to an "Urban Revolution" in which engineering and architecture came to play a larger and larger role. Cities arose that guarded their wealth behind moats and gated walls, while within these walls—amid winding streets and huddled dwellings and shops—stood administrative centers and temples, the new institutions of an invention called civilization. The most distinctive architectural creation of ancient Mesopotamia was not the temple but the ziggurat. So far, over 30 of these structures have been found in various cities, the earliest at Eridu dating back to the end of the third millennium B.C.E.The term ziggurat derives from the Akkadian word zigguratu, which meant a "peak" or "high place". Essentially, a ziggurat was a multistepped platform made of brick. The platform rested upon a terrace and presumably supported a shrine at its top—presumably, because no such shrine has ever been found. The best preserved ziggurat stands at Ur and dates to the late third millennium B.C.E.
Though only its foundations survive, Mesopotamia's largest ziggurat was located at Babylon. In ancient times it was called "Etemenanki", a name that means something like "the foundation of heaven and earth" or, perhaps better, "the link between heaven and earth". Originally, Babylon's ziggurat stood some 300 feet tall and rose up in seven stories.Seen from a distance, the ziggurat of Babylon would have appeared like a massive flight of multicolored stairs reaching for the heavens. If our ancient sources are reliable, each level was painted a different color: the first and lowest, white; the second, black; the third, red; the fourth, again white; the fifth, reddish orange; the sixth, silver; and the seventh and highest, glistening gold.Our typical Mesopotamian city developed gradually. Its "plan" arose organically from within as its population grew and their needs had to be met.Mesopotamian cities were defined by their walls. Ur covered 23.5 square miles; other Sumerian cities, almost 30. Nineveh, by comparison, covered nearly 290 square miles. According to the biblical book of Jonah, the sinful city of Nineveh was so broad it took three days to cross it, "that great city wherein more than 120,000 people dwell who cannot tell their right hand from their left."The largest city in Mesopotamia, however, was Babylon. Indeed, it was the largest city in the world until the days of imperial Rome. Babylon’s expanse measured over 340 square miles.
In the language of the Sumerians, the word for "love" was a compound verb that, in its literal sense, meant "to measure the earth", that is, "to mark off land". To the Sumerians, then, the concept of love was related to the concept of possession and property.
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