Mesopotamia: the Origin of Cities and Sumero-Akkadian Culture

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Mesopotamia the Origin of Cities and
Sumero-Akkadian Culture
Ancient History Prof. Marc Cooper
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Timeline for Early Mesopotamia

• Settlement 5500 BCE
• Uruk Expansion 3500 BCE
• City States 3200 2350 BCE
• Gilgamesh 2700 BCE
• Lagash dynasty 2500 - 2340
• Akkadian Empire 2350 - 2200 BCE
• Ur III Empire 2125 - 2000 BCE
• Hammurabi 1750 BCE

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Languages of Mesopotamia
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Cuneiform writing

• Earliest texts from Uruk ca. 3500 BCE
• Complex system (rebus writing)
• Used to write
• Sumerian
• Akkadian
• Hittite
• Persian
• Canaanite

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Rebus Writing

• Pictogram a sign that represents an object
• Logogram a sign that represents an idea
• Phonogram a sign that represents a sound

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Pictogram ca. 3500 BCE

• Pictogram
• Ka mouth (pu in Akkadian)
• Kir nose (appu in Akkadian)
• Zu tooth (shinnu in Akkadian)
• Logogram
• Inim word
• Du to speak
• Gu to cry out
• Phonogram ka, qa, zu, su, du

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Change in the form of signs
3500 BCE
2800 BCE
Variant forms
700 BCE
1200 BCE
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Cuneiform ca. 3200 BCE
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Lagash cuneiform ca. 2500
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Ur III cuneiform ca. 2100
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Sumerian Religion

• Many anthropomorphic gods
• Pairs of gods owned each city
• Lived in temple
• Required food, clothing, worship
• Required justice and harmony not morality
• Each Sumerian had a personal god
• Cult of ancestors
• Cult of dead kings
• Fear of demons and roving dead
• Divination
• Magic

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Sumerian Gods
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Inanna Sumerian goddess of grain and war
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Ishtar appears as both a virginal bride and a
sexualized goddess in the Old Babylonian period
ca. 1800 BCE
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Sumerian kingship

• War leader
• Steward of the gods
• Responsible for determining the will of the gods
• Responsible for keeping order which requires
  justice law codes
• Wealth from agricultural land, taxes
• A bad king would be replaced by the gods through
  loss in war
• Some ruling queens

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Babylonian Creation

• Marduk, the god of Babylon, destroys Tiamat
  (personified ocean) and splits her apart creating
  the heavens and the earth in the midst of water.
  He creates human beings in the image of the gods
  out of the blood of the rebel god Kingu.
• The story exalts Marduk, explains how the gods
  created order out of chaos, and addresses the
  place of Man in the universe. Marduk is a model
  king and the patron of the Babylonian state.

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Marduk fighting Tiamat
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Uruk Vase
King (Note cap and fishnet skirt with long
belt.) supervising animal and agricultural
sacrifices made in front of the Inanna temple.
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Gilgamesh

• Real king of Uruk ca. 2600 BCE
• Worshipped as a god after death
• Becomes subject of Sumerian stories by 2100 BCE
• Stories translated into Akkadian and expanded
  during Old Babylonian period ca. 1700 BCE
• Shin-eqi-unninni created a lengthy epic out of
  separate stories ca. 1200 BCE
• Several different editions widely read in Assyria
  and Babylonia from 1200 300 BCE.

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Gilgamesh

• The ideal king?
• A story about immortality?
• A story about hubris?
• A story explaining the structure of the world?
• A story explaining the structure of society?

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Ur Dynasty ca 2500 BCE

• City-state ruled by king called lugal
• Main god was Nanna
• Richest tomb was Queen Pu-Abi
• Royal tombs included
• Burial goods
• Tools
• Chariots
• Servants

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Treasures from Pu-Abis tomb
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Pu-Abi
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Ur Standard (Banquet)
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Ur Standard (Warfare)
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Lagash Dynasty
King as war leader
King and queen at a banquet
King and priests worshipping Inanna
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Akkadian Empire

• Sargon created empire uniting Sumer, capital at
  Akkad, promoted Akkadian language
• Naram-Sin Sargons grandson, strengthened
  empire
• Sharkalisharri last strong king
• Enheduanna Sargons daughter, high priestess of
  Nanna at Ur.

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Sargon

• Founded Akkadian empire
• Raided throughout SW Asia
• Put Akkadians in charge of conquered cities
• Syncretized Sumerian and Akkadian gods, i.e.,
  Inanna and Ishtar
• First written Akkadian

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Enheduanna

• En priestess of Nanna at Ur
• Probably ruled Ur for her father and brothers
• Wrote 45 poems about the gods, set them to music.
• Exaltation of Inanna, her personal god, earliest
  authored poem.

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Naram-Sin

• Grandson of Sargon
• Great warrior
• Inspired a revolution in art
• Created a stable imperial state
• Defeated the mountain barbarians
• Created the largest empire in SW Asia

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Empire of Naram-Sin
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Stele of Naram-Sin
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3rd Dynasty of Ur (Ur III)

• Ur-Namma
• Founded dynasty
• Moved capital to Ur
• United Sumerian and Akkadian cities
• First law-code
• Constructed ziggurat at Ur
• Shulgi
• Greatest king
• Patron of the arts
• Court poetry and literature
• Sumerian disappeared as a spoken language
• Created a highly organized hierarchical state
• Defeated northern and eastern barbarians
• Built a great defensive wall 120 mile long

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Ur III Empire
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Ziggurat and Ur-Namma stele
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Why do empires arise?

• Some cities prevail in war due to a charismatic
  leader.
• Cities with greater populations can overwhelm
  those of lesser population.
• According to tradition, the gods chose one city
  to rule the others.

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Why do empires fall?

• Cities were sometimes weakened by disunity.
• Leading citizens of conquered cities often felt
  compelled to rebel to further their ambition.
• Tradition accepted the idea that the gods removed
  failed kings through battle.
• Foreign invaders found easy roads into
  Mesopotamia.
• Upland tribesmen regularly moved their flocks
  through areas controlled by cities.
• Irrigation produced occasional instability
  attributed to bad kings (its the economy stupid).

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Babylonian food

• Meat Beef, mutton, fowl, fish, turtle
• Grain Wheat, barley, emmer
• Dairy Milk, cheese, butter, ghee
• Oil Palm oil, olive oil
• Vegetables Chickpeas, onion, pea, leek
• Fruits dates, figs, apples, pear, peach, grapes
• Flavorings garlic, saffron, cumin
• Beverages Wine (Geshtinanna), Beer (Ninkash)

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Cultural innovations

• Writing
• Metal working
• Bronze
• Iron
• Precious metal
• Architecture (mud brick)
• Science
• Commerce

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Babylonian Calendar

• Natural units of time day, month, year
• Day ends at sundown
• Year ends with harvest
• 12 lunar months of 29 or 30 days each
• Month length was new moon to new moon
• Extra harvest month determined by
• Observation of crops (to 1700)
• According to crude astronomical observations
  (1700 700)
• According to Metonic Cycle 7 extra months in 19
  years (700-100 BCE)

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Mathematics

• Sexagesimal arithmetic (base 60)

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Translate to decimal
1,57,46,40 424,000
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Mathematics

• Place system notation
• Placeholder for zero
• Solved all quadratic equations
• Areas of plane figures
• Pythagorean theorem
• Discovered value of Pi
• Solved square roots

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Astronomy

• Named constellations
• Discovered zodiac
• Divided zodiac into houses
• Discovered planetary periods
• Worked out lunar theory
• Several theories for each planet
• Predicted lunar eclipses

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Commerce

• Used temples as banks
• Traders lived together in karum
• Family businesses
• Women often important
• Loaned money at interest
• Paper loans common
• Kept accurate records
• Traded by ship and caravan
• Wholesale and retail manufacturing
• Ideal trader amassed gold and silver
• Cities taxed exports and imports
• Smuggling to avoid taxes very common

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Important trade goods

• Textiles
• Craftwork
• Jewelry and gems
• Statues
• Furniture
• Wood
• Weapons

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Law Codes

• Urkagina legal reform ca. 2380
• Ur III Law code - ca. 2100
• Laws of Lipit-Ishtar ca.1934-1924
• Laws of Eshnunna - ca. 1900
• Code of Hammurapi - ca.1792-1750
• Middle Assyrian laws ca. 1300
• Hittite laws ca. 1300

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Are these laws?

• No legal document ever cites a law code.
• Legal documents do not follow any of the law
  codes.
• Three classes found in HC free men (majority),
  royal dependents, slaves. Gender difference major
  part of the HC.
• The codes appear to borrow freely from each other
  in specific content and form.
• Perhaps the codes collect particularly good
  judicial decisions which were models of justice
  rather than precedents.

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Law of deposits

• 122. If any one give another silver, gold, or
  anything else to keep, he shall show everything
  to some witness, draw up a contract, and then
  hand it over for safe keeping.
• 123. If he turn it over for safe keeping without
  witness or contract, and if he to whom it was
  given deny it, then he has no legitimate claim.
• 124. If any one deliver silver, gold, or anything
  else to another for safe keeping, before a
  witness, but he deny it, he shall be brought
  before a judge, and all that he has denied he
  shall pay in full.
• 125. If any one place his property with another
  for safe keeping, and there, either through
  thieves or robbers, his property and the property
  of the other man be lost, the owner of the house,
  through whose neglect the loss took place, shall
  compensate the owner for all that was given to
  him in charge. But the owner of the house shall
  try to follow up and recover his property, and
  take it away from the thief.
• 126. If any one who has not lost his goods state
  that they have been lost, and make false claims
  if he claim his goods and amount of injury before
  God, even though he has not lost them, he shall
  be fully compensated for all his loss claimed.
  (I.e., the oath is all that is needed.)

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Marriage law

• 128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no
  intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to
  him.
• 129. If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante
  delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and
  thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon
  his wife and the king his slaves.
• 130. If a man violate the wife (betrothed or
  child-wife) of another man, who has never known a
  man, and still lives in her father's house, and
  sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall
  be put to death, but the wife is blameless.
• 131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife,
  but she is not surprised with another man, she
  must take an oath and then may return to her
  house.
• 132. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife
  about another man, but she is not caught sleeping
  with the other man, she shall jump into the river
  for her husband.

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Divorce for men

• 137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who
  has borne him children, or from his wife who has
  borne him children then he shall give that wife
  her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field,
  garden, and property, so that she can rear her
  children. When she has brought up her children, a
  portion of all that is given to the children,
  equal as that of one son, shall be given to her.
  She may then marry the man of her heart.
• 138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife
  who has borne him no children, he shall give her
  the amount of her purchase money and the dowry
  which she brought from her father's house, and
  let her go.

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Divorce for women

• 141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house,
  wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to
  ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is
  judicially convicted if her husband offer her
  release, she may go on her way, and he gives her
  nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does
  not wish to release her, and if he take another
  wife, she shall remain as servant in her
  husband's house.
• 142. If a woman quarrels with her husband, and
  says "You are not congenial to me," the reasons
  for her prejudice must be presented. If she is
  guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but
  he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt
  attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry
  and go back to her father's house.
• 143. If she is not innocent, but leaves her
  husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her
  husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.

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Summary

• The Sumerians initiated civilization in the Near
  East.
• Invention of writing most significant
  accomplishment.
• Akkadian speaking Babylonians borrowed and
  expanded Sumerian civilization.
• Ideas about kingship, law, and the relationship
  of humans to the gods influence us through the
  Hebrew Bible.