Before we begin!!!!!

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Before we begin!!!!!

• Political Who controls what? What type of
  government is there? Anything to do with laws or
  war.
• Economic What type of economy? How do people
  make a living?
• Geography Where is it? Is the land mountainous?
  Desert? Oceanic?
• Social Religious, intellectual, artistic

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Ancient River Valley Civs
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ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

• Oldest known civilization
• Cradle of Human Civilization
• Old Testament
• Nebuchadnezzar
• Ziggurat (right)
• Hanging gardens

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Geography

• This civ rose in the valleys between the Tigris
  and Euphrates rivers.
• Some say this Fertile Crescent was the real
  Garden of Eden.

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In what modern day country was the Fertile
Crescent?
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(No Transcript)
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Ur, the capital city of Mesopotamia
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PoliticalWhat was the earliest kingdom in
Mesopotamia? The second?
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FIRST SUMERIANS

• Sumerians first arrived in region around 5000 BC
• Typical Paleolithic people motivated by search
  for game
• Settled in region and took up farming
• Built dams, dikes, and short canals to use water
  from the Euphrates
• Grew barley and dates and raised sheep and goats

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SUMERIAN CITY-STATES

• City-states gradually emerged over next 1000
  years
• Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Nippur, Kish, Umma, etc.
• Larger than Neolithic settlements and displayed
  evidence of economic specialization and strong
  political organization
• Included the urban center plus surrounding
  countryside
• Each was also an independent political unit

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SUMERIAN AGRICULTURE

• Each was crisscrossed by irrigation system of
  major canals and minor channels
• Designed to bring water from Euphrates to
  farmland
• Farmland divided into square and rectangle-shaped
  plots
• Farmers worked land with plows, seed-drills, and
  stone hoes and received yield of 401
• Other areas set aside as gardens and fruit
  orchards
• Carts pulled by donkeys and boats on the canals
  took produce to the urban center itself

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CITY CHARACTERISTICS

• Each city surrounded by walls
• Permanent garrisons of soldiers stationed in
  towers and at each gate
• Wide boulevards crossed city, lined by houses of
  the wealthy
• Rest of city made up of narrow, twisting alleys
  surrounded by small, flat-roofed huts
• Homes of farmers, and small craftsmen

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Social

• This is cuneiform.
• Babylonians wrote using this wedge-shaped
  writing on clay tablets.
• The Sumerians invented writing.

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INVENTION OF WRITING

• As early as 3500 BC, the Sumerians used
  pictograms to represent certain physical objects
• Drawn on clay
• By 3500 BC, they began to use ideograms (symbols
  standing for abstract, non-physical concepts) and
  phonograms (symbols representing phonetic sounds)
• Meanwhile pictograms became more stylized

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• Emerging writing system known as cuneiform
• Means wedge-shaped
• Impressed on clay tablets with wood stylus
• Very complicated
• Originally 2000 symbols
• Reduced to 500 over time
• Only small group of professional scribes could
  master it
• After 15 years of training
• A secret held by only a few specially-trained
  individuals

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More cuneiform writing
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ZIGGURAT

• Most dominant structure in each city was its
  temple
• Dedicated to patron god of the city
• Largest structure in city
• Resembled a gigantic stepped pyramid
• Designed to look like mountains because Sumerians
  believed their gods liked to live on top of
  mountains

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More ziggurats
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Babylonia
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Hanging gardens of Babylonia
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Tower of Babel
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Another painting of the hanging gardens with
Tower of Babel in back
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Economic trade and farming

• Sumerians (Mesopotamians) were known to trade
  with the Egyptians and the Indus Valley
  civilizations.
• In later years, these trade routes became Silk
  Road.

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Sumerians invented the wheel!

• The wheel was invented by 6000 BC!
• It helped military, farming and trade.
• At right, this is made of wood.

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THE PURPOSE OF LAW
If inequality and exploitation become too naked,
society will not survive Ancient Mesopotamia
rulers realized this They established law to
define the limits of exploitation In order to
prevent such terrible acts of oppression that it
would have sparked the oppressed to rise up and
the destroy the entire system Law was invented by
those on top to protect their superior status by
limiting the abuses they theoretically had the
power to commit
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PoliticalMesopotamian Law

• Code of Hammurabi
• eye for an eye tooth for a tooth

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HAMMURABIS LAW CODE

• Greatest of his accomplishments
• Carved on a huge stone slab
• Discovered in Syria in 1901
• Probably carried off from Babylon after Ebla
  destroyed the Babylonian Empire
• Contained 282 sections and incorporated many
  unique features

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FEATURES

• Basic feature was eye for an eye, tooth for a
  tooth
• Revolutionary new legal principal
• Earlier Sumerian laws calculated all punishments,
  no matter what the crime, in monetary fines
• Punishments varied according to the social status
  of offender
• Very harsh punishments
• No concept of cruel and unusual punishment
• Detailed regulation of economic life
• Subsidiary status of women

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That concludes Mesopotamia.

• Any questions before the quiz?

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Mesopotamia Quiz

• PoliticalWhat law system did Sumerians use?
  Hint It can be summed eye for eye tooth for
  tooth.
• Economic How did Mesopotamians earn a living?
• GeographyBetween what 2 rivers did the Fertile
  Crescent appear?
• SocialWhat type of writing did they use?