8. Worshiped many gods. Believed gods controlled every aspect of life. Saw afterlife as a grim place. Everybody would go into darkness and eat dust. To keep the gods happy, each city built a ziggurat, or pyramid temple. Each state had distinct social hierarchy, or system of ranks. Most people were peasant farmers. Women had legal rights; some engaged in trade and owned property. City-states with hereditary rulers. Ruler led army in war and enforced laws. Complex government with scribes to collect taxes and keep records. RELIGION SOCIAL STRUCTURE GOVERNMENT
Categorized as the earliest of all civilizations as people formed permanent settlements Mesopotamia is a Greek word that means “between the rivers” Specifically, the area between the Tigris River and Euphrates River (present day Iraq) Mesopotamia is not within the "Fertile crescent“, it is in the more desert area that the "Fertile crescent" arcs around
Little rainfall for crops Hot and dry climate in the summers Winters brought fierce windstorms leaving muddy river valleys Springs brought catastrophic flooding of the rivers Arid soil containing little minerals No stone or timber resources
Shows diversity of religion from different regions Yet all of Mesopotamia shared the same religion and the same prominent gods
Important for gods to be honoured by religious ceremonies Ceremonies performed by priests in sacred temples Temples created from mud brick and placed on platforms due to constant flooding Temples evolved to ziggurats- a stack of 1-7 platforms decreasing in size from bottom to top Famous ziggurat was Tower of Babel (over 100m above ground and 91m base)
Established the social, economic and intellectual basis of Mesopotamia First to develop writing in the form of cuneiform Sumerians are credited to have invented the wheel Became the first city of the world However, the Sumerians were not successful in uniting lower Mesopotamia
Leader: Sargon the Great Sargon’s greatest achievement was the unification of lower Mesopotamia (after conquering Sumerians in 2331 BCE) Established capital at Akkad Spread Mesopotamian culture throughout Fertile Crescent Yet dynasty established by Sargon was short-lived… Akkadians were conquered by the invading barbarians by 2200 BCE
10 th century BCE, Assyria emerged as dominant force Assyrian reunited Mesopotamia and established the first true empire Assyrian army was most feared due to their brutal, bloodthirsty & terrorizing tactics and use of iron weapons, battering rams, chariots Assyrian Empire stretched from Persian Gulf north and West to Syria, Palestine and Egypt However, states began to revolt and ONCE AGAIN, Assyrian Empire collapsed by late 7 th century BCE By 539 BCE, Mesopotamia part of the vast Persian Empire (led by Cyrus the Great) Persian Empire dominated for 800 years until Alexander the Great
From 1922 to 1934, an archaeologist named C. Leonard Woolley excavated the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur City famed in Bible as the home of patriarch Abraham many great discoveries such as extravagant jewelry of gold, cups of gold and silver, bowls of alabaster, and extraordinary objects of art and culture opened the world's eyes to the full glory of ancient Sumerian culture Great Death Pit Found at Ur was a mass grave containing the bodies of 6 guards and 68 court ladies (servants of kings and queens) servants walked down into the grave in a great funeral procession they drank a poisoned drink and fell asleep never to wake again, choosing to accompany the kings and queens in the afterlife
codified laws the concept of kinship and the city-state the building of places of worship (ziggurats) the birthplace of writing (cuneiform) Invention of the wheel Oldest written records of a story of creation date back to Mesopotamia First civilization to make a prosperous living based on large scale agriculture
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