1 Lecture # 3: Ancient Mesopotamian Civilization:
Jan 13, 2016
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Lecture # 3: Ancient Mesopotamian Civilization:
Introduction to World Civilization What was the starting point of
civilization? This is the crucial asking to understand the chronology of ancient civilization. There are some debates to get a concrete history of world civilization. According to the existing literature, the most primitive civilization was that of Mesopotamian. Sometimes, this notion seems to be confusing for some writers showed in their analyses that Egyptian civilization was the most ancient. Therefore, we’ll detect the
certain point of the introduction to world civilization, firstly, on the basis of Lewis Henry Morgan’s measurement scale, a theory of savagery to barbarism to civilization and secondly, on the timelines of the history.
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Fig: Successive Stages of History to Morgan
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Stages Traits
Savagery Hunting & Gathering; Technological inventions like fire, bow & pottery
Barbarism Domestication of animals; Agriculture; and Metalworking
Civilization Alphabet and writing
Civilization: Timelines
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Type Timelines
Meso-potamian
4000 BC: Mesopotamian culture & the 1st known writing by the Sumerians 3500 BC: civilization 1st took shape 3100 BC: oldest poetry, first literate civilization
Egyptian 4000 BC: Archeological records 3150 BC: unified state & civilization developed around the river Nile3100 BC: Civilization appears full blown before the First Dynasty; Writing; a solar calendar tec.
Ancient Mesopotamian Civilization
Mesopotamian civilization is considered as the most ancient civilization on the planet earth. Mesopotamia" is derived from two Greek terms mesos, meaning ‘middle’ and potamoi, ‘rivers’. So, the name literally means ‘land between the rivers.’ Mesopotamia was geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and southwestern Iran. Due to its fertility, James Henry Breasted regarded this area as "Fertile Crescent”.
Map of Mesopotamian Civilization
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1. The Sumerians The first true civilization on planet
earth developed in Mesopotamia, and the people who built this first civilization are known as the Sumerians. Ironically, little more than a century ago, nothing was known of the Sumerians. The first civilization in history had been lost to history. Slowly, over the past hundred years, and largely due to the efforts of the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania, the puzzle has been slowly pieced together.
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2. The Babylonians (About 1900-1800BC) Over the centuries the ability of the "Kings of
Sumer and Akkad" to maintain order in Mesopotamia gradually weakened, a new tribe of Semites began to descend into the Euphrates Valley, just as the Akkadians had done under Sargon. These were the Amorites (an ancient Semitic-speaking people) from Syria near the Mediterranean. They seized the city of Babylon, which is about 50 miles south of Baghdad, the current capital of Iraq. Now at that time Babylon was an insignificant town on the edge of the Euphrates river, but it was there that the Amorites established their capital and their king, thereby establishing what historians know as the Old Babylonian Empire. Eleven kings would occupy the throne of Babylon, and the sixth of these was Hammurabi.
Zigurat
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Science and technology▶Astronomy: The Babylonian astronomers
were enthusiastic to study the stars and sky.
▶Mathematics: The Mesopotamians used a sexagesimal (base 60) numeral system.
▶Medicine: The most extensive Babylonian medical text was the Diagnostic Handbook written by the physician Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa, during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069-1046 BC).
▶Technology: They invented many technologies e.g., the wheel.
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Holidays, Feasts, and Festivals Ancient mesopotamians had ceremonies
each month. The theme of the rituals and festivals for each month is determined by six important factors:
▶The phase of the Moon;▶ The phase of the annual agricultural cycle;▶ Solstices of the solar year;▶ The mythos of the City and its divine Patrons;▶ The success of the reigning Monarch;▶ Remembrance of specific historical events
(founding, military victories, temple holidays, etc.)
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Family life Mesopotamia across its history became
more and more a patriarchal society, in which the men were far more powerful than the women. Thorkild Jacobsen and others have suggested that early Mesopotamian society was ruled by a "council of elders" in which men and women were equally represented, but that over time, as the status of women fell, that of men increased.
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As for schooling, only royal offspring and sons of the rich and professionals such as scribes, physicians, temple administrators, and so on, went to school. Most boys were taught their father's trade or were apprenticed out to learn a trade. Girls had to stay home with their mothers to learn housekeeping and cooking, and to look after the younger children. Women in Mesopotamia had rights. They could own property and, if they had good reason, get a divorce.
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Causes of DeclineThe decay and death of the Mesopotamian
civilization can be ascribed to three main causes: the absence of a national government, the foundation by Alexander and his
successors of new cities competing with and eventually superseding the older settlements, and
the profound ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural changes introduced by successive waves of invaders --- Persians, Greeks, Arameans, pre-Islamic Arabs --- who could neither be kept at bay not assimilated.