Mesopotamia
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- For other uses, see Mesopotamia (disambiguation).
Mesopotamia (Greek: Μεσοποταμία, translated from Old Persian Miyanrudan "between rivers"; Aramaic name being Beth Nahrain "house of rivers") is a region of Southwest Asia. Strictly speaking, it is the alluvial plain lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers comprising parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. More commonly, the term includes these river plains in totality as well as the surrounding lowland territories bounded by the Syrian Desert to the west, the Arabian Desert to the south, the Persian Gulf to the southeast, the Zagros Mountains to the east and the Taurus Mountains to the north. Mesopotamia is famous for being the site of some of the oldest civilizations in the world.
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Cradle of Civilization
Image:Sumerian MS2272 2400BC.jpg Writings from Mesopotamia (Uruk, modern Warka) are among the earliest known in the world, giving Mesopotamia a reputation of being the "Cradle of Civilization." The age of Sumerian writing is about on a par with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and some yet older inscriptions are known, probably ranking as proto-writing (Old European script, Naqada [1]).
City states and Imperial glory
Mesopotamia was settled and conquered by numerous ancient civilizations. It is very important to remember that the dates for events in ancient Mesopotamia are still controversial, and several different methods and standards of dating exist. The ones listed herein should be taken only as an estimate.
- Mesopotamia was home to some of the oldest major ancient civilizations, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Persians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
- The Sumerians are generally regarded as the first group of people in Mesopotamia, although scholars dispute when they might have arrived. The Fertile Crescent was inhabited with several distinct, flourishing cultures between the end of the last ice age (c. 10,000 BCE) and around 5000 BCE. These include the Ubaid culture and the Sarmatian culture near today's Iranian border. In general, complex societies began developing around 6000 BCE; still, by that time Jericho was already a bustling city complete with irrigation techniques. It is hard to tell where the Sumerians might have come from because the language Sumerian is unrelated to any other known language. Their mythology includes many references to the surrounding area but little clue as to their place of origin. The Sumerian language is identifiable from the period of 3200-2900 onward. The Sumerians are also the first formal astronomers known throughout history. They were considered to have thought that there were 10 planets.
- In the mid-4th throughout the 3rd millenniums BCE, various city-states gained increased power at various times. Eridu, Uruk, Ur, Lagash, and Girsu were all important urban centers. Especially in the 4th millennium, Uruk was one of the most important centers in the region. It is during this period that Uruk and some other urban centers began really experimenting with writing, invented the wheel, and stepped up metal production and stonework. According to mythology, Uruk was said to have been home to Gilgamesh, the most famous of Mesopotamian heroes.
- By the time of the 3rd millennium, these urban centers had developed into increasingly complex societies. Irrigation and other means of exploiting food sources are being used to amass surpluses of food, huge building projects are being undertaken by rulers, and political organization is becoming evermore sophisticated.
- In the middle of the 3rd millennium, King Sargon established the Dynasty of Agade (sometimes called Akkad) in Mesopotamia. It was the first time the entire area was united under centralized rule. The Akkadians were a Semitic people; the first tangible documentation of Akkadian language comes from c. 2300 BCE. Sumerian was retained as an important language for administrative and literary purposes, but otherwise Akkadian dominated the scene. The Dynasty continued until around c. 2000, and included such famous rulers as Naram-Sin.
- After the rule of the Dynasty ended, various city-states vied for power. At the same time, a people called the Gutians invaded from the Zagros Mountains and took over for a short period.
- Power over the area finally went to the city-state of Ur, when the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III) was founded. State control over industry reached a level never again seen in the region. Famous Ur III rulers include Ur-Nammu, and Shulgi, who devised one of the earliest known lawcodes (in the spirit of the later, more famous, Hammurabi).
- The Hurrians were a people who settled in northern Mesopotamia circa 1600 BCE South-East of Turkey and by circa 1450 BCE established a medium-size empire called Mitanni east, north and west, and temporarily made tributary vassals out of kings in the west, and making them a major threat for the Pharaoh.
- By 1300 BCE they had been reduced to their homeland and the status of vassal of the Hatti (the Hittites), a western Indo-European people (belonging to the linguistic "kentum" group) who dominated most of Asia Minor in modern Turkey from their capital of Hattusa and threatened Egypt even more.
- Meanwhile the Kassites established a strong realm, Sangar, in southern Mesopotamia, with Babylon as its capital, not touched by Mitanni or Hittites. But Assyria and the Elamites threatened or invaded them.
- Chaldaean New Babylonia circa 600 BCE.
Later history
- The region then came under the rule of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, apparently as two satrapies, Babylonia in the south and Athura (from Assyria) in the north. During this time, 500-330 BCE, Persia, an Indo-European language-speaking nation, became the pre-imminent power of the world.
- After the conquest of all Persia by the Hellenizing Macedonian king Alexander the Great, the satrapies were part of the major diadochy, the Seleucid Empire, almost until its elimination by Greater Armenia in 42 BCE.
- Most of Mesopotamia then became part of the Parthian Empire of Persia, which lasted until 224 CE. Ctesiphon was made to be the capital of the Parthian Empire. However, part in the northwest became Roman. Under the Tetrarchy, this was divided into two provinces, called Osrhoene (around Edessa; roughly the modern-day border between Turkey and Syria) and Mesopotamia (a bit more northeast).
- During the time of the Persian Empire of Sassanids, their much larger share of Mesopotamia was called Del-e Iranshahr meaning "Iran's Heart" and the metropol Ctesiphon (facing ancient Seleukia across the Tigris), the capital of Persia, was situated in Mesopotamia.
- In the early 7th century CE, the caliphs of the Arab Empire came to power in Damascus and annexed all of the Sassanid Empire. Consequently, Mesopotamia was reunited under the Arabs, but governed as two provinces: northern, with Mosul (also known as Nineveh) as its capital, and southern, with Baghdad as its capital, which also later became the caliphal capital. Baghdad became the seat of the Arab Empire until 1258.
- From 1508-1534 CE, the Persian Safavids briefly took control of Mesopotamia.
- In 1535 CE, Ottoman Turks took control of Baghdad. During the reign of the Ottoman Empire, Mesopotamia was ruled as three separate vilayats, or territories: Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, which included the territory that is now present-day Kuwait.
- At the end of World War I, Mesopotamia was briefly occupied by the British, who set up the government of what is now present day Syria and Iraq under one Hashemite ruler.
- In, 1920 the nation-state of Iraq was created by the British, with it's present-day borders and including the territory that is now known as Kuwait. Kuwait, which had originally been a part of the Basra province under Ottoman rule, declared its independence from Iraq in 1961.
Education
Development of Writing
The first ways of writing that were developed were pictograms. These were pictures on tablets that told stories, history and other important happenings.
Later they started to develop different signs for different letters, which they called cuneiform writing. This new way of writing spread fast, and was used more than pictograms. They carved their letters into clay, which stored all their writings throughout history
Mathematics, Medicine and Astronomy
The Mesopotamians had two number systems, one with 10, and the other with 60. The Sumerians were the first people to count time in sixty minute hours, and they created a calendar with 7 days in a week. The Babylonian astronomers were very interested in studying the stars and sky, and most could already predict eclipses and solstices. People thought that everything had some purpose in astronomy. Most of these related to religion and omens. The doctors in Mesopotamian did not know much about medicine and the human body, but they observed their illnesses. From these observations, hundreds of years later modern medicine was created.
Eclipses
In ancient Mesopotamia eclipses were considered as bad omens, but only the ones that were seen counted. However if an eclipse was not seen in the royal city, it meant that the omen was nothing to do with the king or his country.
Constellations
Constellations that we still use, such as Leo, Taurus, Scorpius, Auriga, Gemini, Capricorn and Sagittarius were invented by the Sumerian and Babylonian astronomers. But besides beliefs, the constellations were useful for Mesopotamian people, to know when to harvest their crops, planting and even to calculate time.
Gods and goddesses
Mesopotamian religion is the oldest religion that we have records of. They believed that the world was a flat disc, which was surrounded by a huge, holed space, and above that heaven. They also believed that water was everywhere, the top, bottom and sides, and that the universe was born from this enormous sea. People also believed in many gods.
Although the beliefs above were common in whole Mesopotamia, different parts of the land had different beliefs. The Sumerian word for universe is an-ki, which refers to the god An and the goddess Ki. Their son was Enlil, the air god. It was believed that he was the most powerful god. He was their main god, as the Greeks had Zeus, and the Romans had Jupiter. The Sumerians also had many questions with no answers, such as: Who are we?, Where are we?, How did we get here?. They tried answering these questions, by explanations of their gods.
If someone was sick they prayed to the gods, so that they would recover. As mentioned before, the Mesopotamian doctors were not very good in medication, so instead people asked help from the gods.
Gods
- An was the Sumerian god of sky, later known as Anu. He was married to Ki, but in some other Mesopotamian religions he has a wife called Uraš.
- Marduk, the principal god of Babylon. The people glorified him, for Babylon to rise into a great empire from a small state.
- Gula, or in other places Ninishina, the goddess of healing. When somebody was sick, she was one of the gods they prayed to.
- Nanna (some places called Suen, Nanna-Suen or Sin), the moon god. He was one of the sons of Enlil.
- Utu (Šamaš or Sahamash), the sun god in Mesopotamia.
- Ishtar, the goddess of love in Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria.
- Enlil, considered the most powerful god in Mesopotamian religion. His wife was Ninlil, and his children were Inanna, Iškur, Nanna-Suen, Nergal, Ninurta, Pabilsag, Nushu, Utu, Uraš Zababa and Ennugi.
- Nabu, the Mesopotamian god of writing. He was considered very wise, and was praised for the ability of writing. In some places he was believed to being in control of heaven and earth.
- Iškur (Adad), the god of storms in Mesopotamian religion.
- Ninurta, the Sumerian god of war. He was also considered as the god of heros.
- Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of war, the wife of Ninurta.
- Pazazu/Zu, an evil god, who stole the tablets of Enlil’s destiny, and is killed because of this. He also brought diseases to people, which had no cure.
Demons
The belief in demons was also a large part of Ancient Mesopotamian religion. People were afraid of bad souls, like demons, so they set up many statues and painted pictures to scare away these unwanted ghosts.
As gods, there were different demons, with their own names, who did different types of evil things.
Burials
Archeologists found hundreds of graves in some parts of Mesopotamia. These graves told us many things about Mesopotamian burial habits. In the city of Ur, most people were buried into family graves under their houses. Children were put into big jars, and were taken into the family chapel. Other people were just buried into common city graveyards. Some people were wrapped into mats and carpets. In most graves some belongings of the people were with them, but there were 17 graves with very precious objects in them, and it is assumed that these were royal graves.
List of links
These civilizations arose from earlier settlements and cultures which were among the first to make use of agriculture.
- Neolithic settlements e.g., Jarmo, Tell Abu Hureyra
- Hassuna period
- Halaf period (or Halafian)
- Samarra period (or Samarran), e.g., Choga Mami
- Ubaid period, e.g., Eridu
- Uruk period, named after the city Uruk.
- Sumerian Early Dynastic period
Early cities in this region include:
Further reading
- A Dweller in Mesopotamia, being the adventures of an official artist in the garden of Eden, by Donald Maxwell, 1921 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
- Mesopotamian Archaeology, by Percy S. P. Handcock, 1912 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
A Companion to the Ancient Middle East, edited by Daniel Snell (Malden 2004)
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