Cradle of Civilization by RPC

1. The Cradle of Civilization:
MESOPOTAMIA
Perspective on Civilization
Prepared by Raizza P. Corpuz

2. INTRODUCTION
• Civilization arose in the Fertile Crescent
The region curved shape and the richness of its land led scholars to call it
Fertile Crescent (Today these are lies: Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq)
Western Part: Jordan River and Eastern Part: Tigris & Euphrates
• Eastern end of the Fertile Crescent between Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, this
region is known to be the MESOPOTAMIA.
• Greek means “land between the rivers”
• 1st people to become civilized
• Displayed a new way of life
• Struggled with the problem of defining exactly what makes one group of people
civilized and not.

3. Key Traits of Civilization
(1) Growth of Cities
• Sumerians: 3000 B.C. (Built dozen fair-sized cities e.g. Uruk Population
10,000 – 20,000 etc.
(2) Specialized Workers:
• e.g. Scribes – Specialists, traded services.
• Artisans – posters, wearers.
• Producing Surplus (Farmer) – raising food

4. (3) Writing
• 2st appearance of Sumer
• Cuneiform – Sumerians way of writing
• Latin Cuneus – means wedge
• Scribe Tool is stylus – sharpened reed
(4) Advanced Technology
• Basic inventions originated in Sumer (e.g. the wheel, plow, sailboat)
• Revolutionary inventions
1st people to make metal tools
• Began using copper around 700 B.C.
• Used Bronze – mixture of copper and tin
• Bronze Age

5. (5) Complex Institutions
• Government example of institution
• 1st people to set up the governmental officials and laws.

6. Sumerian faced geographic problems
(1) Water Problem
(2) Defense Problem
(3) Resource Problem
• Sumerians believed in many Gods
• polytheists (believers in many God)

7. Most Powerful Gods
• Anu – God of Heaven
• Enlil – God of Clouds & Air
• Ea – The God of Water and Floods
• Wicked Udugs- Demons, Carried disease & misfortune and every kind
of human trouble
• Roughly 3,000 Gods
• The power of God was absolute
• Humans are just servants
• To placate the Gods, the people of Sumer built Ziggurats & made rich
offerings.

8. Priest & Kings pulled Sumer
• Earliest government was controlled by the temple priests.
• Ziggurat (a place for worship like, its like a city hall)
• They managed the irrigation system
• They are demanded a portion of every farmer’s crop as taxes.
• Part of the tax was an offering to the Gods, the rest was to feed
hundreds of laborers employed at the temple.

9. Sumerian Society had many classes
• “ With civilization came greater differences between groups in society
– between the rich and the poor, the noble and the peasant, the
person and slave.
(1) Priests & Kings made up the highest level in Sumerian Society.
(2) Wealthy Merchants
(3) Vast majority ordinary Sumerian people are workers
(4) Slaves (e.g. foreigners who had been captured in war)
sold into slavery as children to women.

10. • Social classes affected the lives of both men & women.
Women
• lower rank
• no female scribe
• girls not allowed to attend the schools where upper class boys
learned to read and write.
• Warfare brought Sumerian and Downfall
(Scribes – professional writers)

11. • For 1,000 years, the city states of Sumer are almost constantly at
war with one another.
• Each city had its brief moment (Uruk, Lagash, Umma & Ur)
• Sumerian Civilization ended because the constant warfare
weakened all the city-states so much that they could no longer
ward off attacks from different energy.

12. Mesopotamia, “The Land Between Two Rivers”
• lay in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
• The rivers provided fish and birds as sources of food.
• The water from the rivers allowed the fertile land of Mesopotamia to produce crops.
• Sumerian civilization dominated Mesopotamia from 3500 B.C.E. to 2000 B.C.E.
• It was replaced by Babylonia, then Assyria.
Cities were vital for trade, handicraft production, government, and military defense.
• The cities collected the wealth of their outlying agricultural regions: barley, dates,
wheat, vegetables, and livestock.
• Each city had its own god.
• The central structure in the fortified city was the temple to the city’s god and
protector.
• City administration was initially by assembly, but by 3000 B.C.E., kings ruled the city-
states.
• The king ruled over the city and its hinterlands.

13. • Sumerians were the first to use bronze. They also made pottery and
carved stones and shells while creating gold and silver jewelry.
• Babylon was a successor to Sumer, dominating until around 1600 B.C.E.
Babylon used Sumerian irrigation and agricultural technology and the
Sumerian calendar.
• Babylon worked with perfumes, cosmetics, medicine, and
pharmacology (scientific study of drugs)
• The civilization collapsed when the Hittites invaded around 1596 B.C.E.
The third major city civilization, Assyria, was expansive.
• Assyria established a few large cities for trade and crafts development.
The Mesopotamians had high-value literature, prime examples of
which were the creation myth, Enuma Elish, and the epic, Gilgamesh.

14. Interesting Facts About Mesopotamia
• The Babylonian law created by King Hammurabi, the Code of Hammurabi,
may be the oldest written law in the world.
• The Sumerians are often credited with inventing the wheel.
• At the center of each major city was a temple to the city's god called a
ziggurat.
• The Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers are both well over 1,000 miles long.
Because this is where people first began to write, Mesopotamia is often
called the place where history began.
• Mesopotamia is part of a larger area that archeologists call the Fertile
Crescent.
• Many of the buildings, walls, and structures were made from sun-dried bricks.
These bricks didn't last long, so very little of Ancient Mesopotamian cities still
stand.
(Read more at: http://www.ducksters.com/history/mesopotamia/ancient_mesopotamia.php
This text is Copyright © Ducksters. Do not use without permission.)

15. Hammurabi Code
• A prologue explains the purpose of the code: “to cause justice to
prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, and to prevent
the strong from oppressing the weak, . . . to enlighten the land and to
further the welfare of the people.”
• The code then lists 282 specific laws.
• These laws do not provide abstract theories of justice. Instead, they
establish rules for dealing with everyday issues such as contracts,
inheritances, leases, perjury, and debts and with theft and other
crimes.
• The largest number of laws – 88 in all – deals with marriage, family,
and property.

16. Hammurabi’s Code used 3 fundamental principles
to deal with these different legal problems.
1. First the code frequently invoked the principle of retaliation (an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth) to punish crimes.
For example, if the ceiling of a house caved in and killed the occupant,
retaliation demanded that the builder be executed.
Although the code applied to everyone, it set different punishments for rich
and poor and for men and women.
A common man who killed a member of the upper class would be executed. If
the same man killed a poor farmer, however, he would only be required to pay
a modest sum of money to the victim’s family.

17. 2. Many of the laws applying to men and women also reflected a
double standard.
If a husband committed adultery, his spouse was permitted to leave
him. An unfaithful wife, however, would be drowned.
Although the code discriminated against women in some ways, it also
gave them certain rights.
Unlike women in other ancient societies, Babylonian women could
divorce, own slaves, transact business, and bequeath property.

18. 3. Finally Hammurabi’s Code established the principle that
government had a responsibility for what occurred in a
society.
For example, if a man was robbed and the thief was not caught, the
government was required to compensate the victim for the loss.
The recording and public display of laws shoed the king’s determination
to promote public order with just laws.

19. • Hammurabi’s Code marked an important milestone in Mesopotamian
Civilization.
• It also became a standard that inspired future rulers.
• A thousand years later, Mesopotamian students still studied “the
judgments of righteousness which Hammurabi, the great king, Set
up.”

20. Reference:
Neill, K. and Krieger, L. and Reynolds E. (1997) World History:
Perspectives on the Past, McDougal Littell A Houghton Mifflin Company
U.S.A