World History: Ancient Mesopotamia

The last post of World History (Link here: http://historyandgeekstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/world-history-three-river-civilizations.html) I discussed the Three River Civilizations with the aim of going into detail about two of them. Located between the Euphrates and the Tigris Mesopotamia gave birth to many city states. Within these city states we saw the development of many ideas and technologies which would shape the Middle East and Europe for millennium to come. These include bureaucracies, writing, punishment based on severity of the crime and even the concept of empire. Last time I touched upon Sumer, one of the earlier developed city based cultures in the area, but this time we'll discuss some of the innovations developed by the Mesopotamian cultures, their life and how they rose and fell over a period of close to 3000 years.

The Most Important Innovation

You may be wondering what these strange objects pictured are. They were found at the Mesopotamian city of Uruk and are very important to how we live our loves today. Around 3200 BCE conical clay tokens were used by the people of Uruk and many have been found in refuse pits. Originally they were seen as being amulets or gaming pieces although several archaeologists, such as Denise Schmandt-Besserat, have created a theory about what they were. As time went on these tokens started to change shape and have patterns printed onto them. It turned out that these tokens these tokens represented items to be traded. The shape of the token and the amount determined how many of said items there were (one conical token might mean there was one jar of oil). Eventually they were placed inside the above pictured balls called bulla (bullae being the plural form). Quite likely the bullae were used by traders to ascertain if they were being fairly paid. They could crack open the bullae and inside if there were four cones but they had four items they knew that the middle man had taken one of them. Due to so many bullae being found unbroken we can imagine they had some trust between one another. Later bullae (which can be faintly seen on the above picture) had detailed images on them done by rolling a seal onto them before the clay was fired. Theories abound the reason to this but the most widely accepted one is that this represents a person like a family seal. Quickly after the bullae were being used people found it was much easier to carve the token images into flat pieces of clay creating a tablet. The images drawn into the clay within the next few hundred years started to be done to represent the items themselves. This was protocuneiform. This was the development of writing. 

Within a thousand years the amount of signs used on the tablets halved as signs were instead created to represent syllables or the occasional word. Two main languages were used in Mesopotamia: in the north was principally Akkadian, a Semitic language distantly related to Arabic and Hebrew, and Sumerian, a language with no relations today. The first people to actually transcribe Akkadian used Hebrew and Arabic texts to do this. Few people were literate, not even kings could read and write, but scribes instead wrote down many things which archaeologists would later use. Writing branched out from economic means with law codes (such as Hammurabi's above which shall be discussed soon) to hymns being produced. 5000 protocuneiform tablets have even been found at several sites including Uruk, Tell Uqair and Jemdet Nosr, although few could read this did not mean that they were not widely read. Soon Mesopotamian scribes were sent across the world to Egypt and India establishing trade with the far off lands.

Other innovations

Other than writing Mesopotamia saw many other innovations such as the above tablet. This tablet is one of the earliest multiplication tables. Like writing geometry and maths was invented for bureaucratic usage and was widely used by Mesopotamian scribes. The first abacus in fact was created in Sumeria between 2700-2300 BCE. Sumerian and later Babylonian mathematics was also just as widely used as it is today with a sexgesimal system (1,10,60,600) being used for discrete objects like cattle, a bisexagesimal system (1,10,60,120,1200) being used to distribute grain and rations and a time system (1,10,30) being used to tell the time. Some of the first calendars were in fact developed in Sumeria and Babylon. Calendars were very important to the Mesopotamian cities. Unlike the early farming urban areas of the Middle East like Jericho in Palestine or Catalhoyuk in southern Anatolia the cities of Mesopotamia could be massive; Lagash measured up to 12 hectares and Uruk had a population of over 400,000. Irrigation was widely used by cities to feed their large populations and calendars were an easy way to keep track of the date for growing crops. To create pottery in 3500 BCE the first wheel was created. However, Mesopotamia did not just create mathematical and engineering innovations. Warfare saw drastic advances. Wheels were added to carts around 3200 BCE and attached to horses creating some of the first chariots and in Mesopotamia more powerful and more accurate composite bows were created. Although the Mesopotamian cities traded with one another they often went to war.

Mesopotamian Life

A restored Ziggurat of Ur

Due to the amount of literature left by the Mesopotamians we know somethings about the lives of the powerful. As it is always the case in history the average people are often forgotten about. We do know somethings though. The overall bias of the elites in texts shows us that like societies up to and including the time of writing elites controlled the society. Farmers grew crops and then gave them to urban centers which were then distributed in the city to people in return for creating products like pots. However, this was brought through slavery (bought or taken in war) due to the fluctuating tides of the Euphrates and Tigris and with anger. They were angry because the city took the food that the farmers made. In fact this clash of urban-rural areas (something which would continue throughout history) is shown in the first fictional piece of literature: The Epic of Gilgamesh. Taxes were invented as well to distribute food: goods were taken to fund the elites in taxes and in return they got food. Today we pay taxes and in return the government funds schools and the police, (or if you live in the UK goes to the saving accounts of MPs in tax havens). 

Religion was also very important throughout all of Mesopotamia's history, as well as world history. Cities were often situated around temples called Ziggurats. Uruk's two main precincts were in fact centered around the Ziggurats worshiping Inanna, the goddess of war and love, and An, the sky god. Early cities were led by priests as they were seen as the direct link to the gods. When the Euphrates or Tigris flooded or dried up it was seen as the gods being displeased and political instability followed. In fact in the Epic of Gilgamesh the gods who are displeased send a flood to wipe out humanity and some scholars see this as the origin of the story of Noah. Some elites of city society literally got in bed with several high priests and priestesses (they even have accounts of it) and used that to become kings. The city kings would war between one another and we would then see the first empires.

Akkad, Babylon and Neo-Assyria

The above image is of the world's first emperor: Sargon of Akkad. Born around 2334 BCE Sargon of Akkad would shift from the simple battles over trade between cities and start conquering them with the aim of placing them all under his ruler. Until 2154 BCE the Akkadian Empire would control much of the modern day Iraq and Syria. Here Sumerian was replaced as the main language and culture to be replaced by Akkadian. In fact Sumerian did not return to its once powerful position until the rise of Uruk once more. Trade proliferated under the empire as the united cities were forced to trade with one another and with a united bureaucracy we see trade further afield. Lebanese cedar wood for example was widely traded through the empire. Art also was done to look more realistic although this may be due to Sargon and his successors wanting their victories 'accurately' depicted.  Around 2154 BCE a mixture of climate upheavals caused a decline in trade and Akkad's enemies started to become more powerful and the empire crumbled.

Babylon would replace Akkad as the main empire in Mesopotamia. Another Akkadian speaking culture they rose from a small city in 1894 BCE and would create an empire which would later be spoken about in the Bible. The law code tablet shown earlier was made by the person who made Babylon such a major city: Hammurabi. Written in Akkadian and dating to 1754 BCE it is the oldest text of its length and depicts slightly over 250 laws. These laws varied on severity and likewise the punishment for committing such laws varied. Often what was done to the victim was done to the perpetrator. These punishments are harsh by today's standards with a builder who builds a house which collapses and kills the owner's son the builder's son was then executed. The phrase 'an eye for an eye' was created by Hammurabi; the punishment for taking someone's eye was having your eye removed. Trade was extremely successful with them regularly trading with the Egyptians and the Harappans in the Indus Valley. However they were often attacked by the nomadic Kassites in the south. By 1595 BCE Babylonia had collapsed. Climate change had caused a dip in trade with the far reaching Egyptian and Harappan Civilizations on top of invasions from the Hittites in the north and the Kassites in the south. 

Finally we shall talk about the Neo-Assyrians which rose to power in 911 BCE. Speaking both Aramaic and Akkadian from their city of Assur in northern Iraq they would forge an empire covering most of Mesopotamia. They even managed to invade and conquer northern Egypt! They were known for an army which was a meritocracy attracting many people but the army was very ruthless. They were deport non-Sumerian, Aramaic and Akkadian speakers and to move their own people there instead as well as cutting off appendages of people who threatened to rebel. Bilingualism present in Neo-Assyrian texts however suggest that some tolerance was shown. Like other empires shown Neo-Assyria collapsed under the weight of invasion (some people including Babylonians, Persians and Scythians) and severe droughts by 605 BCE.

Why is this important?

Looking at Ancient Mesopotamia we can see how much our society came from them. Taxes, bureaucracy, calendars, organized religion and social distinctions developed in Mesopotamia and continue to shape our lives today. Mesopotamia established trade with far reaching places and created connections with these places which would be repeated throughout history. Hammurabi's Law Code, although very Draconian, is very similar to our own with the concept of punishment based on severity of the crime. Even the fall of empires shows us how our societies can fall: a lack of friends, war and climate change conquered Akkad, Babylon and Neo-Assyria and could conquer us. 

Thanks for reading and the sources I have used are as follows:

-The Human Past by Chris Scarre

-Ancient Mesopotamia: The Eden that Never Was by Susan Pollock

-Crash Course World History: Mesopotamia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohXPx_XZ6Y

-The lectures of Professor Edgar Peltenburg and Dr Ulf-Dietrich Schoop of the University of Edinburgh 

Next time on World History we'll be looking at the last of the Three River Civilizations which you might recognize from their lavish tombs.

For a list of other World History posts please see here

World History: The Three River Civilizations

Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley civilizations are two of the three oldest 'civilizations' from around the world. Located in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East they represent some of the earliest examples of large scale trade, social hierarchy, law and even warfare. These Bronze Age civilizations show the earliest development of modern day cultures being developed around 5000 years ago. We shall start with the Indus Valley or Harappan civilisation.

Indus Valley/Harappan Civilization

 The Harappan Civilization has left vast amounts of architecture left since being founded around 3300 BCE. They were a very literate culture leaving vast amounts of pictographic inscriptions have been found (about 2000) each portraying small inscriptions. Unfortunately we have no clue about what these inscriptions say due to it being a completely separate language from anyone spoken today. It also disappeared before the development of Latin and they never interacted with the Greeks so unfortunately we lack a Harappan equivalent of the Rosetta Stone which was used to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. Thanks to this we know little about their political, religious and social life.

As shown in the above images the seals often portrayed images of animals with cattle being a portrayed often. Tigers and elephants also were often shown indicating some sort of importance of these three animals in Harappan life. We do know that the Harappan civilization had large amounts of social cohesion. The top image of the archaeological site is of Mohenjo-Daro which was a city 60 hectares in size and is thought to have had a population of 40,000 when it was in use. The city was laid out in grid patterns and the buildings themselves were made of baked bricks, already a vast difference from the stone used to make Jericho 7000 years before. The Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro is to be noted as it is the oldest known public water tank of the ancient world. At 2.43 meters deep it is also one of the largest. It seemed that the Harappan people enjoyed hot water baths just as much as the Greeks and Romans would later do thousands of years later. Very few weapons have been found at Harappan civilization sites indicating that their culture was largely peaceful but the presence of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, cylinder seals from Mesopotamia and Indus seals being found in Mesopotamia show us that they were proficient traders. A large trade work must have been operated out of Harappan cities such as Mohenjo-Daro something which would not be replicated until the rise of Rome or the creation of the Silk Road. Our ancestors close to 5000 years ago were performing large scale trade. Around 2000 BCE the Harappan civilization seemed to vanish and to be replaced by agricultural and pastoral camps and villages. We know it was a gradual decline because the later Vedic religion and possibly even Hinduism had inspirations from the religion of the Harappan people (a possible god named Pashupati is said to resemble that of Shiva). Archaeologist Mortimor Wheeler had hypothesized that invasion had ended the civilization but we now know that this is not true. Recent theories have cited a dip in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia and a series of severe droughts caused the decline of one of the world's first city based cultures.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia was home to various successive cultures including Sumer, Assyria, Akkadia and Babylon. Unlike the Harappan civilization where most of what we know is down to speculation we know much more about the cities of Mesopotamia. Hence this week we'll look only at the first of these civilizations and go over the others in an ensuing World History post. Sumer is the oldest of the Mesopotamian civilizations and was founded sometime between 5500 to 4000 BCE. While in the Indus Valley we only had two cities that we currently know of Sumer instead had more known cities. There were at least five major cities and thirteen smaller cities including Ur and Akkad. The Sumer cities were each ruled by either a king or a religious governor where each city had a unique but similar religion. Located in the fertile plains between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers agriculture allowed these cities to thrive. However unlike the Indus river the Euphrates and Tigris were much more volatile. The rivers could dry up causing crop failure or burst their banks flooding the crops. With their lives at stake the Sumerians turned to their gods offering sacrifices to appease them in order to keep the two rivers flowing smoothly. As a result we see far more religious fervor in Sumer than we do Harappan. 

This tablet depicts Enlil, one of the Sumerian gods

With religion so important to Sumerian people it is understandable that the cities were ruled by either priests or kings who claimed to be the descendants of the gods. Before we balk at this idea we must remember how integrated religion was and continues to be in our lives. In many countries you must swear on a religious books in court, in the UK bishops sit in the House of Lords, Iran's Head of State is a cleric and until 1945 the Emperor of Japan was historically said to be descended from Amateratsu. Cities often revolved around the large temples known as Ziggurats (the top photo) with some, such as the Ziggurat of Ur, being three stories high! Warfare was common with the cities as evident by the fact that the cities were all surrounded by defensive walls. These walls were far large than the ones which surrounded Jericho during the Neolithic. Diplomacy however was very important between the cities. By 3500 BCE the city of Uruk had become a major trader with its pottery being found all across Syria and Susa. They even traded with the Indus Valley Civilization from all the way across the Iranian Plateau! Many of the Sumerian innovations we use today. Around 3500 BCE the wheel was invented to create the much desired pottery to be traded which was soon implemented into farming which revolutionized agriculture. They developed irrigation and were possibly the first people to drink beer. They developed metrology and by 2600 BCE were writing multiplication tables on stone slabs and around the same time the abacus was developed. Sumerian cuneiform is also one of the oldest written languages in the entire world predating both the inscriptions on Harappan seals and Egyptian hieroglyphics. They also developed calendars, chariots, saws, nails, chisels, boots, hoes and countless other innovations. Around 2500 BCE the Mesopotamian world would be changed. A language of a city replaced Sumerian as the main language and the ruler of the city started to conquer the other city states. By 2270 BCE what is regarded as the world's first empire was founded: the Akkadian Empire.

Egypt

What we refer to as the Egyptian civilization lasted close to 3000 years and most of its history shall be left for a later World History post. Historians have conveniently divided Ancient Egypt into 32 dynasties which are grouped together into tidier blocks of time: the Early Dynastic (first and second dynasties, 3100-2686 BCE), the Old Kingdom (third to six dynasties, 2686-2181 BCE), the First Intermediate Period (seventh and eighth dynasties, 2181-2040 BCE), the Middle Kingdom (eleventh to thirteenth dynasties, 2040-1730 BCE), the Second Intermediate Period (the rest of the thirteenth to the seventeenth dynasties, 1730-1550 BCE), the New Kingdom (the eighteenth to twentieth dynasties, 1550-1069 BCE), the Third Intermediate Period (the twenty-first to twenty-fifth dynasties, 1069-664 BCE) and finally the Late Period (the twenty-fifth to thirty-second dynasties, 664-332 BCE). Today we'll focus on the Early Dynastic period and leave the rest for a future post. 

Although the first and second dynasties do not have the awe inspiring structures which characterized later Egyptian dynasties, such as Abu Simbel, the early dynasties are nonetheless still impressive. The above art which Egypt is now famous for started in the first dynasty and was continued throughout the entirety of the thirty-two dynasties. The famous hieroglyphics were firmly developed during the Old Dynasties and like the characteristic art style they were continued throughout the dynasties. The rulers of Egypt, the pharaohs, had deep religious significance. Unlike the Sumerian rulers who were either the voice of or were descended from the gods the Egyptian pharaohs were seen as literal gods. They were the god Horus incarnate and thus were deeply venerated by the Egyptians. This was so much that it was believed that the pharaoh could influence the lifeblood of Egypt, the Nile. Under the first dynasty the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt were unified under one ruler, the first being Menes, with a capital being at Memphis. Here the efficient bureaucracy of Egypt through scribes first developed which would stretch throughout Egyptian history until being conquered by Alexander the Great.

Why this is important

The first three civilizations (what we commonly refer to a civilizations that is) occurred upon the Indus, Nile, Euphrates and Tigris rivers all of which produced fertile land. Three civilizations rose independently of each other based through population growth spurred on by the success of agriculture in these areas. This helps us understand how our societies developed and how our cities developed. All three cities show social cohesion, the development of hierarchical religions vastly different from what was being worshiped in Europe or the Americas, the creation of bureaucracies which offered a blueprint for our governments today and most importantly trade. Thousands of years before the rise of Rome people were trading with one another over staggering distances which directly influenced one another. A decline in trade helped cause the collapse of the Harappan civilization just as how a decline in trade due to stock market collapse wrecked the fledgling German democracy in the 1920s and how China's current stock fluctuation are causing trade issues right now. All of this can be found in the three river civilizations.

The sources that I have used are:
The Times Complete History of the World by Richard Overy,
A History of the World by Andrew Marr,
People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory by Brian Fagan,
CrashCourse World History Mesopotamia, Indus Valley Civilization and Ancient Egypt (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9),
http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/rise-and-fall-sumer-and-akkad-003192,
http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/revolutionary-invention-wheel-001713,
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/history/early-dynastic-period/

Thank you for reading. The next World History post will be about Mesopotamia after Sumer including the world's first empire. Now I will leave you with Sargon of Akkad, the forger of this empire.

For a list of other World History posts please see here