Mesopotamia was the very first civilization ever. Mesopotamia made many inventions and some we still use today. Mesopotamia started in 5000 and ended in 1100 B.C. Hammurabi reigned from c.1792-1750 B.C. in Mesopotamia and was a very important leader. In this paper you will learn the history, environment, society, government, religion, culture, science, technology and economics of Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamia is located in modern day Iraq, Syria and Turkey all in Asia. The name Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers in ancient Greek and Mesopotamia is located between two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates river. Mesopotamia was nicknamed “The cradle of Civilization” because of Mesopotamian warfare, trade and culture. There have been a lot of dynasties, but the most known ones are the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian.
Even though Mesopotamia’s climate is desert, hot and dry, many people still settled there because Mesopotamia is located between two rivers the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Mesopotamia has two seasons a wet season and a dry season. The two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, made the soil around the rivers richer for farming. The rivers had fresh water and fish and they also made traveling and trading easier. In the spring in Mesopotamia the rivers would flood and leave behind good farming soil. The flooding couldn’t be depended on because it could flood a lot one year and not flood at all the next. Later Mesopotamians invented irrigation. Irrigation was a way to control the flooding of the rivers. They built channels and dams to control the floods and then they built water walls, waterways and ditches to direct the water to farmlands.
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The social classes of Mesopotamia included kings and nobility, priests and priestesses, upper class, lower class, the slaves. By how houses or palaces look, you could tell what class the person was from. The temple in each city-state was an important place to the Mesopotamians. The temples in each city-state supplied and organized jobs like trading and crafting. The temples in Mesopotamia are like capitals of today. It was a custom to have a priest rule from a temple. The rulers of the temples in each city-state got too much power and that position turned into a king’s position. The kings kept getting more and more powerful as time went on.
The Government of Mesopotamia is kings, but kings only ruled a city-state. Each king made their own rules for their city-state. City-states had their own government and fought with other city-states to gain more land. The kings made rules that they thought their people would benefit most from. In c. 1792-1750 BC Hammurabi took over Mesopotamia. He is well known for his law code. The law code was made up of laws that Hammurabi made and wrote on a clay tablet.
Hammurabi was the Babylon king. That made him have a lot of power. He made Babylon more and more powerful. He liked having the power and used it a lot. He used it to make others build, dig, plan and work. He wanted to control the Euphrates river because then he would control most of the trading and farming. He used his control of water to defeat others. They damned the water and then after a while, took away the damn causing a flood. He pretty much controlled all of Mesopotamia before he got ill and passed his land to his son.
Mesopotamians’ religion was the first religion ever recorded. The Mesopotamian religion was a polytheistic belief. Mesopotamians believe in more than 2,000 gods and goddesses. They believed the gods and goddess had power over natural forces and human activity, like flooding and basket weaving. Mesopotamians tried to please their gods with a grand temple or ziggurat as they called it in each city state. Ziggurat means “hill of heaven” or “mountain of god.” Mesopotamians stopped believing in goddesses c.1792-1750 B.C.
Some gods and goddesses the Mesopotamians had were Anu the god of the sky, Enki the God of freshwater, Ishtar the goddesses of love and beauty, Sin the god of the moon and Shamash the god of the sun and justice. The Shamash statue looked like Hammurabi. When Hammurabi ruled he made sure to bring Shamash into his law code.
Mesopotamia had holidays. Their holidays were mostly based on a religion or nature. They celebrated with offering fruit and dairy and exchanging goods at some holidays. They had a sheep shearing holiday which was like a thanksgiving with sheep shearing. Another holiday was a new year festival. The new year festival was on the first eleven days of Nison. The Nison month is the month with the spring equinox which is March. At the New year celebration they had entertainment and games. Some festivals were about mythological drama and others about the phases of the moon. During the Lunar month there were six holidays, three relax days and three festivals.
In Mesopotamia people usually got married at twelve. The marriage ceremony was done a certain way. At the marriage ceremony the bride had a veil over her face until the groom says,“she is my wife.” Then perfume was poured over the bride. All the gifts for the wedding were given from the groom’s side of family. After the ceremony there was a party with dancing and food. After the birth of a child there was also a party with dancing and food.
Buildings in Mesopotamia were made of mud brick, mud plaster or wood. The Mesopotamians created domes and arches. The homes in Mesopotamia have a square room as the first room that you see when you walked in and the other rooms come off of the square room.
Mesopotamians valued lots of things. They valued beer because that was all they really drank. Written word in Mesopotamia was valued because then they could keep records of what they did. Their Ziggurats or temples were greatly valued because the temples were for their gods and goddesses. There were a few important stories that came from Mesopotamia like some stories in the bible and the oldest love poem.
Some sports and games in Mesopotamia were hunting, boxing, wrestling, majore which is like rugby with a ball that is wooden, checkers and board game like backgammon. The Mesopotamians’ first recorded language was Sumerian. Then later in time it was also recorded that some spoke Semitic. Jobs in Mesopotamia were like some of the jobs or hobbies we have. Some jobs were farming, craftsman, boatmen, traders, record keepers, scribs, servents, political leaders, judges, weavers and potters. Learning how to write was very important to get a good job in ancient Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamian writing is called cuneiform. Cuneiform is also called wedge shaped writing. A triangle tipped tool is used to carve their writing symbols into damp clay. They developed writing to keep track of events and business details. Usually only wealthy boys learned how to write. When the boys grew up there job would most likely be a record keeper or a scribe. Being a scribe is a very honored job because they would probably become a political leader or judge.
The art in ancient Mesopotamia was usually sculpted figures in stone or clay. Some of the sculptures were painted, but not all of them. The sculptures were of all sizes. The sculptures stuck out of the clay. They usually made sculptures of animals, god or goddesses. Later they started to make sculptures of people, but they didn’t look realistic until a while later. Some of the art showed Mesopotamians’ boxing or wrestling.
Mesopotamians used beads, dye, embroidery and the color gold to beautify appliances and clothes. Fabric in Mesopotamia was made of textiles, wool, goat hair or animal skin. To make their clothing they used looms to weave. If you were rich, you would have sewn clothing and your clothes dyed. Purple was the hardest color to make because it came from a shell, so only rich had purple clothing. Clothing in Mesopotamia started out for the girls and women as just as little cloth on string. Then it became shawls wrapped around their bodys. The shawls were decorated with just border patterns or patterns all around. Lastly the clothing for girls or women included sewn outfits with fringe. Clothing for boys and men started out with waist strings with cloth hanging from it that gave barely any coverage. Then the they wore wrap around skirts that came down to the knee with a rope to hold them up tied in the back. The skirts were decorated with fringe and petal patterns cut out of fabric. Lastly women, men, girls and boys all wore skirts and shawls, but decorated differently depending on their gender.
Mesopotamians used different things to make food and ate different things then today. They used barley in bread and beer. They would grow barley then grinded it with millstones to make flour. The the flour would be mixed with water that would be used in their bread along with other things like rye, millet and rice. If the bread was going to be made as a little treat they would mix in fats like lard, seed oil and fish oil. Some bakers would use the fat even if it went bad. If bad fat was put in bread, the baker would try to cover the taste up by putting in other ingredients. The royal bread contained fruit, honey, fruit juice and milk. It was named the royal bread because the bread was so expensive, only the royal or rich could afford the bread.
Mesopotamians loved dairy products. They made butter, yogurt and cheese. The Mesopotamians made many different types of cheeses. They made sharp, cottage, chalky and many different sweet cheeses. Mesopotamians ate thick soups for a meal. They contained lentils, beans, chickpeas, onions and meat broth. Sometimes they would put in garlic, leeks and shallot. Mesopotamians ate veggies either boiled or raw. They would eat lettuce, beets, cucumbers, cabbage and radish. For their fruit they ate figs, apricots, grapes, apples, pomegranates, cherries, plums, pears and melons. Mesopotamians ate nuts too. They would eat them how now day pistachios are eaten. Mesopotamians didn’t eat any sugar other than natural sugar like sugar what is found in fruits. To sweeten anything they used date juice or fruit juice.
In Mesopotamia meat was expensive. Mesopotamians ate pigs, goats, cattle and sheep. Fatty meat and pork was very popular in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamians could get protein from chickens, turtles, geese, ducks, fish and horsemeat. Many Mesopotamians like fish from fish farms more than catching their own fish. For drink, lots of Mesopotamians drank different types of beer.
Mesopotamians made close observations of the world. They made lists of plants, rivers, animals, minerals, cites, people and mountains. They also discovered chemical processes. They made recipes and colored glass.
Doctors in Mesopotamia were seen as workers that deities work in, to maintain Mesopotamians’ health. There wasn’t any medicine in ancient Mesopotamia. Instead of medicine they had a different way of curing people. They had to figure out the sickness and the sin that had caused the sickness. Even if the sin was made without knowing, they thought it could have made the gods unhappy. Then they would have to confess their sin, say they will do better in the future and make offerings to make up for the sin. After that they had to agree to have surgery to remove a demon’s hand or what the gods and goddesses sent to punish a person. Even after all of that, the Mesopotamians thought the gods and goddesses could reject the offerings and let the person die.
Mesopotamia was the first civilization so they had a lot of inventions. They invented checkers, cuneiform, games, Gilgamesh the first superhero, laws, plows, boats, irrigation systems, bronze, wheels, cylinder seals, mud bricks, clay bricks, the pottery wheel, metal objects, accounting, filing, glass, lamps and weaving. Today in Iraq, they use some things from Mesopotamia like the wheel that is used everywhere now.
Mesopotamia’s natural resources were metals, mud for clay and bricks, gold and gems. Mesopotamia traded camel, clay, textiles and gems for services. To trade, Mesopotamians traveled on land and water. On land they traveled by foot, wagon, cart and donkey. They used the donkey when they traveled to trade with gems to keep the gems safe. When they travel to trade by water they use a sailboat. A large source of income for Mesopotamia was from farming and clay.
The Mesopotamians came up with a currency named Shekel. Shekel was the name given to coins that were silver, gold or copper. Mesopotamia didn’t always use a currency. Before using a currency the Mesopotamians would trade items determined by the weight. If the weight was the same it was a fair trade. If the weight was totally off you either added another item to trade for more weight or you didn’t trade. It depended on the decision of person you were trading with.
Mesopotamia was the first civilization, so Mesopotamians had a lot to figure out. How to cook, build a house and make clothes didn’t come with a instruction manual, so they figured out ways to make things work that we might even be still doing today. What the Mesopotamians did, influenced us into what we have now.
