The Smartest Culture: Mesopotamia
The Smartest Culture: Mesopotamia
MESOPOTAMIA
BY : MOHAMMAD AKOUM
KHALED ABEDALAH
What is Mesopotamia?
The Word Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning
'between two rivers’) was an ancient region
located in the
eastern Mediterranean bounded in the
northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in
the southeast by the Arabian Plateau,
corresponding to today’s Iraq, mostly, but
also parts of modern-day Iran, Syria
and Turkey. The 'two rivers' of the name
referred to the Tigris and the Euphrates
rivers and the land was known as 'Al-Jazirah'
(the island) by the Arabs referencing what
Egyptologist J.H. Breasted would later call
the Fertile Crescent, where
Mesopotamian civilization began.
Mesopotamia map
Timeline
Cultures
▪ The settlers called it Sumer. They lived in mud-brick settlements, which gradually grew to the size of towns and
cities, eleven or more, including Uruk, Eridu, Ur, Larsa and the recently discovered Tell Habuba in the Upper
Euphrates region.
▪ Independent and sometimes at war with each other, yet sharing one language and culture, they all held a
common belief in a pantheon* of gods personifying the creative and the destructive forces of nature.
Tablet of Gilgamesh
CUNEIFORM
Cuneiform or Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians.[3] It is
distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus.The name cuneiform
itself simply means "wedge shaped”
sculpture
• Life-size statues of kings were produced, and from
one of them a superb bronze head with braided hair
and neatly curled beard survives
• It displays complete mastery of the techniques of
metal work. It is at once naturalistic and hieratic*, the
image of a ruler with a commanding aspect, which
must have been intensified and made to seem
almost superhuman when eyes of precious stone
flashed from the now empty sockets.
Female head from Uruk (City of Sumar), 3500-3000BC, Marble, 20cm high, Iraq
Vase :
• The Mesopotamian art was a predominantly religious art and among the earliest survivals are some
tall alabaster* vases, more than 3 feet (90cm) high, from the temple at Uruk. They date from what is
called the Proto-literate period, i.e. the last centuries of the fourth millennium, when writing was
invented.
• On the top band of carving a man presents a basket to a woman, either the mother-goddess or her
priestess, behind whom other gifts are piled up, more baskets, vases and a ram supporting clothed
statuettes or figures of a man and a woman. Beneath this there is a procession of men carrying more
gifts; they are naked, as men were usually represented when approaching the gods.
The first wheel wasn’t used for transportation. The wheel was
invented to serve as porter’s wheels. The first wheel was believed to
exist around 3,500 BC in Mesopotamia.
The wheel was not only used for the transportation purposes. It was
used widely in irrigation, pottery making, and milling. It acted as the
luxurious mode of transportation for rich people. The invention of
the chariot and other important inventions in history was based on
the invention of the wheel.
The invention of the Chariot
Humans learned to domesticate horses, bulls, and
other animals that were useful for them. The chariot
was not a sudden invention, but the gradual
improvement of the earliest carriage.
They also developed the sexagesimal, or base 60. The sexagesimal helped to
develop concepts like the 360-degree circle and the 12-month year.
They used 12 knuckles to count on one hand, and another five fingers on the
other hand. The Babylonians used base 6 (our modern system uses base 10),
where digits on the left column represent large values.
Many scholars believed that the concept of zero was developed by Babylonian
and followed by various civilizations throughout the world in their own way.
However, some argue it was originally invented in India.
Sumarian Art Analysis:
• These statues found reveal that many of the conventions of religious art in the Near East (Later to be passed on
to Europe and also to the Far East) were already present.
• All of them look straight ahead, standing or kneeling in rigidly symmetrical poses with their hands clasped just
below their chests. Differences in size appear to denote hierarchical importance.
• Inscriptions reveal that to the Sumerians a statue was not simply a representation: it was believed to have a life of
its own.
• Many of the finest third-millennium works of art were discovered in the royal cemetery at Uruk, where Sumerian
kings and queens were buried in all the finery of their gold and jewelry, together with their attendants and
courtiers, who were killed so that they could accompany them into the next world.
* Cult: a religious group or thinking devoted to a particular figure or object
Who were the
Akkadians?
• Towards the beginning of the third millennium, if not earlier in some places, war
leaders replaced high priests as the rulers of Sumerian cities, without,
however, modifying the theocratic system of government. A greater change came
about 2350 bc, when Akkadians (regarded as the first empire in history), who had
infiltrated the area from the north-east, gained complete control.
• The expansionist policy of the Akkadians may partly account for a new emphasis
placed on the person of the ruler as an individual leader and conqueror and
not simply as the servant of the local god.
• Naram Sin himself appears on a stele carved to celebrate victory
over an Iranian frontier tribe. He is shown nearly twice the size
of his soldiers, as gods (represented only by their symbols in the
sky) had previously been distinguished from mortals.
• To emphasize that single moment, the sculptor abandoned the
usual system of superimposed* bands of figures and treated the
whole surface as a single dramatic composition.
• There was originally no inscription (the writing on the hill is a
later addition); the meaning of the scene was expressed in
purely visual terms. Every line of the composition suggests the
climax of the action, with the upward movement of the
Akkadians from the left balanced by the fallen and falling
tribesmen and the survivors begging for mercy on the right.
* superimposed: act of laying objects over each other
Hamurabi Code, stele, Susa, 1760BC, 223 cm high Closeup of the law engravings on the stone slab
Conclusion
• Numerous civilizations rose and fell in the fertile lands of
Mesopotamia and the neighboring lands in western Asia.
• Still their art forms are surprisingly constant. Artists were hired to
express the authority of gods and rulers, and in doing so they played a
vital role in maintaining authority.
• They produced monuments, magnificent temples, relief free standing
sculpture, often on great scale, as well as intricate carvings on
cylindrical seals in precious metals such as; metals, ivory or stone.
• They also had sophisticated strategies for telling stories and guiding the
visitor’s movements through space