2 WRITING AND CITY LIFE

Mesopotamia

➔ Mesopotamia is now part of the Republic of Iraq.

➔ Greek word ‘mesos’, means middle, and ‘potamos’, means river.
➔ Mesopotamia is land between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers
➔ Writing and City life or civilisation began in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamian Civilisation is known for

1 City life
2 Writing
3 Rich literature
4 Mathematics
5 Astronomy

Kingdoms in Mesopotamia
 South part of Mesopotamia -was called Sumer and Akkad.
After 2000 BCE , when Babylon became an important city, the term Babylonia was
used for the southern region.

 North part of Mesopotamia -was called Assyria

(In 1100 BCE, Assyrians established their kingdom)

Language of the Mesopotamia

➢ The first known language of Mesopotamia was Sumerian

➢ It was replaced by Akkadian around 2400 BCE flourished till about Alexander’s time
(336-323 BCE )

➢ From 1400 BCE, Aramaic (similar to Hebrew ) spoken (still spoken in parts of Iraq.)

Archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia

➢ excavations began in the 1840s.
➢ excavations continued for decades in Uruk and Mari
Archaeological sources

➢ hundreds of Mesopotamian buildings

➢ statues
➢ ornaments
➢ graves
➢ tools
➢ seals

Why Mesopotamia was important to Europeans?

• The Book of Genesis of the Old Testament refers to ‘Shimar’, meaning Sumer,
as a land of brick-built cities.

• Travellers and scholars of Europe looked on Mesopotamia as a kind of

ancestral land.

• There was a similarity between flood story in the Bible and stories in
Mesopotamian tradition

• Noah was principal character in flood story in the Bible

• In Mesopotamian tradition, the principal character was Ziusudra or

Utnapishtim.

• In 1873, a British newspaper funded an expedition of the British Museum to

search for a tablet narrating the story of the Flood, mentioned in the Bible.

• By the 1960s, it was understood that the stories of the Old Testament were not
literally true, but may have been ways of expressing memories about
important changes in history

Mesopotamia and its Geography

✔ North-east Green, plains, tree-covered mountain ranges,clear streams and wild

flowers, with enough rainfall (agriculture began between 7000 and
6000 BCE )

✔ North Steppe(animal herding)

✔ East Tributaries of the Tigris (communication)

✔ South Deserts (cities and writing emerged)

 Influence of geography on Prosperity of Mesopotamia

✔ Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carry loads of silt (fine mud).

✔ When rivers flood fertile silt is deposited

✔ After the Euphrates has entered the desert, its water flows out
into small channels.

✔ These channels flood their banks and, functioned as irrigation

canals

✔ Water could be let into the fields of wheat, barley, peas or

lentils when necessary.

✔ Mesopotamian sheep and goats that grazed on the steppe, the

north- eastern plains and the mountain slopes

✔ These animals produced meat, milk and wool in abundance.

✔ fish was available in rivers

✔ Date-palms gave fruit in summer.

 Mesopotamian civilization and Bronze age

✔ The earliest cities in Mesopotamia date back to the bronze

age,3000 BCE.

✔ Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

✔ Bronze procured from great distances.

✔ Metal tools and weapons were made by bronze

The Significance of Urbanism

✔ Urban economies comprise besides food production, trade, manufactures and

services.

✔ City people depend on the products or services of other (city or village) people.

✔ There is continuous interaction among them.

✔ The division of labour is a mark of urban life.

✔ There must be a social organisation in place.

✔ Urban economies often require the keeping of written records.

 Movement of Goods into Cities

➔ Ancient Mesopotamians traded their abundant textiles and agricultural

produce

➔ They imported wood, copper, tin, silver, gold, shell and various stones from
Turkey and Iran, or across the Gulf.

➔ River boats are propelled by the current of the river and/or wind

➔ When animals transport goods, they need to be fed.

➔ The canals and natural channels of ancient Mesopotamia were routes of goods
transport

The Development of Writing

Cuneiform writing

✔ Mesopotamian script is known as Cuneiform script

✔ Cuneiform is derived from the Latin words Cuneus, meaning wedge and Forma
meaning shape.

✔ Cuneiform means -wedge shaped

✔ By 2600 BCE or so, the letters became cuneiform, and the language was Sumerian.

✔ Sumerian, was replaced after 2400 BCE by the Akkadian language.

✔ Cuneiform writing in the Akkadian language continued in use until the first century
CE , more than 2,000 years
Clay tablets of Mesopotamia
➢ The first Mesopotamian tablets, written around 3200 BCE

➢ It contained picture-like signs and numbers.

➢ These were about 5,000 lists of oxen, fish, bread loaves, etc. –

➢ These were brought into or distributed from the temples of Uruk, a city in the
south.

➢ Mesopotamians wrote on tablets of clay.

➢ A scribe would wet clay and pat it into a size he could hold comfortably in one
hand.

➢ He would carefully smoothen its surfaces.

➢ With the sharp end of a reed he would press wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs
on to the smoothed surface while it was still moist.

➢ Once dried in the sun, the clay would harden .

➢ Each transaction, required a separate written tablet.

Uses of Writing
➔ Keeping records

➔ Making dictionaries

➔ Giving legal validity to land transfers

➔ Narrating the deeds of kings

➔ Announcing the changes in the laws

Sumerian epic poem about Enmerkar
✔ Enmerkar was one of the earliest rulers of Uruk.

✔ The connection between city life, trade and writing is brought out in a epic
poem

✔ Enmerkar is associated with the organisation of the first trade of Sumer

✔ Enmerkar wanted lapis lazuli and precious metals for the beautification of a
city temple

✔ He sent his messenger out to get them from the chief of Aratta.

✔ The messenger had to go up into the mountain ranges,Five mountain ranges,

six mountain ranges, seven mountain ranges he crossed.

✔ He got all the messages mixed up.

✔ Then, Enmerkar formed a clay tablet in his hand, and he wrote the words
down.

✔ In those days, there had been no writing down of words on clay.

✔ The ruler of Aratta examined the clay and his face was frowning.

Uses of writing as per epic poem about Ernmarker

✔ It was kingship that organised trade and writing.

✔ Writing as storing information

✔ Sending messages afar

✔ sign of the superiority of Mesopotamian urban culture.

The System of Writing

 The sound that a cuneiform sign represented was not a single consonant or vowel
but syllables

 Mesopotamian scribe had to learn hundreds of signs

  writing was a skilled craft and intellectual achievement.

Literacy in Mesopotamia

• Very few Mesopotamians could read and write.

• If a king could read, he made sure that this was recorded in one of his inscriptions

Urbanisation of southern Mesopotamia

Temples and Kings

Three kinds of cities in Mesopotamia

1. Cities developed around temples (Uruk)
2. Cities developed as centres of trade (UR)
3. Imperial cities. (MARI)

Mesopotamian cities
• Uruk, Ur, Mari, Nineveh, Nippur, Lagash

Role of Temples in Mesopotamia

➔ From 5000 BCE , settlements had begun to develop in southern Mesopotamia.

➔ The earliest known temple was a small shrine made of unbaked bricks.

➔ Temples were the residences of various gods

➔ Later temples became larger with several rooms around open courtyards.

➔ The god was the focus of worship.

➔ People brought grain, curd and fish to temple

➔ The god was also the theoretical owner of the agricultural fields, the fisheries, and
the herds of the local community.

➔ Oil pressing, grain grinding, spinning, and the weaving of woollen cloth also done in
 the temple.

➔ Temple was Organiser of production

➔ Temple was employer of merchants

➔ Temple was keeper of written records of distributions and allotments

➔ the temple gradually developed its activities and became the main urban institution

GODS of Mesapotamia

God of Ur Moon God

The Goddess of Love and War Inanna

God of the Steppe. Dagan

Why Mesopotamian countryside engaged in repeated

conflict ?
1. Those who lived on the upstream of a channel of Euphrates could divert water into
their fields that villages downstream were left without water.

2. Those who lived on the upstream could neglect to clean out the silt from their stretch
of the channel, blocking the flow of water further down

How king get high status,power and the authority ?

➔ When there was continuous warfare in a region, those chiefs who had been
successful in war could oblige their followers by distributing the loot

➔ Chiefs could take prisoners from the defeated groups to employ as their servants.

➔ In time, victorious chiefs began to offer precious booty to the Gods and thus beautify
the community’s temples.

This gave the king high status and power

Life in the City: Marriage, Family

➢ In Mesopotamian society the nuclear family was the norm

➢ A married son and his family often resided with his parents.

➢ The father was the head of the family.

➢ A declaration was made about the willingness to marry by the bride’s parents

➢ Then a gift was given by the groom’s people to the bride’s people.

➢ When the wedding took place, gifts were exchanged by both parties, who ate
together and made offerings in a temple.

➢ When her mother-in-law came to fetch her, the bride was given her share of the
inheritance by her father.

➢ The father’s house, herds, fields, etc., were inherited by the sons

Mesopotamian seal
• In Mesopotamia cylindrical stone seals used

• Seals were made of stone, copper, bronze, gold, ivory or bone

• Cylindrical seals rolled over wet clay so that a continuous picture was created.

• They were carved by skilled craftsmen

• Seals carry writing: the name of the owner, his god, his official position, etc.

• A seal could be rolled on clay covering the string knot of a cloth package or
the mouth of a pot.

Uruk (Mesopotamian city)

 Uruk was the earliest city in ancient Mesopotamia

 It is considered the first true city in the world

 The city of Uruk is most famous for its great king Gilgamesh

 Temple town
  We find depictions of armed heroes and their victims

 around 3000 BCE Uruk grew to the enormous extent of 250 hectares – twice as
large as Mohenjo-daro

 Uruk also came to have a defensive wall at a very early date.

 The site was continuously occupied from about 4200 BCE to about 400 CE
4200 BCE 40 CE

 By about 2800 BCE it had expanded to 400 hectares.

 War captives and local people were put to work for the temple, or directly for the
ruler.

 Those who were put to work were paid rations.

 Hundreds of ration lists have been found

 It has been estimated that one of the temples took 1,500 men working 10 hours a
day, five years to build.

 There were also technical advances at Uruk around 3000 BCE .

 Bronze tools came into use for various crafts.

 Architects learnt to construct brick columns

 Hundreds of people were put to work at making and baking clay cones

 Clay cones pushed into temple walls, painted in different colours, creating a
colourful mosaic.

 In sculpture, there were superb achievements

 The potter’s wheel invented

 The wheel enabled a potter’s workshop to ‘mass produce’ dozens of similar pots at a
time

UR (Mesopotamian city)

➢ Ur was a town whose ordinary houses were systematically excavated in the 1930s

➢ Narrow streets

➢ Wheeled carts could not reach the houses.

➢ Sacks of grain and firewood would have arrived on donkey-back.

 ➢ Irregular shapes of house plots

➢ Absence of town planning.

➢ There were no street drains

➢ Drains and clay pipes were found in the inner courtyards

➢ House roofs sloped inwards and rainwater was channelled via the drainpipes into
sumps in the inner courtyards.

➢ People swept all their household waste into the streets, and this made street levels
rise

➢ Light came into the rooms not from windows but from doorways opening into the
courtyards: this would also have given families their privacy.

➢ There were superstitions about houses, recorded in omen tablets at Ur: a raised
threshold brought wealth; a front door that did not open towards another house was
lucky

➢ If the main wooden door of a house opened outwards (instead of inwards), the wife
would be a torment to her husband!

➢ There was a town cemetery at Ur

➢ A few individuals were found buried under the floors of ordinary houses.

Mari (Mesopotamian city)

A Trading Town in a Pastoral Zone

● Mari A Trading Town in a Pastoral Zone

● Mari was royal capital town

● After 2000 BCE Mari flourished.

● Mari stands upstream on the Euphrates.

● Agriculture and animal rearing were main occupation

● Herders need to exchange young animals,cheese, leather and meat in return for
grain, metal tools, etc.,

● Nomadic communities of the western desert filtered into the prosperous agricultural
heartland-This made conflicts between them

● Shepherds would bring their flocks into the sown area in the summer.

● Such groups would come in as herders, harvest labourers or hired soldiers,

 occasionally become prosperous, and settle down.

● A few gained the power to establish their own rule.

● These included the Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians and Aramaeans.

● Kings of Mari were Amorites

● Amorites dress differed from that of the original inhabitants

● Amorites respected the gods of Mesopotamia

● Amorites raised a temple at Mari for Dagan, god of the steppe.

● Mesopotamian society and culture were thus open to different people and cultures.

● The kings of Mari, however, had to be vigilant; herders of various tribes were
allowed to move in the kingdom, but they were watched.

● Located on the Euphrates in a prime position for trade – in wood, copper, tin, oil,
wine, and various other goods

● They traded with Turkey, Syria and Lebanon

● Mari is a good example of an urban centre prospering on trade.

● Boats carrying grinding stones, wood, and wine and oil jars, would stop at Mari on
their way to the southern cities.

● Officers of this town would go aboard, inspect the cargo collect tax

● Most important, tablets refer to copper from ‘Alashiya’, the island of Cyprus

● Thus, although the kingdom of Mari was not militarily strong, it was exceptionally
prosperous.

The Palace at Mari of King Zimrilim (1810-1760 BCE )

➔ The great palace of Mari was the residence of the royal family.

➔ Palace was the centre of administration

➔ It was place of production, especially of precious metal ornaments.

➔ It was so famous in its time that a minor king came from north Syria just to see it,
carrying with him a letter of introduction from a royal friend of the king of Mari,
Zimrilim.

➔ Daily lists reveal that huge quantities of food were presented each day for the king’s
table: flour, bread, meat, fish, fruit, beer and wine.
 ➔ He probably ate in the company of many others

➔ The palace had only one entrance, on the north.

➔ The king would have received foreign dignitaries and his own people in 132, a room
with wall paintings that would have awed the visitors.

➔ The palace was a sprawling structure, with 260 rooms and covered an area of
2.4hectares.

Cities in Mesopotamian Culture

Epic of Gilgamesh
➔ Mesopotamians valued city life

➔ After cities were destroyed in war, they recalled them in poetry.

➔ Gilgamesh Epic was written on twelve tablets.

➔ Gilgamesh is said to have ruled the city of Uruk some time after Enmerkar.

➔ He got a shock when his heroic friend died.

➔ He then set out to find the secret of immortality, crossing the waters that surround
the world.

➔ After a heroic attempt, Gilgamesh failed, and returned to Uruk.

➔ There, he consoled himself by walking along the city wall, back and forth.

➔ He admired the foundations made of fired bricks that he had put into place.

➔ It is on the city wall of Uruk that the long tale of heroism and endeavour fizzles out.

➔ Gilgamesh does not say that even though he will die his sons will outlive him, as a
tribal hero would have done.

➔ He takes consolation in the city that his people had built.

The Legacy of Writing

Contributions of Mesopotamia

✔ first writing

✔ first city life

 ✔ Mathematics and astronomy

✔ multiplication ,division tables, square- and square-root tables, and tables of

compound interest

✔ The division of the year into 12 months according to the revolution of the moon
around the earth

✔ The division of the month into four weeks

✔ The day into 24 hours

✔ Hour into 60 minute

✔ Solar and lunar eclipses were observed, their occurrence was noted according to
year, month and day.

✔ Observed positions of stars and constellations in the night sky.

(None of these momentous Mesopotamian achievements would have been possible

without writing and the urban institution of schools)

(Time divisions were adopted by the successors of Alexander and from there
transmitted to the Roman world, then to the world of Islam, and then to medieval
Europe )

Early attempts to locate and preserve the texts and

traditions of the past.
1)Assurbanipal (Early library)

2)Nabonidus ( stele carved image recovery,

repairing of broken image of king Sargon)

1)Assurbanipal of Assyria (An Early library)

• In the iron age, the Assyrians of the north created an empire.

• Assurbanipal (668-627 BCE )was last Assyrian king

• Nineveh was his capital

• Assurbanipal collected a library at Nineveh

• He made great efforts to gather tablets on history, epics, omen literature, astrology,
hymns and poems.
 • Assurbanipal’s library had a total of some 1,000 texts, amounting to about 30,000
tablets, grouped according to subject.

2) Nabonidus of Babylonia (an Early Archaeologist)

➢ Nabopolassar, released Babylonia from Assyrian domination in 625 BCE

➢ Nabonidus was the last ruler of independent Babylon.

➢ He writes that the god of Ur came to him in a dream and ordered him to appoint a
priestess to take charge of the cult

➢ He writes he doesn’t know characteristic features of priestess

➢ Then, he says, he found the stele of a very early king whom we today date to about
1150 BCE and saw on that stele the carved image of the Priestess.

➢ He observed the clothing and the jewellery that was depicted.

➢ This is how he was able to dress his daughter for her consecration as Priestess.

➢ On another occasion, Nabonidus’s men brought to him a broken statue inscribed

with the name of Sargon, king of Akkad. (ruled around 2370 BCE .)

➢ Nabonidus, Nabonidus repaired the statue.

➢ Nabonidus wrote, ‘I summoned skilled craftsmen, and replaced the head.’