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2 Writing and Citylife
2 Writing and Citylife
Mesopotamia
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.
➢ 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.)
• There was a similarity between flood story in the Bible and stories in
Mesopotamian tradition
• 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
✔ After the Euphrates has entered the desert, its water flows out
into small channels.
✔ City people depend on the products or services of other (city or village) people.
➔ 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
➔ The canals and natural channels of ancient Mesopotamia were routes of goods
transport
Cuneiform writing
✔ Cuneiform is derived from the Latin words Cuneus, meaning wedge and Forma
meaning shape.
✔ By 2600 BCE or so, the letters became cuneiform, and the language was Sumerian.
✔ 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
➢ 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.
➢ A scribe would wet clay and pat it into a size he could hold comfortably in one
hand.
➢ With the sharp end of a reed he would press wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs
on to the smoothed surface while it was still moist.
Uses of Writing
➔ Keeping records
➔ Making dictionaries
✔ The connection between city life, trade and writing is brought out in a epic
poem
✔ 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.
✔ Then, Enmerkar formed a clay tablet in his hand, and he wrote the words
down.
✔ The ruler of Aratta examined the clay and his face was frowning.
The sound that a cuneiform sign represented was not a single consonant or vowel
but syllables
Literacy in Mesopotamia
• If a king could read, he made sure that this was recorded in one of his inscriptions
Mesopotamian cities
• Uruk, Ur, Mari, Nineveh, Nippur, Lagash
➔ The earliest known temple was a small shrine made of unbaked bricks.
➔ Later temples became larger with several rooms around open courtyards.
➔ 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.
➔ the temple gradually developed its activities and became the main urban institution
GODS of Mesapotamia
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
➔ 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.
➢ A married son and his family often resided with his parents.
➢ 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
• Cylindrical seals rolled over wet clay so that a continuous picture was created.
• 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.
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
The site was continuously occupied from about 4200 BCE to about 400 CE
4200 BCE 40 CE
War captives and local people were put to work for the temple, or directly for the
ruler.
It has been estimated that one of the temples took 1,500 men working 10 hours a
day, five years to build.
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.
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
➢ 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!
➢ A few individuals were found buried under the floors of ordinary houses.
● 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.
● 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
● 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.
➔ 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 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.
Epic of Gilgamesh
➔ Mesopotamians valued city life
➔ Gilgamesh is said to have ruled the city of Uruk some time after Enmerkar.
➔ He then set out to find the secret of immortality, crossing the waters that surround
the world.
➔ 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.
Contributions of Mesopotamia
✔ first writing
✔ The division of the year into 12 months according to the revolution of the moon
around the earth
✔ Solar and lunar eclipses were observed, their occurrence was noted according to
year, month and day.
(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 )
• 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.
➢ 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
➢ 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.
➢ This is how he was able to dress his daughter for her consecration as Priestess.