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MesopotamiaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Mesopotamia (disambiguation).

AncientMesopotamia

Euphrates · Tigris

Sumer

Eridu · Kish · Uruk  · Ur 

Lagash ·  Nippur  · Girsu

Elam

Susa · Anshan

Akkadian Empire

Akkad · Mari

Amorites

Isin · Larsa

Babylonia

Babylon · Chaldea

Assyria

Assur  ·  Nimrud

Dur-Sharrukin ·  Nineveh

Hittites · Kassites

Ararat / Mitanni

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Chronology

Mesopotamia(Dynasty List)

Sumer (king list)

Kings of Elam

Kings of Assyria

Kings of Babylon

Mythology

Enûma Elish · Gilgamesh

Assyrian religion

Language

Sumerian · Elamite

Akkadian · Aramaic

Hurrian · Hittite

Mesopotamia (from the  Ancient Greek : Μεσοποταμία: "[land] between rivers";  Arabic : دددد

ܢ:  (bilād al-rāfidayn); Syriacدددددددد ܝ ܪ ܗ ܢ ܬ ܝ ܒ  (beth nahrain): "land of rivers") is a toponym

for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day  Iraq ,

northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.

Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included  Sumer  and 

the Akkadian,Babylonian and   Assyrian empires. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo- 

 Assyrian and  Neo-Babylonian empires. The indigenous Sumerians and Akkadians (including  Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 

BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the  Achaemenid Empire. It fell to

 Alexander the Great in 332 BC and after his death it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

 Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthians. Mesopotamia became a

battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia (particularly Assyria)

coming under periodic Roman control. In 226 AD, it fell to the Sassanid Persians, and 

remained under Persian rule until the 7th century Arab Islamic conquest  of the Sassanid Empire. A

number of primarily Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Oshroene and Hatra.

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Etymology 

map showing the Tigris–Euphrates river system, which defines Mesopotamia

The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek  root words μέσος (meso)

"middle" and ποταμός (potamia) "river" and literally means "(Land) between rivers". The oldest 

known occurrence of the name Mesopotamia dates to the late second century AD, when it was

used in the Anabasis Alexandri  to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria.

The Aramaic  term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. [1]  Later, the

term Mesopotamia was more generally applied to the all the lands between the Euphrates and 

theTigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of  Iraq  and 

southeasternTurkey . [2]  The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part 

of theZagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. [3]  [4]  [5]   A further 

distinction is usually made between Upper or Northern Mesopotamia and Lower or Southern

Mesopotamia. [6]  Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jezirah, is the area between the Euphrates

and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad . [3]  Lower Mesopotamia is the area from

Baghdad to the Persian Gulf . [6]  In modern scientific usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a

chronological connotation. It is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with

names like Syria, Jezirah and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. [2]  [7]  It has been

argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of 

various 19th century Western encroachments. [7]  [8] 

Geography 

Further information: Waterways of Sumer and Akkad  and  Geography of Iraq 

Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have

their headwaters in the mountains of Armenia in modern-day Turkey. Both rivers are fed by 

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numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland 

routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently 

steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north

which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 sq mi) region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats,

and reed banks in the south. In the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty 

into thePersian Gulf .

The arid environment which ranges from the northern areas of rain-fed agriculture to the south

where irrigation of agriculture is essential if a surplus energy returned on energy invested  (EROEI)

is to be obtained. This irrigation is aided by a high water table and by melting snows from the high

 peaks of the Zagros Mountains and from the Armenian cordillera, the source of the Tigris and 

Euphrates Rivers, that give the region its name. The usefulness of irrigation depends upon the

ability to mobilize sufficient labor for the construction and maintenance of canals, and this, from

the earliest period, has assisted the development of urban settlements and centralized systems of 

 political authority.

 Agriculture throughout the region has been supplemented by nomadic pastoralism, where tent- 

dwelling nomads herded sheep and goats (and later camels) from the river pastures in the dry 

summer months, out into seasonal grazing lands on the desert fringe in the wet winter season. The

area is generally lacking in building stone, precious metals and timber, and so historically has

relied upon long distance trade of agricultural products to secure these items from outlying areas.

In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since

 prehistoric times, and has added to the cultural mix.

Periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. The demands

for labor has from time to time led to population increases that push the limits of the ecological 

carrying capacity, and should a period of climatic instability ensue, collapsing central government 

and declining populations can occur. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal 

hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists have led to periods of trade collapse and neglect of irrigation

systems. Equally, centripetal tendencies amongst city states has meant that central authority over 

the whole region, when imposed, has tended to be ephemeral, and localism has fragmented power 

into tribal or smaller regional units. [9]  These trends have continued to the present day in Iraq.

History 

Main article: History of Mesopotamia

Further information: History of Iraq , History of the Middle East , and Chronology of the Ancient Near 

East 

The history of ancient Mesopotamia begins with the emergence of urban societies during the Ubaid 

 period  (ca. 5300 BC). The history of the Ancient Near East  is taken to end with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, or with the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia and 

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the establishment of the Caliphate, from which point the region came to be known as Iraq . 

Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient highly developed and socially complex 

states. The region was famous as one of the four  riverine civilizations wherewriting  was first 

invented, along with the Nile valley in Egypt , the Indus Valley  in the Indian subcontinent , and 

Yellow River valley in China(Although writing is also known to have arisen independently in

Mesoamerica). Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such asUruk , Nippur , Nineveh,

and  Babylon, as well as major territorial states such as the city of Ma-asesblu, the Akkadian

kingdom, the Third Dynasty of Ur , and the  Assyrian empire. Some of the important historical 

Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon (who established the Akkadian

Empire), Hammurabi  (who established the Old Babylonian state), and Tiglath-Pileser I  (who

established the Assyrian Empire). The history of the human occupation of Mesopotamia begins in

the Lower Paleolithic period, and ends with either the rise of the  Achaemenid Persians in the 6th

century BC or the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia in the 7th century CE.

 Archeological cultures

Pre-Pottery Neolithic :

Boreal Period (ca. 7200 BC)

Jarmo (ca. 7000 bc–ca. 6000 BC)

collapse: 8.2 kiloyear event  (6200 BC)

Pottery Neolithic:

Hassuna (ca. 6000 bc–? BC), Samarra (ca. 5700 BC–4900 BC)

and  Halaf  (ca. 6000 BC–5300 BC) "cultures" 

Chalcolithic or Copper age:

Ubaid period (ca. 5900 BC–4400 BC)

collapse: 5.9 kiloyear event  (3900 BC)

Uruk period (ca. 4400 BC–3200 BC)

Jemdet Nasr period (ca. 3100 BC–2900 BC) [10] 

Early Bronze Age

Early Dynastic Sumerian city-states (ca. 2900 BC–2350 BC)

 Akkadian Empire (ca. 2350 BC–2193 BC).

collapse: 4.2 kiloyear event  (ca. 2200 BC)

Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2119 BC–2004 BC)

Middle Bronze Age

Early Babylonia (20th to 18th c. BC)

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Early Assyrian kingdom (20th to 18th c. BC)

First Babylonian Dynasty (18th to 17th c. BC)

collapse: Minoan Eruption (c. 1620 BC)

Late Bronze Age

Kassite dynasty , Middle Assyrian period  (16th to 12th c. BC)

collapse: Bronze Age collapse (12th to 11th c. BC)

Iron Age

Neo-Hittite or Syro-Hittite regional states (11th to 7th c. BC)

Neo-Assyrian Empire (10th to 7th c. BC)

Chaldea, Neo-Babylonian Empire (7th to 6th c. BC)

Classical Antiquity 

Persian Babylonia,  Achaemenid Assyria (6th to 4th c. BC)

Seleucid Mesopotamia (4th to 3rd c. BC)

Parthian Asuristan (3rd c. BC to 3rd c. AD)

Osroene (2nd c. BC to 3rd c. AD)

 Adiabene (1st to 2nd c. CE)

Roman Mesopotamia, Roman Assyria (2nd c. CE)

Late Antiquity 

Sassanid Asuristan (3rd to 7th c. CE)

Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia (7th c. CE)

Language and writing 

The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian, an agglutinative language isolate.

 Along with Sumerian, Semitic dialects were also spoken in early Mesopotamia. Akkadian, came to

be the dominant language during their rule, but Sumerian was retained 

for administration, religious, literary , and scientific purposes. Different varieties of Akkadian were

used until the end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Aramaic , which had already become common in

Mesopotamia, then became the official provincial administration language of 

the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Akkadian fell into disuse, but both it and Sumerian were still used 

in temples for some centuries.

Early in Mesopotamia's history (around the mid-4th millennium BC) cuneiform script  was invented.

Cuneiform literally means "wedge-shaped", due to the triangular tip of the stylus used for 

impressing signs on wet clay. The standardized form of each cuneiform sign appears to have been

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developed from  pictograms. The earliest texts (7 archaic tablets) come from the E 

Temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna at Uruk, from a building labeled as Temple C by its

excavators.

The early  logographic  system of cuneiform script took many years to master. Thus, only a limited number of individuals were hired as scribesto be trained in its use. It was not until the widespread 

use of a syllabic  script was adopted under Sargon's rule [ citation needed  ]  that significant portions of 

Mesopotamian population became literate. Massive archives of texts were recovered from the

archaeological contexts of Old Babylonian scribal schools, through which literacy was

disseminated.

During the third millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the

Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread  bilingualism. [11]  The influence of 

Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massivescale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. [11]  This has prompted scholars

to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a sprachbund . [11]  Akkadian gradually 

replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd 

and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate), [12]  but Sumerian continued 

to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st 

century CE.

Literature and mythology 

Main articles: Babylonian literature and Mesopotamian mythology 

Libraries were extant in towns and temples during the Babylonian Empire. An old Sumerian

 proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." 

Women as well as men learned to read and write, [13]  and for the Semitic  Babylonians, this involved 

knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary.

 A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the

language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer.

Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well 

as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The

characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists were drawn up.

Many Babylonian literary works are still studied today. One of the most famous of these was

the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sin-liqe- 

unninni , and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single

adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, although it is

 probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.

Philosophy Further information: Babylonian literature: Philosophy 

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The origins of   philosophy  can be traced back to early Mesopotamian wisdom, which embodied 

certain philosophies of life, particularly  ethics, in the forms of dialectic , dialogs, epic 

 poetry , folklore, hymns, lyrics, prose works, and  proverbs. 

Babylonian reasoning  and  rationality developed beyond empirical  observation. [14] 

The earliest form of logic  was developed by the Babylonians, notably in the

rigorous nonergodic  nature of their social systems. Babylonian thought was axiomatic  and is

comparable to the "ordinary logic" described by  John Maynard Keynes. Babylonian thought was

also based on an open-systems ontology  which is compatible with ergodic  axioms. [15]  Logic was

employed to some extent in Babylonian astronomy  and medicine.

Babylonian thought had a considerable influence on early Greek and Hellenistic philosophy . In

 particular, the Babylonian text Dialog of Pessimism contains similarities to the agonistic  thought of 

the sophists, the Heraclitean doctrine of contrasts, and the dialectic  and dialogs of Plato, as well asa precursor to the maieutic  method of  Socrates. [16]  The Ionian philosopher  Thales was influenced by 

Babylonian cosmological ideas.

Science and technology 

Mathematics

Main article: Babylonian mathematics

Further information: Babylonian calendar 

Mesopotamian mathematics and science was based on a sexagesimal  (base 60) numeral system.

This is the source of the 60-minute hour, the 24-hour day, and the 360- degree circle. The Sumerian

calendar was based on the seven-day week. This form of mathematics was instrumental in

early map-making .

The Babylonians also had theorems on how to measure the area of several shapes and solids. They 

measured the circumference of a circle as three times the diameter and the area as one-twelfth the

square of the circumference, which would be correct if π ι  were fixed at 3. The volume of a

cylinder was taken as the product of the area of the base and the height; however, the volume of 

the frustum of a cone or a square pyramid was incorrectly taken as the product of the height and 

half the sum of the bases. Also, there was a recent discovery in which a tablet used π ι  as 25/8 

(3.125 instead of 3.14159~). The Babylonians are also known for the Babylonian mile, which was a

measure of distance equal to about seven modern miles (11 km). This measurement for distances

eventually was converted to a time-mile used for measuring the travel of the Sun, therefore,

representing time. [17] 

 Astronomy 

Main article: Babylonian astronomy Further information: Babylonian astrology  and Babylonian calendar 

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The Babylonian astronomers were very adept at mathematics and could predict eclipses and 

solstices. Scholars thought that everything had some purpose in astronomy. Most of these related 

to religion and omens. Mesopotamian astronomers worked out a 12-month calendar based on the

cycles of the moon. They divided the year into two seasons: summer and winter. The origins of 

astronomy as well as astrology date from this time.

During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to

astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early  universe and 

began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important 

contribution to astronomy and the  philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to

this new approach as the firstscientific revolution. [18]  This new approach to astronomy was adopted 

and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy.

In Seleucid and  Parthian times, the astronomical reports were thoroughly scientific; how muchearlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The Babylonian

development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major 

episode in the history of astronomy .

The only Greek Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary 

motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC). [19]  [20]  [21]  Seleucus is known from the writings

of  Plutarch. He supported Aristarchus of Samos' heliocentric theory where the Earth

rotated  around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch,

Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used (except that he correctly theorized on tides as a result of Moon's attraction).

Babylonian astronomy served as the basis for much of  Greek ,  

classical  Indian, Sassanian, Byzantine, Syrian, medieval Islamic , Central Asian, and  Western

European astronomy. [22] 

Medicine

The oldest Babylonian texts on medicine date back to the Old Babylonian  period in the first half of 

the 2nd millennium BC . The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic 

Handbook written by the physician Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa, [23]  during the reign of the Babylonian

king   Adad-apla-iddina (1069-1046 BC). [24] 

 Along with contemporary  Egyptian medicine, the Babylonians introduced the concepts

of  diagnosis,  prognosis,  physical examination, and  prescriptions. In addition, the Diagnostic 

Handbook introduced the methods of  therapy  and aetiology  and the use of  empiricism, logic ,

and rationality  in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of 

medical symptoms and often detailed empirical  observations along with logical rules used in

combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient  with its diagnosis and prognosis.

 [25] 

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The symptoms and diseases of a patient were treated through therapeutic means such

as bandages, creams and   pills. If a patient could not be cured physically, the Babylonian

 physicians often relied on exorcism to cleanse the patient from any curses. Esagil-kin- 

apli's Diagnostic Handbook was based on a logical set of  axioms and assumptions, including the

modern view that through the examination and inspection of the symptoms of a patient, it is

 possible to determine the patient's disease, its aetiology, its future development, and the chances

of the patient's recovery. [23] 

Esagil-kin-apli discovered a variety of illnesses and diseases and described their symptoms in

his Diagnostic Handbook. These include the symptoms for many varieties of epilepsy  and 

related ailments along with their diagnosis and prognosis. [26] 

Technology 

Mesopotamian people invented many technologies including metal and copper-working, glass and 

lamp making, textile weaving, flood control, water storage, and irrigation. They were also one of the

first  Bronze age  people in the world. They developed from copper, bronze, and gold on to iron.

Palaces were decorated with hundreds of kilograms of these very expensive metals. Also, copper,

bronze, and iron were used for armor as well as for different weapons such as swords, daggers,

spears, and  maces.

 According to a recent hypothesis, the Archimedes screw  may have been used by  Sennacherib,

King of   Assyria, for the water systems at theHanging Gardens of Babylon and Nineveh in the 7th

century BC, although mainstream scholarship holds it to be a Greek  invention of later times. [27]  Later during the Parthian or  Sassanid   periods, the Baghdad Battery , which may have been the

world's first battery, was created in Mesopotamia. [28] 

Religion

Main article: Mesopotamian religion

Mesopotamian religion was the first to be recorded. Mesopotamians believed that the world was a

flat disc  [ citation needed  ] , surrounded by a huge, holed space, and above that, heaven. They also believed 

that water was everywhere, the top, bottom and sides, and that the universewas born from this

enormous sea. In addition, Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic .

 Although the beliefs described above were held in common among Mesopotamians, there were

also regional variations. The Sumerian word for universe is an-ki, which refers to the god An and 

the goddess Ki. Their son was Enlil, the air god. They believed that Enlil was the most powerful 

god. He was the chief god of the Pantheon, equivalent to the Greek god Zeus and the Roman

god Jupiter . The Sumerians also posed philosophical questions, such as: Who are we?, Where are

we?, How did we get here?. They attributed answers to these questions to explanations provided 

by their gods.

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Gods and goddesses

 Anu—Sumerian god of the sky. He was married to Ki, but in some

other Mesopotamian religions he has a wife called Uraš. Though he

was considered the most important god in the pantheon, he took amostly passive role in epics, allowing Enlil to claim the position as

most powerful god.

Enlil  —the most powerful god in Mesopotamian religion. His wife

was Ninlil , and his children

were Iškur  (sometimes), Nanna, Suen, Nergal ,Nisaba, Namtar , Ninurt 

a (sometimes), Pabilsag , Nushu, Enbilulu, Uraš Zababa and  Ennugi .

His position at the top of the pantheon was later usurped by Marduk 

and then by Ashur. Enki   (or Ea)—Eridu god of rain.

Marduk —the principal god of Babylon. When Babylon rose to power,

the mythologies raised Marduk from his original position as an

agricultural god to the principal god in the pantheon.

 Ashur —god of the Assyrian empire. When the Assyrians rose to

 power their myths raised Ashur to a position of importance.

Gula, Utu (in Sumerian), or Shamash (in Akkadian)—god of the sun

and justice.

Ereshkigal  —goddess of the Netherworld.

Nabu—Mesopotamian god of writing. He was very wise, and was

 praised for his writing ability. In some places he was believed to be

in control of heaven and earth. His importance was increased 

considerably in the later periods.

Ninurta—Sumerian god of war and heroes.

Iškur (or  Adad  )—god of storms.

Erra—the god of drought. He is often mentioned in conjunction

with Adad  and  Nergal  in laying waste to the land.

Nergal  —a plague god. He was also spouse of  Ereshkigal .

Pazuzu or  Zu—an evil god, who stole the tablets of Enlil ’s destiny,

and is killed because of this. He also brought diseases which had no

known cure.

Culture

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Festivals

 Ancient Mesopotamians had ceremonies each month. The theme of the rituals and festivals for 

each month is determined by six important factors:

1. The phase of the Moon (a waxing moon meant abundance and growth, while a waning moon was associated with decline,

conservation, and festivals of the Underworld)

2. The phase of the annual agricultural cycle

3. Equinoxes and solstices

4. The local mythos and its divine Patrons

5. The success of the reigning Monarch

6. Commemoration of specific historical events (founding, military 

victories, temple holidays, etc.)

Music 

Some songs were written for the gods but many were written to describe important events.

 Although music and songs amused kings, they were also enjoyed by ordinary people who liked to

sing and dance in their homes or in the marketplaces. Songs were sung to children who passed 

them on to their children. Thus songs were passed on through many  generations as an oral 

tradition until writing was more universal. These songs provided a means of passing on through

the centuries highly important information about historical events.

The Oud  (Arabic:ددددد) is a small, stringed musical instrument used by the Mesopotamians. The

oldest pictorial record of the Oud dates back to the Uruk   period in Southern Mesopotamia over 

5000 years ago. It is on a cylinder seal  currently housed at the British Museum and acquired by Dr.

Dominique Collon. The image depicts a female crouching with her instruments upon a boat,

 playing right-handed . This instrument appears hundreds of times throughout Mesopotamian

history and again in ancient  Egypt  from the 18th dynasty  onwards in long- and short-neck varieties.

The oud is regarded as a  precursor  to the European lute. Its name is derived from the Arabic word 

. al-‘ūd 'the wood', which is probably the name of the tree from which the oud was madeددددد

(The Arabic name, with the definite article, is the source of the word 'lute'.)

Games

Hunting  was popular among Assyrian kings. Boxing  and  wrestling  feature frequently in art, and 

some form of  polo was probably popular, with men sitting on the shoulders of other men rather 

than on horses. [29]  They also played majore, a game similar to the sport rugby, but played with a ball 

made of wood. They also played a board game similar to senet  and backgammon, now known as

the "Royal Game of Ma-asesblu." 

Family life

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The Babylonian marriage market by the nineteenth-century AD painter Edwin Long 

Mesopotamia across its history became more and more a patriarchal society , one in which the men

were far more powerful than the women. Thorkild Jacobsen, as well as many others, has suggested 

that early Mesopotamian society was ruled by a "council of elders" in which men and women were

equally represented, but that over time, as the status of women fell, that of men increased. As for 

schooling, only royal offspring and sons of the rich and professionals, such as scribes, physicians,

temple administrators, went to school. Most boys were taught their father's trade or were

apprenticed out to learn a trade. [30]  Girls had to stay home with their mothers to

learn housekeeping  and  cooking , and to look after the younger children. Some children would help

with crushing grain or cleaning birds. Unusual for that time in history, women in Mesopotamia

had rights. They could own property  and, if they had good reason, get a divorce.

Burials

This section does not cite any references or sources . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material maybe challenged  and removed  . (October 2007)

Hundreds of  graves have been excavated in parts of Mesopotamia, revealing information about 

Mesopotamian burial  habits. In the city of  Ur , most people were buried in family graves under their 

houses, along with some possessions. A few have been found wrapped in mats and carpets.

Deceased children were put in big "jars" which were placed in the family  chapel . Other remains

have been found buried in common city graveyards. 17 graves have been found with very precious

objects in them. It is assumed that these were royal graves.

Economy 

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 At times one city would try to conquer and unify the region, but such efforts were resisted and 

failed for centuries. As a result, the political history of Sumer is one of almost constant warfare.

Eventually Sumer was unified by  Eannatum, but the unification was tenuous and failed to last as

the Akkadians conquered Sumeria in 2331 BC only a generation later.

The Akkadian Empire was the first successful empire to last beyond a generation and see the

 peaceful succession of kings. The empire was relatively short-lived, as the Babylonians conquered 

them within only a few generations.

Kings

Further information: Sumerian king list , List of Kings of Babylon, and  Kings of Assyria

The Mesopotamians believed their kings and queens were descended from the City of Gods, but,

unlike the ancient Egyptians, they never believed their kings were real gods. [31]  Most kings named 

themselves “king of the universe” or “great king”. Another common name was “ shepherd ”, as

kings had to look after their people.

Notable Mesopotamian kings include:

Eannatum of Lagash—founder of the first (short-lived) empire.

Sargon of Akkad —conqueror of Mesopotamia and creator of the first 

empire that outlived its founder.

Hammurabi  —founder of the first Babylonian empire.

Tiglath-Pileser III  —founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Nebuchadnezzar —the most powerful king in the Neo-Babylonian

Empire. He was thought to be the son of the god Nabu. He married 

the daughter of Cyaxeres, so the Median and the Babylonian

dynasties had a familial connection. Nebuchadnezzar’s name

translates into "Nabo, protect the crown!" 

Belshedezzar—the last king of Babylonia. He was the son of 

Nabonidus, husband of Nictoris, the daughter of  Nebuchadnezzar .Power 

When Assyria grew into an empire, it was divided into smaller parts, called   provinces. Each of 

these were named after their main cities, like Nineveh, Samaria, Damascus, and   Arpad . They all had 

their own governor who had to make sure everyone paid their taxes. Governors also had to call up

soldiers to war and supply workers when a temple was built. He was also responsible for enforcing 

the laws. In this way, it was easier to keep control of a large empire.

 Although Babylon was quite a small  state in the Sumerian, it grew tremendously throughout the

time of Hammurabi 's rule. He was known as “the law maker”, and soon Babylon became one of the

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main cities in Mesopotamia. It was later called Babylonia, which meant "the gateway of the gods." It 

also became one of history's greatest centers of learning.

Warfare

 Assyrian soldiers, from a plate in THE HISTORY OF COSTUME by Braun & Schneider (ca. 1860).

 As city-states began to grow, their spheres of influence overlapped, creating arguments between

other city-states, especially over land and canals. These arguments were recorded in tablets

several hundreds of years before any major war—the first recording of a war occurred around 3200 

BC but was not common until about 2500 BC. At this point, warfare was incorporated into the

Mesopotamian political system, where a neutral city may act as an arbitrator for the two rival cities.

This helped to form unions between cities, leading to regional states. [31]  When empires were

created, they went to war more with foreign countries. King Sargon, for example, conquered all the

cities of Sumer, some cities in Mari, and then went to war with northern Syria.

Many Babylonian palace walls were decorated with the pictures of the successful fights and the

enemy either desperately escaping or hiding amongst reeds. A king in Sumer, Gilgamesh, was

thought to be two-thirds god and only one-third human. His exploits were recorded in many poems

and songs of the time.

Laws

King Hammurabi , as mentioned above, was famous for his set of laws, The Code of 

Hammurabi ( created ca. 1780 BC), which is one of the earliest sets of laws found and one of the best 

 preserved examples of this type of document from ancient Mesopotamia. He codified over 200 laws

for Mesopotamia.

 Architecture

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The study of ancient Mesopotamian architecture is based on available archaeological  evidence,

 pictorial representation of buildings, and texts on building practices. Scholarly literature usually 

concentrates on temples, palaces, city walls and gates, and other monumental buildings, but 

occasionally one finds works on residential architecture as well. [32]   Archaeological surface surveys

also allowed for the study of urban form in early Mesopotamian cities.

The most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are the temple complexes

at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples and palaces from the Early Dynastic   period sites in

the Diyala River  valley such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar, the Third Dynasty of Ur  remains

at Nippur  (Sanctuary of Enlil  ) and  Ur  (Sanctuary of Nanna ), Middle Bronze Age remains at Syrian- 

Turkish sites of Ebla, Mari , Alalakh, Aleppoand Kultepe, Late Bronze Age palaces

at Bogazkoy  (Hattusha), Ugarit ,  Ashur  and  Nuzi , Iron Age palaces and temples

at  Assyrian( Kalhu /Nimrud, Khorsabad , Nineveh ), Babylonian ( Babylon ), Urartian ( Tushpa / Van

Kalesi, Cavustepe, Ayanis, Armavir , Erebuni , Bastam ) and Neo-Hittite sites ( Karkamis, Tell 

Halaf , Karatepe ). Houses are mostly known from Old Babylonian remains at Nippur and Ur. Among 

the textual sources on building construction and associated rituals are Gudea's cylinders from the

late 3rd millennium are notable, as well as the Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions from

the Iron Age.

Houses

The materials used to build a Mesopotamian house were the same as those used today: mud brick,

mud plaster and wooden doors, which were all naturally available around the city, [33] 

although wood could not be naturally made very well during the particular time period described. Most houses had 

a square center room with other rooms attached to it, but a great variation in the size and materials

used to build the houses suggest they were built by the inhabitants themselves. [34]  The smallest 

rooms may not have coincided with the poorest people; in fact, it could be that the poorest people

built houses out of perishable materials such as reeds on the outside of the city, but there is very 

little direct evidence for this. [35] 

The Palace

The palaces of the early Mesopotamian elites were large-scale complexes, and were often lavishly 

decorated. Earliest known examples are from the Diyala River  valley sites such as Khafajah and 

Tell Asmar. These third millennium BC palaces functioned as a large-scale socio-economic 

institutions, and therefore, along with residential and private function, they housed craftsmen

workshops, food storehouses, ceremonial courtyards, and are often associated with shrines. For 

instance, the so-called "giparu" (or Gig-Par-Ku in Sumerian) at Ur where the Moon god Nanna's

 priestesses resided was a major complex with multiple courtyards, a number of sanctuaries, burial 

chambers for dead priestesses, and a ceremonial banquet hall. A similarly complex example of a

Mesopotamian palace was excavated at Mari  in Syria, dating from the Old Babylonian period.

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 Assyrian palaces of the Iron Age, especially at Kalhu/ Nimrud , Dur Sharrukin / Khorsabad  and 

Ninuwa / Nineveh, have become famous due to the pictorial and textual narrative programs on their 

walls, all carved on stone slabs known as orthostats. These pictorial programs either incorporated 

cultic scenes or the narrative accounts of the kings' military and civic accomplishments. Gates and 

important passageways were flanked with massive stone sculptures of apotropaic mythological 

figures. The architectural arrangement of these Iron Age palaces were also organized around large

and small courtyards. Usually the king's throne room opened to a massive ceremonial courtyard 

where important state councils met and state ceremonies were performed.

Massive amounts of ivory furniture pieces were found in many   Assyrian  palaces pointing to an

intense trade relationship with North SyrianNeo-Hittite states at the time. There is also good 

evidence that bronze repousse bands decorated the wooden gates.

ZigguratsMain article: Ziggurat 

Ziggurats were huge pyramidal temple towers built in the ancient  Mesopotamian alluvium and 

western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced  step pyramid  of successively receding 

stories or levels. There are 32 ziggurats known at, or near, Mesopotamia—28 in Iraq  and 4 inIran.

Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur  near Nasiriyah, Iraq, the Ziggurat of Aqar 

Quf  near Baghdad , Iraq, Chogha Zanbil  inKhūzestān, Iran (the most recent to be discovered), and 

the Sialk near  Kashan, Iran. Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians,Elamites, and 

 Assyrians as monuments to local religions. The earliest examples of the ziggurat were raised 

 platforms that date from the Uruk period  [36]  during the fourth millennium BC, and the latest date

from the 6th century BC. The top of the ziggurat was flat, unlike many pyramids. The step pyramid 

style began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period. [37] 

Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal 

structure. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the

outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological 

significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of 

tiers ranged from two to seven, with a shrine or temple at the summit. Access to the shrine was

 provided by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit.

It has been suggested that ziggurats were built to resemble mountains, but there is little textual or 

archaeological evidence to support that hypothesis.

Ur-Nammu's ziggurat at Ur was designed as a three-stage construction, but today only two of these

survive. This entire mudbrick core structure was originally given a facing of baked brick envelope

set in bitumen, 2.5 m on the first lowest stage, and 1.15 m on the second. Each of these baked 

bricks were stamped with the name of the king. The sloping walls of the stages were buttressed.

The access to the top was by means of a triple monumental staircase, which all converges at a

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 portal that opened on a landing between the first and second stages. The height of the first stage

was about 11 m while the second stage rose some 5.7 m. Usually, a third stage is reconstructed by 

the excavator of the ziggurat ( Leonard Woolley  ), and crowned by a temple. At the Tschoga Zanbil 

ziggurat, archaeologists have found massive reed ropes that ran across the core of the ziggurat 

structure and tied together the mudbrick mass.

References

Notes

1. ^ Finkelstein, J.J. (1962), "Mesopotamia" , Journal of Near Eastern

Studies 21 (2): 73–92, JSTOR  543884

2. ^ a b Foster, Benjamin R.; Polinger Foster, Karen (2009),Civilizations

of ancient Iraq, Princeton: Princeton University 

Press,ISBN  9780691137223

3. ^ a b Canard, M. (2011), "al- ḎJazīra, Ḏ jazīrat Aḳ ūr or I ḳ līm Aḳ ūr", in

Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E. et al., Encyclopaedia of 

Islam, Second Edition, Leiden: Brill Online, OCLC  624382576 

4. ^ Wilkinson, Tony J. (2000), "Regional approaches to

Mesopotamian archaeology: the contribution of archaeological 

surveys", Journal of Archaeological Research 8 (3): 219–

267,ISSN  1573-7756 

5. ^ Matthews, Roger (2003), The archaeology of Mesopotamia.

Theories and approaches, Approaching the past, Milton Square:

Routledge, ISBN  0415253179

6. ^ a b Miquel, A.; Brice, W.C.; Sourdel, D.; Aubin, J.; Holt, P.M.;

Kelidar, A.; Blanc, H.; MacKenzie, D.N. et al. (2011), " Irāʿ ḳ ", in

Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E. et al., Encyclopaedia of 

Islam, Second Edition, Leiden: Brill Online, OCLC  624382576 

7. ^ a b Bahrani, Z. (1998), "Conjuring Mesopotamia: imaginative

geography a world past", in Meskell, L., Archaeology under fire:

Nationalism, politics and heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and 

Middle East, London: Routledge, pp. 159–174,ISBN  9780415196550 

8. ^ Scheffler, Thomas; 2003. “ 'Fertile crescent', 'Orient', 'Middle

East': the changing mental maps of Southeast Asia,” European

Review of History 10/2: 253–272.

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9. ^ Thompson, William R. (2004) "Complexity, Diminishing Marginal 

Returns, and Serial Mesopotamian Fragmentation" (Vol 3, Journal 

of World Systems Research)

10.^ Pollock, Susan (1999), Ancient Mesopotamia. The Eden that never 

was, Case Studies in Early Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, ISBN  9780521575683

11.^ a b c  Deutscher, Guy  (2007). Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The

Evolution of Sentential Complementation. Oxford University Press

US . pp. 20–21. ISBN  9780199532223.

12.^ Woods C. 2006 “Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the Death of 

Sumerian”. In S.L. Sanders (ed) Margins of Writing, Origins of 

Culture: 91-120 Chicago [1] 

13.^ Tatlow, Elisabeth Meier  Women, Crime, and Punishment in

 Ancient Law and Society: The ancient Near East  Continuum

International Publishing Group Ltd. (31 March 2005) ISBN 978- 

0826416285   p. 75 

14.^ Giorgio Buccellati (1981), "Wisdom and Not: The Case of 

Mesopotamia", Journal of the American Oriental Society 101 (1), p.

35-47.

15.^ a b Sheila C. Dow (2005), "Axioms and Babylonian thought: a

reply", Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 27 (3), p. 385-391.

16.^ Giorgio Buccellati (1981), "Wisdom and Not: The Case of 

Mesopotamia", Journal of the American Oriental Society 101 (1), p.

35-47 43.

17.^ Eves, Howard  An Introduction to the History of MathematicsHolt,

Rinehart and Winston, 1969 p. 31

18.^ D. Brown (2000), Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology ,

Styx Publications, ISBN 9056930362 .

19.^ Otto E. Neugebauer  (1945). "The History of Ancient Astronomy 

Problems and Methods", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 4 (1), p. 1- 

38.

20.^ George Sarton (1955). "Chaldaean Astronomy of the Last Three

Centuries B. C.", Journal of the American Oriental Society 75 (3), p.

166-173 [169].

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37.^ Crawford, pp. 73-74

Bibliography 

 Atlas de la Mésopotamie et du Proche-Orient ancien, Brepols, 1996 

ISBN|2503500463. Benoit, Agnès; 2003. Art et archéologie : les civilisations du Proche- 

Orient ancien, Manuels de l'Ecole du Louvre.

Jean Bottéro; 1987.Mésopotamie. L'écriture, la raison et les dieux,

Gallimard, coll. « Folio Histoire », ISBN|2070403084.

Jean Bottéro; 1992. Mesopotamia: writing, reasoning and the gods.

Trans. by Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van de Mieroop, University of 

Chicago Press: Chicago.

Edzard, Dietz Otto; 2004. Geschichte Mesopotamiens. Von den

Sumerern bis zu Alexander dem Großen, München, ISBN 3-406- 

51664-5 

Hrouda, Barthel and Rene Pfeilschifter; 2005. Mesopotamien. Die

antiken Kulturen zwischen Euphrat und Tigris. München 2005 (4.

 Aufl.),ISBN 3-406-46530-7 

Joannès, Francis; 2001. Dictionnaire de la civilisation

mésopotamienne, Robert Laffont.

Korn, Wolfgang; 2004. Mesopotamien – Wiege der Zivilisation. 6000 

Jahre Hochkulturen an Euphrat und Tigris, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-8062- 

1851-X 

Kuhrt, Amélie; 1995. The Ancient Near East: c. 3000-330 B.C. 2 Vols.

Routledge: London and New York.

Liverani, Mario; 1991. Antico Oriente: storia, società, economia.

Editori Laterza: Roma.

Matthews, Roger; 2005. The early prehistory of Mesopotamia –

500,000 to 4,500 BC, Turnhout 2005, ISBN 2-503-50729-8 

Oppenheim, A. Leo; 1964. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a dead 

civilization. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London.

Revised edition completed by Erica Reiner, 1977.

Pollock, Susan; 1999. Ancient Mesopotamia: the Eden that never 

was. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

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Postgate, J. Nicholas; 1992. Early Mesopotamia: Society and 

Economy at the dawn of history. Routledge: London and New York.

Roux, Georges; 1964. Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books.

Silver, Morris; 2007. Redistribution and Markets in the Economy of  Ancient Mesopotamia: Updating Polanyi, Antiguo Oriente 5: 89-112.

Snell, Daniel (ed.); 2005. A Companion to the Ancient Near East.

Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub, 2005.

Van de Mieroop, Marc; 2004. A history of the ancient Near East. ca

3000-323 BC. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has

media related 

to:  Mesopotamia

 Ancient Mesopotamia — timeline, definition, and articles at Ancient 

History Encyclopedia

Mesopotamia — introduction to Mesopotamia from the British

Museum

By Nile and Tigris, a narrative of journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia

on behalf of the British museum between the years 1886 and 1913,

by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, 1920 (a searchable facsimile at the

University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF  format)

 A Dweller in Mesopotamia, being the adventures of an official artist 

in the Garden of Eden, by Donald Maxwell, 1921 (a searchable

facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered 

PDF PDF (7.53 MB) format)

Mesopotamian Archaeology , by Percy S. P. Pillow, 1912 (asearchable facsimile at the University of Georgia

Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF PDF (12.8 MB) format)

 [2] Sumerian Philosophy 

 [ hide ] v · d  · e People in the Qur'an

 Individuals (all lifeforms)

 Aaron ·  Abel  · Abraham ·  Abu Bakr  ·  Abū Lahab · Adam ·  Amram ·  Anne ·  Asiya ·  Azar  ·  Azrael ·  Believer of Ya- Sin · Benjamin ·Cain · Caleb · David  ·  Devil  · Dhul- Kifl ·  Dhul-Qarnayn ( Cyrus the Great  ,  Alexander theGreat  ) · Elijah · Elisha ·  Elizabeth ·  Eve ·  Ezra ·Gabriel  · Gog  · Goliath · Haman · Harut ·  Hud  ·  Idris ·  Isaac · Ishmael  · J oachim ·  Job ·  Jochebed  · John the Baptist  · Jonah ·  Joseph ·  Joshua ·  Khidr  ·  King of Abraham's time · Korah ·  Lot  · Luqson ·  Maalik  · Magog  · Mary ·  Marut  · Michael  ·  Miriam · Moses ·  Muhammad  ·  Noah · Pharaoh of Joseph's time · Pharao Exodus ·  Potiphar  ·Queen of Sheba ·  Saleh ·  Samiri ·  Samuel ·  Sarah ·  Saul  · Shoaib · Solomon · Umm Jamil  · Wicked maman, Parable ·  Zachariah ·  Zaid  ·  Zipporah ·  Zulaikha

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General groups Christians ·  Hypocrites · Jews ·  Magians ·  Pagans · Prophets ·  Sabians

 Specific Groups Disciples of Jesus  ·  Israelites  ·  Jinns of Solomon ·  Muhammad's wives · Scribes of the Qur'an ·  People of the Cave · Phar sorcerers  · Twelve Tribes of Israel 

Communities Ād ʿ  · Companions of the Elephant  · Companions of the Rass ·  Egypt  · Mesopotamia ·  Midian ·  Nineveh ·  Sodom and 

Gomorrah ·Thamud  ·  People of Tubba ·  People of the Wood  · People of Ya-Sin · Quraysh · Romans

 Lifeforms  Angels ·  Humans · Jinn

 Note: Italics denote that the name of the figure is not mentioned in the Qur'an , but is taken from other sources of Islamic literature.

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• Mesopotamia is a region, not a country.• Refer to the individual Peoples that made up Mesopotamia; the

Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and tosome degree the Hittites, Phoenicians and Persians

•  •  

•  •  •  •  •  • In the narrow sense, Mesopotamia is the area between the Euphrates

and Tigris rivers, north or northwest of the bottleneck at Baghdad, inmodern Iraq; it is Al-Jazirah ("The Island") of the Arabs. South of thislies Babylonia, named after the city of Babylon. However, in thebroader sense, the name Mesopotamia has come to be used for thearea bounded on the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and on thesouthwest by the edge of the Arabian Plateau and stretching from

the Persian Gulf in the southeast to the spurs of the Anti-TaurusMountains in the northwest. Only from the latitude of Baghdad do theEuphrates and Tigris truly become twin rivers, the rafidan of the Arabs, which have constantly changed their courses over themillennia. The low-lying plain of the Karun River in Persia has alwaysbeen closely related to Mesopotamia, but it is not considered part of Mesopotamia as it forms its own river system. Mesopotamia, southof Ar-Ramadi (about 70 miles, or 110 kilometers, west of Baghdad) onthe Euphrates and the bend of the Tigris below Samarra' (about 70 miles north-northwest of Baghdad), is flat alluvial land. BetweenBaghdad and the mouth of the Shatt al-'Arab (the confluence of theTigris and Euphrates, where it empties into the Persian Gulf) there isa difference in height of only about 100 feet (30 meters). As a result 

of the slow flow of the water, there are heavy deposits of silt, and theriverbeds are raised. Consequently, the rivers often overflow their banks (and may even change their course) when they are not 

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 protected by high dikes. In recent times they have been regulated above Baghdad by the use of escape channels with overflow reservoirs. The extreme south is a region of extensive marshes and reed swamps, hawrs, which, probably since early times, have served as an area of refuge for oppressed and displaced peoples. Thesupply of water is not regular; as a result of the high average

temperatures and a very low annual rainfall, the ground of the plainof latitude 35 N is hard and dry and unsuitable for plant cultivationfor at least eight months in the year. Consequently, agriculturewithout risk of crop failure, which seems to have begun in the higher rainfall zones and in the hilly borders of Mesopotamia in the 10thmillennium BC, began in Mesopotamia itself, the real heart of thecivilization, only after artificial irrigation had been invented, bringing water to large stretches of territory through a widely branching network of canals. Since the ground is extremely fertile and, withirrigation and the necessary drainage, will produce in abundance,southern Mesopotamia became a land of plenty that could support aconsiderable population. The cultural superiority of northMesopotamia, which may have lasted until about 4000 BC, was finally overtaken by the south when the people there had responded to thechallenge of their situation. The present climatic conditions are fairly similar to those of 8,000 years ago. An English survey of ruined settlements in the area 30 miles around ancient Hatra (180 milesnorthwest of Baghdad) has shown that the southern limits of thezone in which agriculture is possible without artificial irrigation hasremained unchanged since the first settlement of Al-Jazirah. Theavailability of raw materials is a historical factor of great importance,as is the dependence on those materials that had to be imported. InMesopotamia, agricultural products and those from stock breeding,fisheries, date palm cultivation, and reed industries--in short, grain,vegetables, meat, leather, wool, horn, fish, dates, and reed and plant- fiber products--were available in plenty and could easily be produced in excess of home requirements to be exported. There are bitumen

springs at Hit (90 miles northwest of Baghdad) on the Euphrates (theIs of Herodotus). On the other hand, wood, stone, and metal wererare or even entirely absent. The date palm--virtually the national treeof Iraq--yields a wood suitable only for rough beams and not for finer work. Stone is mostly lacking in southern Mesopotamia, althoughlimestone is quarried in the desert about 35 miles to the west and "Mosul marble" is found not far from the Tigris in its middle reaches.Metal can only be obtained in the mountains, and the same is true of  precious and semiprecious stones. Consequently, southernMesopotamia in particular was destined to be a land of trade from thestart. Only rarely could "empires" extending over a wider areaguarantee themselves imports by plundering or by subjecting neighboring regions. The raw material that epitomizes Mesopotamian

civilization is clay: in the almost exclusively mud-brick architectureand in the number and variety of clay figurines and pottery artifacts,Mesopotamia bears the stamp of clay as does no other civilization,and nowhere in the world but in Mesopotamia and the regions over which its influence was diffused was clay used as the vehicle for writing. Such phrases as cuneiform civilization, cuneiform literature,and cuneiform law can apply only where people had had the idea of using soft clay not only for bricks and jars and for the jar stopperson which a seal could be impressed as a mark of ownership but alsoas the vehicle for impressed signs to which established meaningswere assigned--an intellectual achievement that amounted to nothing less than the invention of writing.

• Questions as to what ancient Mesopotamian civilization did and did not accomplish, how it influenced its neighbors and successors, and what its legacy has transmitted are posed from the standpoint of 20th-century civilization and are in part colored by ethical overtones,

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so that the answers can only be relative. Modern scholars assumethe ability to assess the sum total of an "ancient Mesopotamiancivilization"; but, since the publication of an article by the Assyriologist Benno Landsberger on "Die Eigenbegrifflichkeit der babylonischen Welt" (1926; "The Distinctive Conceptuality of theBabylonian World"), it has become almost a commonplace to call 

attention to the necessity of viewing ancient Mesopotamia and itscivilization as an independent entity. Ancient Mesopotamia had many languages and cultures; its history is broken up into many periodsand eras; it had no real geographic unity, and above all no permanent capital city, so that by its very variety it stands out fromother civilizations with greater uniformity, particularly that of Egypt.The script and the pantheon constitute the unifying factors, but inthese also Mesopotamia shows its predilection for multiplicity and variety. Written documents were turned out in quantities, and thereare often many copies of a single text. The pantheon consisted of more than 1,000 deities, even though many divine names may apply to different manifestations of a single god. During 3,000 years of Mesopotamian civilization, each century gave birth to the next. Thusclassical Sumerian civilization influenced that of the Akkadians, and the Ur III empire, which itself represented a Sumero-Akkadiansynthesis, exercised its influence on the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. With the Hittites, large areas of Anatolia were infused with the culture of Mesopotamia from 1700 BC onward. Contacts, viaMari, with Ebla in Syria, some 30 miles south of Aleppo, go back tothe 24th century BC, so that links between Syrian and Palestinianscribal schools and Babylonian civilization during the Amarna period (14th century BC) may have had much older predecessors. At any rate, the similarity of certain themes in cuneiform literature and theOld Testament, such as the story of the Flood or the motif of therighteous sufferer, is due to such early contacts and not to direct borrowing.

• Mesopotamia and Education•  As a civilization contemporary with Egyptian civilization,Mesopotamia developed education quite similar to that of its

counterpart with respect to its purpose and training. Formal education was practical and aimed to train scribes and priests. It wasextended from basic reading, writing, and religion to higher learning in law, medicine, and astrology. Generally, youth of the upper classes were prepared to become scribes, who ranged from copyiststo librarians and teachers. The schools for priests were said to be asnumerous as temples. This indicates not only the thoroughness but also the supremacy of priestly education. Very little is known about higher education, but the advancement of the priestly work shedslight upon the extensive nature of intellectual pursuit.

•  As in the case of Egypt, the priests in Mesopotamia dominated the

intellectual and educational domain as well as the applied. Thecenter of intellectual activity and training was the library, which wasusually housed in a temple under the supervision of influential  priests. Methods of teaching and learning were memorization, oral repetition, copying of models, and individual instruction. It isbelieved that the exact copying of scripts was the hardest and most strenuous and served as the test of excellence in learning. The period of education was long and rigorous, and discipline was harsh.

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