Mesopotamia

Geography
Timeline
Religion
Writing
Art & Architecture

Geography
Mesopotamia is made up of different regions, each
with its own geography.
The geography of each area and the natural resources
found there affected the ways that people lived.

Northern Mesopotamia is made up of hills and

plains.
The land is fertile due to seasonal rains, and the rivers and
streams flowing from the mountains.
Early settlers farmed the land and used timber, metals and
stone from the mountains nearby.

Southern Mesopotamia is made up of marshy areas

and wide, flat, barren plains.
Cities developed along the rivers which flow through the
region.
Early settlers had to irrigate the land along the banks of
the rivers in order for their crops to grow.
Since they did not have many natural resources, contact
with neighboring lands was important .

Tigris-Euphrates River Valley

Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning 'between the rivers'.

Modern Boundaries

The Tigris and Euphrates flow through modern Iraq. The Euphrates
also flows through much of Syria.

Timeline in Mesopotamia 35002000 B.C. (5500-4000 B.P.)

3500 B.C. Cities growing across Mesopotamia
3200 B.C. Pictographic record keeping
3000 B.C. Signs used to write Sumerian
2800 B.C. Legendary rulers like Gilgamesh
2600 B.C. Royal Tombs of Ur
2400 B.C. Signs become cuneiform
2300 B.C. Sumerian cities united by King
Sargon of Agade (Akkad)

Cities 3000-2300 B.C.

Timeline
2200 B.C. Agade Empire expands
and declines
2100 B.C. Ur becomes the capital of
a new empire
2000 B.C. Ur destroyed by Elamites
& Amorites

Agade Empire 2250 B.C.

Empire united by King Sargon of Agade (Akkad)

Kingdoms 1800 B.C.

1800 B.C. Hammurabi unites much of Mesopotamia

1500 B.C.

1500 B.C. Mitannian Empire controls north Mesopotamia

Kassites control south Mesopotamia

1200 B.C.

1300 B.C. Assyrians conquer much of Mesopotamia

1100 B.C. Aramaean and Chaldaean tribes become important

650 B.C.

1000 B.C. Assyrians begin reconquest of Mesopotamia

Babylon rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II

550 B.C.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire

500 B.C.

Mesopotamia becomes part of the Achaemenid Persian empire

Religion
The people of Mesopotamia believed that their
world was controlled by gods and goddesses,
demons and monsters.
There were hundreds of gods who were
responsible for everything in the world, from rivers
and trees to making bread and pottery.
Each city was protected by its own special god or
goddess and their family.
Large temples were built in the centre of the city for these
gods to live in.
Priests looked after the gods with special rituals.
There were also smaller temples throughout the city
where ordinary people could make offerings.

Demons were created by the gods with human

bodies and animal or bird heads. They could be
either evil or good. Monsters were a mixture of
animals and birds.

Anu is the sky god

The supreme ruler of all the

gods.
His symbol is the horned cap.
Mesopotamian myths tell the
story of how the earth was
separated from heaven at the
beginning of time.
In these myths, heaven
becomes Anu's home.
Anu controls shooting stars,
called 'kishru'.
Anu is also in charge of the
Bull of Heaven who can be
sent to earth to avenge the
gods.
Although Anu is an
important Mesopotamian
god, there are no known
pictures of him.

Lama
A goddess people prayed
to for their own personal
protection.
She appears as a woman
in a long, tiered skirt.
Lama is often shown on
cylinder seals leading
people into the presence of
important gods and
goddesses.

Ugallu-Demon
The Ugallu has a
human body with the
head of a lion and the
feet of a bird.
He is a demon who
protects people against
evil demons and
illnesses.

Writing
Over five thousand years ago, people living in
Mesopotamia developed a form of writing to record
and communicate different types of information.
The earliest writing was based on pictograms.
Pictograms were used to communicate basic
information about crops and taxes.
Over time, the need for writing changed and the
signs developed into a script we call cuneiform.
Over thousands of years, Mesopotamian scribes
recorded daily events, trade, astronomy, and
literature on clay tablets.
Cuneiform was used by people throughout the
ancient Near East to write several different
languages.

Seal-Signatures

Curriculum Tablets
This is known today as a
'curriculum tablet'.
It was used in
Mesopotamian schools to
teach pupils about the
different types of texts
written by scribes.

The Translation for this

particular tablet is:
Sargon, mighty king, king of Agade, am I. My
mother was a high priestess, my father I knew
not;
My father's brothers live in the mountains;
My city is Azupiranu, situated on the banks of
the Euphrates
My mother, the high priestess, conceived me, in
secret she bore me;
She placed me in a basket of rushes, she
sealed the lid with bitumen;
She cast me into the river which did not rise
over me;
The river bore me up and carried me to Aqqi,
the water-drawer.
Aqqi, the water-drawer, lifted me out as he
dipped his bucket;
Aqqi, the water-drawer, adopted me, brought
me up;
Aqqi, the water-drawer, set me up as his
gardener.
As a gardener, Ishtar, loved me;
For 55 years I ruled as king.

This part of the tablet is a

spelling exercise:
A cuneiform sign, which
can be read as 'nish', is
repeated down the left hand
side.
Other signs are written
beside it to make different
words.
For example, half way
down this section the signs
read:
nish-gil
nish-gi-il
nish-shi-ish
nish-shish
Scribes practiced writing
the same words in many
ways which helped them
learn different cuneiform
signs.

Reed Stylus
A reed stylus was the main
writing tool used by
Mesopotamian scribes.
Scribes created the wedge
shapes which made
cuneiform signs by pressing
the stylus into a clay or wax
surface.

Writing Board
Scribes sometimes used
cuneiform on writing boards.
These boards were made of
wood or ivory with a writing
surface covered with wax.
The wax could be melted
and reused.
This is an ivory writing
board from about 715 B.C. It
was found in a well at
Nimrud.

Mathematics

This tablet is a multiplication

table for the number 13.
It was very important for
scribes to know and
understand the number
systems so they could work
out mathematical problems
and record numbers properly.
This sign represents 1
This sign represents 10
This sign represents 60
This sign represents 360
This sign represents 3600

Archaeology
Large cities in arid regions
Multiple structures
Layered on top of one another
Tell-A heap of compacted bricks, pottery
and stones formed by remains from ancient
settlements.

Tell Brak, Syria

Tell Brak, ancient Nagar, located in
northeastern Syria, was one of the royal
centers of northern Mesopotamia during
the fourth and third millennia B.C.
The site was part of a major route
connecting the mountains of Anatolia
with the large cities of southern
Mesopotamia, and was also located at
the boundary between the rainfall
agriculture zone and the arid steppe,
used by nomads for pasture land.
http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Tell Brak location

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Occupation of Tell Brak

One of the largest sites in the region, it was
also one of the first to attract archaeological
attention.
Max Mallowan excavated at the site in 1937 and 1938
(sponsored primarily by the British School of
Archaeology in Iraq), recovering evidence of the Eye
Temple
The Eye Temple is named for the hundreds of small
"eye idol" figurines found mixed into the mortar of
the temple itself.

Excavations at the site were resumed in 1976

by David Oates of the University of London,
and are currently continuing under the field
direction of Geoff Emberling of the University
of Michigan.
http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

View of Tell Brak

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Computer Reconstruction

http://www.learningsites.com/Brak/Tell-Brak_home.html

Palaces of Assyria
Assyrian palaces are some of the largest
and most important ancient buildings found
in Mesopotamia.
They demonstrate the wealth and
achievements of the Assyrian empire in the
first millennium B.C.
In the palace the king took care of the
business of the empire, received foreign
visitors and performed religious rituals.
Palaces were built to show the power of the
king as well as to inspire loyalty and fear in
ordinary people and visitors.

In about 875 B.C. King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria

built a palace at Nimrud. The palace was made of
mud-brick and baked brick walls. These walls were
lined with large stone wall reliefs.

Nimrud
North Suite:
Some of these rooms were
used by the palace
administrators.
Nearly four hundred cuneiform
tablets were found here as well
as a set of weights.
There were workshops, a
bathroom and storage areas.
At the entrance there were
probably guardrooms as well as
storerooms for grain and oil.

Queens Palace
This area of the palace
was probably the royal
harem where the palace
women lived. Pieces of
ivory which had once
decorated furniture were
found in some of these
rooms.

Archaeologists have also

discovered very rich burials of
some of the royal ladies in
tombs beneath the floor of
several rooms.

Warfare
The Assyrian king,
Ashurnasirpal II, draws
back the string of his bow
and gets ready to shoot.
The king's bodyguard
stands next to him holding a
shield and a spear, ready to
defend him.
Two attendants stand
behind the king. One holds
a quiver full of arrows. The
other holds a parasol to
protect the king from sun or
rain.

Trade and Transport

Mesopotamia was a region which did not have many
natural resources. Therefore, the people who lived
there needed to trade with neighboring countries in
order to acquire the resources they needed to live.
Grain, oils and textiles were taken from Babylonia to
foreign cities and exchanged for timber, wine,
precious metals and stones. In addition, merchants
from other countries travelled to Babylonia to
exchange their goods.
Merchants used several different methods for
transporting their goods depending on what they
were transporting. For example, grain was quite
bulky and was best transported on a boat, whereas
precious stones were likely to be small, so they
could be transported on foot or by donkey.

The Royal Tombs of Ur

From 1922 to 1934, an archaeologist
named C. Leonard Woolley excavated the
site of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. He
made many great discoveries about the
people who lived there.
Among the 1800 graves he discovered,
there were 16 tombs which had very
special and valuable objects in them. He
called them the 'Royal tombs'.

This tomb is known as the 'Great death pit' because so many

bodies were found. There were 74 bodies, 68 of them women.

PG 800

In front of the sledge

were the bones of two
oxen which had pulled it.
There were also the
bodies of two grooms
who had looked after the
animals.

PG 800-A large pit was discovered which had been filled in with earth.

At one end of the pit was a

tomb chamber made of blocks of
stone. Inside were the remains
of a wooden bier. The skeleton
of a woman was laid out on the
bier surrounded by objects.
She must have been an
important person, perhaps a
queen. She may have been
called Pu-abi.

Ziggurats
Temples were originally built on platforms. During
the third millennium B.C., these were made higher
and bigger.
Eventually it was decided to build even higher
temples on platforms which were stepped.
These stepped towers we call ziggurats. By 2000
B.C. mud-brick ziggurats were being constructed
in many Sumerian cities. Later, ziggurats were
constructed in Babylonian and Assyrian cities.
No one knows for certain why ziggurats were built
or how they were used. They are part of temple
complexes, so they were probably connected with
religion.

Ziggurats

The Ziggurat of Ur

Around 2100 B.C. king Ur-Nammu built a ziggurat in

honour of the god Sin in the city of Ur. It was called
'Etemennigur', which means 'House whose
foundation creates terror'.

The Ziggurat of Ur today

In the 1960's and 1970's, the first stage of the ziggurat was
reconstructed by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities. This
restoration was based upon the ideas of the teams who had
excavated over the past two hundred years.

Loss of National Treasures

The war in Iraq has caused the loss
of an as yet unknown amount of
national treasures. Though certainly
not comparable to the loss of life and
general destruction, it exemplifies the
impact to Iraqi culture.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_ea
st/2942449.stm