Means Land Between 2 rivers: Euphrates River, Tigris River MESOPOTAMIA Means Land Between 2 rivers: Euphrates River, Tigris River Present day Iraq

The Fertile Crescent Mesopotamia—the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers Irrigation transformed the original hunter-gatherers into small farming communities ca. 4000 BCE the peoples of Mesopotamia began to replace stone and bone tools and weapons with metal, thus marking the end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age

Eastern Mediterranean Basin and Major Mesopotamian Capitals, ca Eastern Mediterranean Basin and Major Mesopotamian Capitals, ca. 2600-2500 BCE

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia Polytheistic—multiple gods and goddesses connected to the forces of nature (sun and sky, water and storm, earth and its fertility Mesopotamian ruler often represented as a “priest-king” and believed to possess divine attributes Ziggurats, pyramidal temples consisting of successive platforms with outside staircases and shrines at the top, functioned as sacred places

Mesopotamia Sumerian: 3000-2300 BCE Akkadian: 2300-2150 BCE Neo-Sumerian: 2100-2000 BCE Babylonian: 1800-1600 BCE Hittites from Anatolia: 1600-1000 BCE Assyrian: 900-612 BCE largest empire to date

Mesopotamia Neo-Babylonian: 612-538 BCE Achaemenid Persian 538-330 BCE (even larger empire than Assyrian) Alexander conquers Persia & Egypt Greco-Roman rule 330-224 CE Sassanian: 224-636 BCE

Remains of the City of Ur (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq), ca. 2100 BCE

The Ziggurat at Ur ca. 2100 BCE

Reconstructed Drawing of the Ziggurat at Ur The best preserved and most fully restored of the ancient Sumerian temples Platforms might have been covered with soil and planted with trees Weeper holes, venting ducts loosely filled with broken pottery, in the side of the ziggurat would have drained rainwater Bridge between heaven and earth

Tell Asmar Statues Discovered in shrine room of the Abu Temple ziggurat in Tell Asmar, near modern Baghdad Ten men and two women, the tallest being approx. 30” Huge eyes and clasped hands, suggestive of worshippers gazing in perpetual awe at the deity

Tell Asmar Statues Marble, Alabaster, and Gypsum ca. 2590-2500 BCE

Mesopotamian Music Two lyres discovered at Ur in the royal tombs of either King Meskalamdug or Queen Puabi Bodies of two women (the singers or musicians?) found under the lyres Decorations related to the Epic of Gilgamesh Indicate that music was important in Mesopotamian society

Soundbox front panel of the lyre Lyre from Tomb at Ur Gold leaf and lapis lazuli over wood core, ca. 2600 BCE Soundbox front panel of the lyre Wood with inlaid gold, lapis lazuli, and shell ca. 2600 BCE

Royal Standard of Ur Rectangular box of unknown function Main panels called “War” and “Peace” because they illustrate on one side a military victory and on the other a banquet with musicians Social perspective, or hierarchy of scale—most important figures (king) represented as larger than the others

Royal Standard of Ur Shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone, 8’ x 19’ ca. 2600 BCE

Cuneiform Writing Writing first appeared in the middle of the 4th millennium BCE as pictograms—pictures that represent a thing or concept—etched into clay tablets Beginning about 2900 BCE, scribes adopted a straight-line script made with a triangular-tipped stylus, or writing tool, cut from reeds The resulting impressions looked like wedges. Cuneiform writing is named from the Latin cuneus, wedge Pictograms

Sumerian Tablet from Lagash, modern Tello, Iraq Clay, ca. 2360 BCE

Fragment of Tablet 11 of the Epic of Gilgamesh Second millennium BCE

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