UNIT 8: MESOPOTAMIA

1. UNIT 8: MESOPOTAMIA

2. BRIEF MESOPOTAMIA 2:30 MINS
MESOPOTAMIA. CRASH WORLD HISTORY
JUST TILL MIN. 4
MESOPOTAMIA - SUMER
Watch the videos and
answer...
What's Mesopotamia?
Where was Mesopotamia
located?
When did this civilization
begin?
What are some of the cities
and empires mentioned?
What are some of the
inventions that
Mesopotamians did?

3. ● Mesopotamia means
“land between rivers”.
● Both rivers are Tigris
and Euphrates.
● In Mesopotamia existed
a lot of city-states and
different empires for
3000 years.
● Mesopotamia was occupied by
different people:
- Sumerian
- Akkadian
- Babylonian
- Assyrians
-Persic
Cities: Ur, Eridu,
Uruk, Lagash,
Larsa, Umma,
Akkad, Nínive,
Assur, Babilonia.

4. Why there and not somewhere else?
The main reason for those communities to settle down here was:
THE CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT OF THE BANKS OF EUPHRATES AND TIGRIS, DUE
TO THEY WERE OVERFLOWDED EVERY SPRING, THE SOIL WAS REALLY FERTILE
WITH THEIR MUD
TIGRIS RIVER NOWADAYS
Banks – Riberas (márgenes de los ríos) Mud: Lodo
Remember that of the main
Economic activities was
Agriculture, to self-consumption
And also to trade the excess

5. Why did the first urban civilisations appeared????
THEY CONTROLLED THE
RIVERS AND CREATED
IRRIGATED SYSTEMS FOR
THEIR CROPS
THAT TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENT
LEADED TO THAT LESS PEOPLE
HAD TO WORK AS FARMERS. AND
ALSO THEY OBTAINED A HIGHER
PRODUCTION OF THEIR HARVESTS.
IT MEANT THAT SOME PEOPLE STARTED TO
WORK AS TRADERS TO EXCHANGE THE
EXCESS HARVESTS
AS THEY BECAME WEALTHIER WITH LARGE HARVESTS AND OTHER
PRODUCTS DUE TO THE COMMERCE. THE POPULATION INCREASED
MORE POPULATION AND SPECIALISE
ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES LEADED TO
THE COSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST
BIG CITIES, RULED BY A PERSON OR
GROUP WHO COULD MANAGE
THE EXCESS OF PRODUCTION, THE
IRRIGATED SYSTEMS AND THE TRADING

6. However, Mesopotamia wasn't the only place where urban
civilization began
They are called: River civilisations. Due to the main factor
Which make them to flourish: the management of rivers...
They began to control the floods as irrigated systems with
The use of dikes, walls and pipes to canalised the water

7. Mesopotamian civilization refers to the group of states, empires and
peoples that lived and ruled in this geographical location. There were
many the peoples that dispusted the control over the fertile region. As a
result, historians have divided the its history into periods defined by the
communities that controlled the region.
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF MESOPOTAMIA

8. SUMMERIANS – SUMER (3500 BC – 2300 BC)
Around 3500 BC summerians settled down in the Persian Gulf, in Lower
Mesopotamia. The summerians were organised in city-states such us:
Ur, Uruk, Lagash and Eridu There were independent cities, each one
had a leadership (patesi), and a specific
God to worship. They were organised
around the temple (Zigurat). As if every city
is a country, but they share the same
culture.
What's a city-state??????

9. CITY OF UR: RECONSTRUCTION

10. AKKADIANS – AKKAD (2300 – 2150 BC)
Akkadinas invaded Sumer and they unified Upper and Lower Mesopotamia in
the creation of a large empire under the rule of Sargon I, and then Naram-Sin.
The capital city was Akkad.
Akkad was the Upper Mesopotamian region

11. THERE ARE SOME
ARTISTIC REMAINS THAT
REPRESENT THE
PROSPERITY OF THE
AKKADIAN EMPIRE
Stele of Victory of Naram-
Sin
The King of Akkad: Naram-
Sin (at the top of the stele)
defeating his enemies.

12. BABBYLONIAN EMPIRE (1800-1500)
It was a kingdom between Akkad and
Sumer, that reached its splendour
during the reign of Hammurabi creating
a new empire. This king unified the laws
of all citites in the in the well-known
Code of Hammurabi
Law 22: "If any one is committing a robbery
and is caught, then he shall be put to death.“
Law 192: "If a man destroy the eye of another
man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a
man's bone, they shall break his bone. If one
destroy the eye of a freeman or break the bone
of a freeman he shall pay one mana of silver. If
one destroy the eye of a man's slave or break
a bone of a man's slave he shall pay one-half
his price."price."
Law #15: "If any one take a male or female
slave of the court, or a male or female slave of
a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be
put to death."

13. ISTHAR GATE. ENTRANCE TO THE
CITY OF BABYLON

14. IMPRESSING, RIGHT?

15. THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE (1500 – 600 BC)
Assyrians were warlike
people who came from the
northern Mesopotamia.
They created an empire
with capital in Ninive. The
most-known emperor is
Assurbanipal II
Ninive
Assurbanipal hunting reliefs

16. Finally, in 539 BC, Ciro the Great, emperor of the Persian Empire,
conquered and added Mesopotamia to his vast empire, marking
the end of the Mesopotamian civilisation

17. POLITICAL ORGANISATION
Statue of Gudea, Ensi of Lagash
In the Sumerian period each city-state was
ruled by an ENSI or PATESI (PRINCE-PRIEST)
who held full civic and religious authority
Someone had to control such
a complex society. Don't you
think so???
Who should be that
person?????
THE INTERMEDIARY OF THE
GODS ON EARTH
- He governed as a prince and undertook the
organisation of civilian activities: defense of the
city, administration of justice, distribution of water
among farmers, upkeep of the irrigated systems...
- As a high priest, he oversaw the worship of the
goods and mantained the temples.

18. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES The main economic activity was
IRRIGATION AGRICULTURE.
The land was property of the
temple and it was leased to the
peasants, who grew different crops
(cerals: wheat and barley),
vegetables (kidney beans, onions..)
and fruit trees (almond, peach
trees), linen, cotton. They reared
sheep, goats, pigs..
TRADE IN MESOPOTAMIA
MESOPOTAMIA TRADE AND MERCHANTS
- FOREIGN TRADE:
The strategical location of
Mesopotamia encouraged foreign
trade
What did
they sell?
What did they
buy?

19. MESOPOTAMIAN SOCIETY
Mesopotamians were the first in organizing their society in
social groups according to their possetions and duties
Social Pyramid
, Scribes
They had extensive
possessions and collected
taxes (not pay them)
Free citizens, they
had to pay taxes
and they had a few
possessions
Intermediary class
Rich traders, civil servants and scribes
Not free. They
were a form of
property, they
carry out the
most difficult
and dangeours
work.

20. THE STANDARD OF UR ITS A SOCIAL
PORTRAIT
1) Are you seeing any bigger figure than
the rest?
2) What activities are being undertaken
in the differnt scales?

21. RELIGION
Mesopotamians were POLYTHESISTS, which means they believed in a number
of gods: Such us :
ANU (father of all gods, and god of the heaven) Marduk (Lord of the gods)
ENLIL (god of the wind and river flows) Enki (God creator)
Ishtar (Goddess of love, fertility, war)

22. ENKI, God
creator.
ANU: God of
the heaven.
ENLIL: good of the rivers floods

23. God Marduk represented in the
Hammurabi's code sitting in front
of the king.
Ishtar Goddess

24. CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC LEGACY
● What did mesopotamians create and we are still using
it?
INVENTION OF WRITING
ARCHITECTURE: THE ARCH AND THE VAULT
Clay tablet with cuneiform writing
Vault
Half point arch
Both architectural systems were used to roof
buildings: zigurats, palaces, gates of the wall.

25. THE INVENTION OF WRITING
● What did mesopotamians need to write?
● How do we call to the mesopotamian script?
● Why did the invention of writing mark a before and
an after in History?
● Why did writing appear in Mesopotamia?
THE INVENTION OF WRITING

26. How can we read cuneiform writing?
Due to an artifact found by a soldier from the British
army in the 19th century: The Behitsun Inscription
It's a multilingual inscription and large rock relief on a cliff at Mount Behistun in the
Kermanshah Province of Iran, near the city of Kermanshah in western Iran. It was crucial to
the decipherment of cuneiform script.

27. DISCOVERING CUNEIFORM
The Ugarit's alphabet
Try to transcript what is
written...

28. ZIGURATS: Sumerian temples. They were stepped towers. This is an example of
the Ur Zigurat consecrated to the god Marduk
ARCHITECTURE

29. Reconstruction Palace of Sargon in Akkad.

30. Palace of Shapur, Persian Empire (250 BC) Vault

31. What was the material used to build in
Mesopotamia?
ADOBE: mixture of clay and
straw dried in the sun.
BRICK: baked clay bricks.

32. Adobe bricks
Clay bricks

33. Hun
Hunging gardens of Babylon. One of the seven
wonders of the ancient world.

34. MESOPOTAMISAN SCULPTURE
Ensi of Gudea Votive offering – Estatuilla votiva
They represented statues
of noble individuals as
the King of Gudea. Also
they created votive
offering: objects
deposited in sacred
places as a gift to the
Gods.
Some gods were also
represented in
sculptures.
They represented also
reliefs, such us:
-sacred aniamals to
protect the palace gates:
WINGED BULLS WITH
HUMAN HEADS.
Some of these reliefs
were made with glazed
bricks (ladrillo vidriado)