Chronology: ca. 3000-1100 B.C. (note: dates "backward" and "ca." = about)

1. Peoples of the Region: ethnic/linguistic

Map of Middle Eastern Cradle Lands

Map of modern area

relief map of modern area

a. ca. 3100-2000 B.C.: southern Mesopotamia

Akkadians (Babylonians and Assyrians) >> semitic

Sumerians >> non-Semitic, non Indo-European

b. ca. 2000-1200 B.C.

other groups move into area (e.g., Amorites, Hurrians, and Hittites)

 2. Physical Geography of Region and Consequences

a. urbanization and agriculture: gender roles, public and private, class system

Euphrates River

Desert contrast

b. need for large-scale water management (Field with irrigation canal scars) 

c. relationship to centralization of political power over time?

3. Important technological developments

          a. pottery (ca 7000 BC), e. g., Hassuna ware

          b. metallurgy (bronze ca. 4500/4000 BC)

                    gold headresses from Mari (from the royal cemetary at Ur)

                    lapis and gold eagle figurine (from the royal cemetery at Ur)

                    electrum helmet (from the royal cemetary at Ur)

           c. writing (ca. 3100) (we'll discuss this on Monday)
 
4. Mesopotamian Religion and Myth

a. Characteristics

i. Polytheistic (poly + theos, Greek = "many gods")

ii. Anthropomorphic (anthropos + morphos, Greek, "taking the form of man")

iii. Divine Spheres

gods: Enlil (sky); Shamash (justice); Ea (wisdom); Ishtar (love)

Enlil (Sumerian) = Marduk (Babylonian)

b. World-View

e.g., Creation Narratives (Enuma Elish)

comparison of creation narratives

c. Practice

a. Ritual and its Purpose

do ut des ("I give so that you give")

b. Temples and Priests

ZIGGURATS

ziggurat of Ur

reconstruction

reconstructed drawing of the ziggurat of Ur

ziggurat at Ur-Nammu

                              The Tower of Babel
 
5. Mesopotamian Political Structure and Kingship

a. city-states and centralized empires or dynasties

Gilgamesh of Uruk (Uruk = Erech) (ca. 2700)

Sargon of Akkad (ca. 2300) and his achievements

b. Legitimation and Divine Sanction

           Sumerian King Lists

c. King as legal protector and social reformer

          Hammurabi and his Code

          stele and closeup