Mesopotamia“The land between rivers”

Mesopotamia3500 – 1700 B.C.

Region located between the Tigris River and Euphrates River

Agriculture

Very hot and dry, but people learned how to irrigate the land by using the rivers.

Led to a surplus of food

Allowed people to specialize in areas other than farming

Pottery

Weavers

Metal workers

Warriors

priests

Government

Divided into City-States

Uruk

Ur

Babylon

Had its own ruler and local gods

Eventually, several of the city states united under one single ruler

Religion

• Polytheistic

• Believed in as many as 2,000 different Gods

• Historians believe Mesopotamian religions were the world’s oldest faiths

• Rulers were often priests

• Theocracy – society governed by religious leaders

Building

World’s first city-builders

Lacked stone or timber, instead built with mud bricks and crushed reeds

Walled cities, temples with arch's, and stepped pyramids known as ziggurats.

Each ziggurat was made of a series of square levels, with each level slightly smaller than the one below it

Culture/Science

Sumerians invented the wheel and the sailboat

Also figured out how to reroute water to irrigate fields firther away

Tools and weapons of copper and bronze

Sumerians devised a calendar, 12 months

Babylonians developed a number system based on 60 and invented the world’s first writing system cuneiform, a form of symbol writing on clay tablets

Only the elite could read and write in cuneiform (priests and scribes)

Legal SystemBabylonians developed earliest written law code

Code of Hammurabi

Aim was to ensure justice and protect the weak

Amateur Historian…go!

Hammurabi’s Code treated nobles and commoners differently, some code provisions punished criminals harshly.

195 – if a son strikes a father, his hands shall be cut off

196 – if a noble man puts out the eye of another noble man, his eye shall be put out

197 – if he breaks another noble man’s bone, his bone shall be broken

198 – if he puts out the eye of a commoner, he shall pay one mina (silver)

How did the penalty a nobleman faced for putting out the eye of a nobleman or a commoner differ?

Women

Responsible for raising children and crushing grain

ENORMOUS variations in the rights of women from different social classes

Wealthier women were allowed to go to the marketplace to buy goods, could complete loegal matters in the husbands absence, and could own property

Could engage in business for themselves and obtain divorces

Those who were relatives to the ruler enjoyed an even higher status