the fertile crescent chapter 2:ii
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The Fertile Crescent Chapter 2:ii. The archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley discovered the city of Ur. [Image Source: Biblical Archaeology Review , July/August 1996, p. 56.]. The Crown of Queen Pu-Abi. [Image source: National Geographic ]. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The Fertile Crescent Chapter 2:ii
[Image Source: Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1996, p. 56.]
The archaeologist
Sir Leonard
Woolley discovered
the city of Ur.
The Crown of Queen Pu-Abi.
[Image source: National Geographic]
Woolley’s work showed that people had lived in Mesopotamia for a long time.
[Image source: Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1996, p. 56.]
People from Arabia and the highlands of Turkey migrated to the Fertile Crescent ca. 5000 years B.C.
Clogged with deposits of silt, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers often overflowed, sometimes sweeping
entire villages away.
[Image source: http://members.tripod.com/jaydambrosio/mesopotamia.html]
Villages in early Mesopotamia built elaborate
systems to control seasonal
flooding and divert river
water to irrigate their fields.
By 4000 B.C. Mesopotamian farmers were producing an abundance of grain crops.
Circa 3500 B.C. the Sumerians settled in the lower part of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley.
[Image source:http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/jmac/meso/meso.htm]
The region they settled in Mesopotamia
became known as Sumer.
A ziggurat, or temple, was at the center of every Sumerian city.
[Image source: http://www.taisei.co.jp/cg_e/ancient_world/ur/aur.html]
Ziggurats were composed of a series of terraces with a temple or
shrine on the top.
[Source: http://www.jlc.net/~brian/art/fertile_crescent.html]
Only priests and priestesses were allowed to enter the
shrine, which was dedicated
to the city-state’s chief
deity.[Image source: http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/jmac/meso/meso.htm]
This is longer
than the line
at Disney
World!
Every Sumerian city-state was originally governed by a council of nobles and an
assembly of wealthy citizens.
[Image source: http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html]
Hey! Cold
hands!
By 2700 B.C. many of the
Sumerian city-states had become
hereditary monarchies governed by
kings.[Image source: http://www.jlc.net/~brian/art/fertile_crescent.html]
Sumerian kings also served as
the high priest, representing the city-state’s chief
deity.[Image source:
http://members.tripod.com/jaydambrosio/mesopotamia.html]
Sumerian city-states were also theocracies where much of the land belonged to the local deity.
[Image source: http://www.taisei.co.jp/cg_e/ancient_world/ur/aur.html1
Game of Ur
[Image source: http://members.tripod.com/jaydambrosio/mesopotamia.html]
Roles of Men and Women
Family life and the roles of men and women was regulated by
Sumerian law.
[Image source: http://www.taisei.co.jp/cg_e/ancient_world/ur/aur.html]
As heads of households,
men exercised great authority over their wives
and children.
[Image source: http://home.korax.net/~websiter/postcards.html]
Sumerian law allowed men to
sell family members into
slavery in order to retire a debt!
[Image source: http://arthistory.about.com/arts/arthistory/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-oi.uchicago.edu%2FOI%2FMUS%2FHIGH%2FOIM_A12332.html]
Women were allowed to
buy and sell property, operate
businesses, and own and
sell slaves.[ http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Collections/royaltombsoverview.html]
Writing on
Clay Tablets
[Image source: http://early-cuneiform.humnet.ucla.edu/archaic/index.html]
By 3100 B.C. the Sumerians developed a system of writing
known as cuneiform, or “wedged-shaped writing,” to keep records.
[Image source: http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/SUM/Sumerian_Tablet.html1]
Cuneiform began with pictograms or pictures meant to represent the items
depicted.
[Image source: http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Games/cuneiform.html]
[Image source: National Geographic]
Sumerians wanting to
become scribes spent many
years studying in schools
called eddudas.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, possibly the
oldest story in the world, was first written in
cuneiform circa 1850 B.C.
[Image source: http://members.tripod.com/jaydambrosio/mesopotamia.html]
Sumerians used cylinder seals to “sign” legal documents.
[Image source: http://members.tripod.com/jaydambrosio/mesopotamia.html]
Sumerian Religion
[Image source: http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/jmac/meso/meso.htm]
Each Sumerian deity presided over a specific
natural force or human activity.
An, the highest
Sumerian deity, was
responsible for the seasons.
Oh, Great
God An....
Enlil, god of winds
and agriculture created the hoe (ho?).
I’m his Ho,
ho, ho!
Each city-state had a patron god or goddess to
whom they prayed.[Image source: http://crystalinks.com/sumerart.html]
Sumarians pictured their
deities as unpredictable,
selfish beings who had little regard for human life.
Sumerian priests and priestesses performed religious ceremonies
and rituals in an effort to appease their tempermental dieties.
[Image source: http://crystalinks.com/sumerart.html]
Sumerians viewed the afterlife as a grim
underworld devoid of light or air.
Sumerian Inventions
[Image source: Scientific American]
[Image source:http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/jmac/meso/meso.htm]
Wagon wheel
Arch
[Image source: http://www.nps.gov/jeff/arch-ov.htm]
Potter’s wheel
[Image source: http://billtom.home.mindspring.com/dgates/wheel.html]
Sun Dial
[Image source: http://www.floridaplants.com/store/sundials.htm]
The Sumerians developed a number system based on 60 and a 12-month calendar.
First to make bronzeout of copperand tin.
{image source: Scientific American]
[Image source: http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Collections/royaltombsoverview.html]
The Sumerians produced an abundance of finely crafted metal work,
some of which was recovered in the Royal
Cemetery at Ur.
The First Mesopotamian
Empires
The first empire-
builder in Mesopotamia was Sargon I
of Akkad.
[Image source: http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ue/ueg.html]
Sargon I conquered all the city-states of Mesopotamia and united
them in one empire.
[Image source: http://www.crystalinks.com/sumermilitary.html]
Akkadian empirecirca 2200 B.C.
Under Sargon, the
people of Mesopotamia began to use
the Akkadian language.
[Image source: http://www.crystalinks.com/akkadia.html]
The city-state of
Ebla was located
northwest of the
kingdom of Akkad.
[Images source: National Geographic]
Control of the overland trade routes between Egypt and Mesopotamia
made Ebla a wealthy city.
[Image source: National Geographic]
Sargon’s grandson
Naram-Sin captured and burned the city of Ebla.
[Image source: National Geographic]
The destruction of Ebla had the effect of preserving a vast
library of cuneiform texts.
[Image source: http://www.mazzaroth.com/ChapterFour/Ebla.htm]
The Amorites, a Semitic people from western Syria, poured into Mesopotamia and overran many Sumerian cities circa 2000 B.C..
Hammurabi, a scion of the dynasty founded at Babylon,
brought the entire region under his control.
Hammurabi organized a
strong government
and worked to increase the prosperity of
his people.[Image source: http://members.tripod.com/jaydambrosio/mesopotamia.html]
Source: Biblical Archaeological Review, March/April 1995, p. 49.
Hammurabi created a
unified code of law that regulated
most aspects of daily life.
Hammurabi’s Code clearly stated which actions were considered violations and assigned specific
punishments for each.
[Image source: http://www.getnet.com/~labores/babylonia.html]
Hammurabi’s purpose was
“to make justice appear in the
land.”
[Image source: http://www.getnet.com/~labores/babylonia.html]
Hammurabi’s code consisted of 282 sections, some of which dealt with:
• property of married women
• adoption and inheritance
• interest rates on loans
• damage to fields by cattle
Source: Biblical Archaeological Review, March/April 1995, p. 53.
Hammurabi’s Code divided society into three social classes:
kings, priests, &
nobles
artisans,
merchants,
scribes, & farmers
slaves
The Babylonians borrowed heavily from Sumerian culture.
• Why? Duh! Same people, same place, different government.
The Hittites conquered Babylon circa 1600 B.C.