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The Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia

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Tin, copper, use of metal tools/weapons. Mesopotamia. 4,000 to 2,800 B.C. Mesopotamia: location ... e.g. mummification (???) & pyramids??? ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia


1
The Ancient Near East Mesopotamia Egypt
HIS1104 Tradition and Transformation in Western
History
2
Ancient civilizations
  • Mesopotamia (Tigris Euphrates Rivers)
  • Egypt (Nile)
  • (China Yellow River)
  • (India Indus River)

3
Ancient civilizations
  • civitas (Latin) city
  • Bronze Age
  • Tin, copper, use of metal tools/weapons
  • Mesopotamia
  • 4,000 to 2,800 B.C.

4
Mesopotamia location
  • meso middle
  • potamoi rivers
  • between the rivers (Tigris Euphrates)
  • The Tigris-Euphrates Valley was a long strip of
    fertile lowlands with a highland region to the
    Northeast and the Arabian Desert to the Southwest

5
Mesopotamia
  • Soil rich, because of flooding each year
  • BUT, also uncertainty! wars
  • Therefore insecure
  • Many Gods polytheism

6
Mesopotamia nature and threats
  • In Sumer, the Sumerians were pessimistic
  • Perhaps because of nature (violent
    unpredictable, with wars and flooding)
  • (No matter how they tried, they could never
    really tame the unpredictable floods and Mother
    Nature!)
  • sometimes, drought
  • extreme contrasts (long weeks of blistering
    heat, then, torrential rain which caused floods)
  • furious wind suffocating dust storms
  • periodic conquests by nomadic peoples from the
    Northeast

7
Mesopotamia gods
  • Therefore, insecure helpless
  • Many Gods of Nature (mountains, trees, rivers,
    stones, wind, sky, earth, sun, moon, etc.)
    invincible power
  • Men were only play things and slaves to the
    gods.

8
Mesopotamian literature
  • Mesopotamian literature darkness gloom
  • For example, Epic of Gilgamesh
  • A powerful tragedy that describes a Sumerian
    heros courageous but fruitless search for
    immortality and includes an early version of the
    flood version

9
Gilgamesh
  • Gilgamesh (the hero)
  • Love, conflict,
  • friendship loyalty,
  • joy sorrow,
  • courage fear
  • and ultimately, the horror of mystery of death

10
Gilgamesh
  • Gilgamesh, King of Uruk (at first, proud tyrant),
    then God Anu sent Enkidu (or Engidu) fought with
    Gilgamesh the two became inseparable friends
  • Together, they fought against monsters
  • Then, because Gilgamesh refused Goddess Ishtars
    love, thus, hatred, and Enkigu died
  • Enkidu described afterlife dark and gloomy
  • Many Gods (polytheism)

11
Mesopotamia gods
  • Chief deity Anu (sky god)
  •  
  • Earth Goddess Inanna (fertility)
  • God of Storms Enlil (destruction, force,
    wildness, and violence)

12
Mesopotamia Mathematics
  • Numbers
  • Decimal (10) system
  • Decade 10 years
  • Decameron (by Bocaccio)
  •  
  • also 6, 60, 600, 3600
  • (12)
  • (360)
  •  
  • weight measure
  • addition subtraction
  • fraction

13
Mesopotamia Lunar calendar
  • Ziggurats terraced temples (to heaven)
    architecture of clay-bricks (because stone and
    thick wood were scarce in Mesopotamia)
  •  
  • Sumerian writing temple scribes, wedge-shaped
    marks, inscribed on clay tablets, called
    cuneiform
  •  
  • Cuneus (Latin) wedge
  •  
  • So, History begins at Sumer
  • (i.e., with written sources)

14
Mesopotamia politics
  • Hierarchy priests, nobles, freemen, peasants
    (majority)
  • 2,370 to 2,230 B.C. Political unification under
    Akkadian King Sargon
  •   then Northeast unrest again
  • then, 2,100 B.C., Kingdom of Ur
  • then, the Amorites from Syria built Babylon
  • The Ablest of the Amorite kings of Babylon was
    Hammurabi (c. 1,792-1,750 B.C.) conquered all,
    thus, the Babylonian Empire
  • Hammurabi created a political structure of
    exceptional efficiency

15
Mesopotamia law
  • Law Codes of Hammurabi based on a series of
    earlier shorter Sumerian codes and customs
  • protected people
  • Enforcement of the law made all men subject to
    know law
  • reflected active complex commercial life
  • harsh,
  • a high degree of authoritarianism
  • retributive justice (for example, an eye for
    an eye, a tooth for a tooth)

16
Mesopotamia law
  • 196 If a man destroys the eyes of another man,
    they shall destroy his eyes
  • 197 If he breaks a mans bone, they shall break
    his bone
  • 198 If a man knocks out a tooth of a man of his
    own rank, they shall knock out his tooth
  • (Later, Hebrew laws, too, 24 Wherever hurt is
    done, you shall give life for life, eye for eye,
    tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
    burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for
    wound.)
  • Then, about 1,750 to 1,550 B.C., Northern
    invasion again by the Indo-Europeans

17
Egypt (??)
  • The Egyptian civilization, centering on the Nile
    ???valley, developed around c. 4000B.C., and
    political unification
  • c. 3200 B.C.
  • Old Kingdom (c. 2850-2200 B.C.)
  • Egyptian civilization
  • Dignified, self-confident, optimistic
  • -----gtM Pessimistic
  • Perhaps ? political
  • Stability continuity
  • weather, climate, soil, Nile
  •  
  • Herodotus (????) ?????? Greek historian,

18
  • Egypt is the gift of the Nile
  • Egyptian hymn Hail to thee, O Nile.
  • Rich soil
  • ?annual flooding (predictable)
  • Famous for astronomy
  • Solar calendar
  • 365 days / year
  • (more efficient than the lunar calendar of the
    Mesopotamian)
  • numbers (1-9)

19
Egypt
  • Physiology
  • Medicine (especially, surgery) (????)
  • Sculpture
  • Architecture pyramids???
  •  
  • The Old Kingdom
  • c. 2700-2200 B.C.
  • Middle Kingdom
  • c. 2050-1800 B.C.

20
Indo-European Invasion
  • c. 1750-1550 B.C.
  • The Hyksos brought horses and chariots into
    Egypt (new military techniques)

21
New Kingdom
  • c. 1550-1150B.C.
  • under Akhnaton (pharaoh???), c. 1379-1361 B.C.
    almost monotheism
  • Monotheism, the belief in one God, is a system
    we take for granted today, but for thousands of
    years, polytheism, the belief in many Gods, was
    much more common (or normal). We tend to think
    of polytheism, it provided the fundamentals of
    religion explanation. In fact, in some ways it
    did it better, for a polytheistic system, there
    is no need to explain the existence of evil, or
    why God lets the wicked prosper and the good
    suffer.

22
To Aton
  • Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of
    heaven,
  • Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
  • O sole god, like whom there is no other!
  • Thou didst create the world according to thy
    desire.

23
To Aton
  • Akhnaton deliberately rejected other gods had a
    new god (a single, all-powerful, merciful
    creator)
  • the Aton
  • a solar disc
  • god of all men,
  • god of the universe
  • creator of the world
  • essence of maat (truth)

24
To Aton
  • O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou
    didst create the world according to thy desire
    whilst thou wert alone.
  • Theological revolution?
  • Or political?
  • trying to destroy the ever-increasing power of
    priesthood?
  • BUT once Akhnaton died,
  • Egypt ? back to polytheism
  • Yet, As theory probably had influenced the
    Hebrews who were then slaves in Egypt.

25
  • Universe orderly benevolent
  • Maat truth, justice, harmony, balance,
    righteousness
  • Re sun-god
  • ( pharaoh ???is a living god)
  • Osiris a great benevolent pharaoh god killed
    by a brother, but miraculously resurrected by
    Isis (sister? Wife - magical)
  • ?theme of death resurrection
  • perhaps ? vegetation cycle (4 seasons) Nature
    ???

26
Mesopotamia and Egypt Similarities
27
Mesopotamia and Egypt Differences
28
Mesopotamia and Egypt Differences
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