MESOPOTAMIA

MESOPOTAMIA
Land between the two rivers

 Considered the cradle of civilization.
 Urban societies are known from the 6th Millennium BC (before Christ).
 They invented writing: cuneiform script.

CUNEIFORM SCRIPT
 The Sumerians wrote
on clay tablets.
 They used punches to
write on the tablets.
 Then these tablets
were baked to be
stored in an archive.
 Archaeologists have
found thousands of
these tablets in the
archives.

Around 3100 B.C. people began to record
amounts of different crops. Barley was one of
the most important crops in southern
Mesopotamia and when it was first drawn it
looked like this.

6
The governor
receives 14 shekels
of silver from 5
persons and 46
shekels remained
unpaid by 13 other
persons. The total
amount of silver is
1 mina.
1 barley-fed ox, 6
grass-fed oxen, the
god Shuruppak; 3
barley-fed oxen, 6
grass-fed oxen, the
god Gibil; 3 from
the god Ealil; 2
oxen, 6 grass-fed
oxen, Kinnir; 7 oxen
from the god Suen.
2500 BC.

ZIGGURAT.
The ziggurat is a
temple-shaped
tower.
It is built on sun-
dried brick
(ladrillos de
adobe).
The ziggurat were
considered the
houses of the
gods. Ceremonies
were held outside
the building.
To access the
ziggurat there was
a series of steps
up to the chapel
at the top of the
ziggurat.

 The ziggurat may be a
symbolic representation of
the union of heaven and
earth.
 In total 32 ziggurat are
known, most of whom are in
Iraq and Iran.

 The best known is the ziggurat
of Ur, rebuilt in the 1980s by
Saddam Hussein. In rebuilding
one of 200 bricks contains the
name of the dictator.

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH
Gilgamesh was an historical figure, a king
who reigned over the Sumerian city-state
of Uruk around 2700 b.c. Long after his
death, people worshipped Gilgamesh,
renowned as a warrior and builder and
widely celebrated for his wisdom.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is written on
eleven tablets. It was discovered in the
mid-nineteenth century in the ruins of
the great library at Nineveh.

He was an
oppressive
ruler, however,
which caused
his subjects to
cry out to the
"gods" to create
a nemesis to
cause
Gilgamesh
defeat.
After one fight,
this nemesis,
Enkidu, became
best friends
with Gilgamesh.
The two went
on many
dangerous
adventures in
which Enkidu is
killed.

Gilgamesh then
determines to find
immortality since he now
fears death. It is upon this
search that he meets
Utnapishtim.
 Utnapishtim had become immortal after building a ship to
weather the Great Flood that destroyed mankind. He
brought all of his relatives and all species of creatures
aboard the vessel. Utnapishtim released birds to find
land, and the ship landed upon a mountain after the
flood. The story then ends with tales of Enkidu's visit to
the underworld.

CYLINDER SEAL.
A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder engraved
with written characters or figurative scenes or
both, used in ancient times to roll an impression
onto a two-dimensional surface, generally
wet clay.

Cylinder seals were invented
around 3500 BC in
southern Mesopotamia. They are
linked to the invention of the
latter’s cuneiform writing on clay
tablets. They were used as an
administrative tool, a form of
signature, jewelry and as magical
amulets

ARCHITECTURE
 The three main buildings were the palace, the temple and the
ziggurat.
 The temple was a religious center, economic and political. The
temple had farmland and herds of sheep, as well as
warehouses and workshops.
18
 The palace was
organized around
an inner courtyard
and was usually
surrounded by a
wall.

ASSYRIAN
PALACES.
The Assyrian kings Ashurnasirpal,
Sennacherib Ashurbanipal forced his
subjects to build him an enormous
palaces at Nimrud, Khorsabad and
Nineveh. The rooms of the palace follow
a thispattern: a big public courtyard, and
on three sides it has government offices
and storage. The fourth side is the throne
room, and then there's a smaller, private
courtyard.
19

Ashurbanipal's famous library
which held over 30,000
inscribed clay tablets, the
books of that time.
21
 In ancient Assyria,
lion-hunting was
considered the sport
of kings, symbolic of
the ruling monarch’s
duty to protect and
fight for his people

Huge sculptures of
human-headed winged
bulls (lamassu) that
weigh up to 30 tons
were intended for the
main entrances to the
palace.
22

ISHTAR'S GATE.
 It is one of eight
large doors that had
the city walls of
Babylon.
 This gate was
dedicated to the
goddess Ishtar.
 It was built in 575 AD
by king
Nabucodonosor II.

It is made of brick, most
of them blue and
includes images of
dragons, bulls, lions and
mythological beings.
The archaeological
remains were
discovered by German
archaeologists between
1902 and 1914.

Most of the archaeological
remains were taken to
Germany, where they
were reconstructed in the
Pergamo Museum.
During the time of Saddam
Hussein's rule, the
government rebuilt a
replica of the gate at the
original site.

HANGING
GARDENS OF
BABYLON.
• One of the seven
wonders of the
Ancient World.
• They were built by
the king
Nabucodonosor II
around 600 B.C.
• The gardens were
constructed to
please Queen
Amytis who longed
for the trees and
fragant plants of her
homeland.

• It created a series of
stone terraces in
which trees were
planted and various
plants for the Queen
could remember
where she grew up.

SOCIETY
• Mesopotamian society was divided between free men and slaves.
• The society was organized in a pyramid with the king at the very top and
slaves at the very bottom.

The king was the representative of the
gods.
The king was the military commander
and participated in religious ceremonies.
In this photo, the King Naram-Sim of
Akad.

Within the pyramid below the king,
we find the priests, government
officials, soldiers and traders.
Further down the pyramid, we find
farmers. Their land was owned by
the nobility or the church and the
farmers had to deliver part of the
harvest to the temple and the
palace.
Finally we find the slaves at the
bottom. They were mostly prisoners
of war.

HAMMURABI'S
CODE.
• It was created by the King Hammurabi
in 1760 B.C.
• It is one of the oldest law codes known.
The articles of the law are written in the
stone. At the top the king is receiving
the law from the hands of the god.

• The stone measured
2.25 metres and
contains 282 laws
delivered by the god of
justice, Shamash.

MESOPOTAMIAN
RELIGION
The religion was
polytheistic. Every city
had, as its center,
the temple of the patron.
The patron god or
goddess of a city had the
largest temple in the city,
but there were smaller
temples and shrines to
other gods.

 According to the Mesopotamian creation myth, life
began after an epic struggle between the elder
gods and the younger. In the beginning there was
only water swirling in chaos and undifferentiated
between fresh and bitter. These waters separated
into two distinct principles: the male principle,
Apsu, which was fresh water and the female
principle, Tiamat, salt water. From the union of
these two principles all the other gods came into
being.

Apsu on the advice of his Vizier, he decided to kill them. Tiamat,
however, was shocked at Apsu's plot and warned one of her sons,
Ea, the god of wisdom and intelligence. With the help of his brothers
and sisters, Ea put Apsu to sleep and then killed him. Out of the
corpse of Apsu, Ea created the earth and built his home. Tiamat,
upset now over Apsu's death, raised the forces of chaos to destroy
her children. Ea and his siblings fought against, without success
until, from among them, rose the great storm god Marduk. Marduk
swore he would defeat Tiamat if the gods would proclaim him their
king. This agreed to, he entered into battle with Tiamat, killed her
and, from her body, created the sky. He then continued on with the
act of creation to make human beings from the remains of Quingu
as help-mates to the gods.

Some of the most important deities of
ancient Mesopotamia were:
An (Anu):Sky god, as well as father of the
gods, An was the king of all the gods.

Enki (Ea): God of fresh water,
known for his wisdom. He was
depicted as a bearded man with
water flowing around him.

Nanna (Sin) – God of the moon and the son of Enlil
and Ninlil. He travels across the sky in his small boat
of woven twigs, surrounded by the planets and
stars.
The seated figure is probably king Ur-Nammu. Sin/Nanna
himself is indicated in the form of a crescent.
Stele of Ur-Nammu (2200 BC),
detail showing the crescent moon,
the moon god's symbol.

Inanna (Ishtar) – Goddess of love, fertility, and war.
She was the most important of the female deities.
Ishtar Kudurru. Kudurru was a type of stone
document used as boundary stones and as records
of land grants to vassals.
Goddess is depicted as a winged, nude,
goddess-like figure with bird's talons,
flanked by owls.

Utu (Shamash) - God of the sun and of justice. Between
the time when the sun sets in the west and rises in the
east he is in the underworld, where he decrees the fate of
the dead..
King Melishipak I (1186–1172 B.C.) presents
his daughter to Shamash, the sun,
represented at the right, next to Nanna
and Ishtar.
Dates from the 9th century BC and shows the
sun god Shamash on the throne, in front of the
Babylonian king Nabu-apla-iddina (888-855 BC)
between two interceding deities. The text tells
how the king made a new statue for the god and
gave privileges to his temple.

Marduk was the patron deity of the city
of Babylon. When Babylon became the political
center of Mesopotamia in the time
of Hammurabi (18th century BC), he started to
rise to the position of the head of the
Babylonian pantheon. deity.
 He presided over justice, compassion, healing, regeneration,
magic, and fairness, although he is also sometimes
referenced as a storm god and agricultural deity.

MESOPOTAMIA

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