Ancient Mesopotamia Overview

Ancient Mesopotamia

• City-states in southern Mesopotamia were often called "Sumerian civilization," though each city-state operated independently.
• They shared common traits like cuneiform writing, a shared pantheon of gods and goddesses, ziggurats, metalworking, complex social hierarchies with distinct classes and status differences between elites and commoners, and craft specialists.

Economic Transactions

• Early Mesopotamian writing developed as a method for recording economic transactions.
• Seals, sealings, counters, bullae, and numerical tablets are early forms of financial records.

Religion and Ritual

• Each Early Dynastic city had a patron deity, and temples were dedicated to them.
• The city-state of Ur was ruled by Nanna (the moon goddess).
• Ningirsu was the patron deity of Lagash.
• Anu and Inanna were associated with Uruk.
• Enlil was associated with Nippur.

Warfare and Violence

• City-states frequently fought over resources like agricultural land, water rights, and trade routes.
• Power was spread among numerous city-states, with no single city dominating for long periods.
• Warfare led to the capture of slaves, used as a form of labor in cities.
• Soldiers during this time fought in phalanxes, equipped with shields, spears, axes, chariots, maces, and daggers.

Written Word

• Protocuneiform, an ideographic writing system, was used in Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods.
• Cuneiform continued as the writing system during the Early Dynastic period (ED).
• Writing was primarily used for bookkeeping, but also for recording myths, royal inscriptions, recipe lists, and ritual hymns.

Written Word: Further Detail

• Early Mesopotamian writing primarily focused on recording economic transactions
• This writing included seals, sealings, counters, bullae, and numerical tablets.

Written Word: Scribes

• Writing was restricted to a specific occupational class called scribes.
• They controlled the language.
• Even kings, priests, and priestesses were generally unable to read or write.

Oikos Economy

• "Superfamilies" combined kin-based households with non-kin laborers.
• Lower-ranking or indebted individuals frequently worked for elite landowners, temples, and palaces.
• Each superhousehold operates as an oikos.
• This system often involved debt slavery and war captives, significantly increasing social inequality.

Social Life

• Cuneiform tablets detailed ranked and gendered lists of professionals.
• Oikoi extended these rankings to include contracted workers, slaves, rulers, religious and military elites, scribes, overseers, bureaucrats, merchants, traders, and commoners.
• Social hierarchy was reflected in archaeological burials.

Roles of Men and Women

• Divisions of labor in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia were, in many cases, gender-based.
• Men often engaged in agricultural labor, military service, and animal husbandry.
• Women's roles involved crafting textiles, mats, working in orchards, and caring for pigs.
• War captives, regardless of gender, often became slaves in the temples or palaces.

Hammurabi's Code

• Hammurabi's Law Code (1755-1750 BCE) is a Babylonian legal text, significant in human history.
• It reflects the day-to-day concerns of the culture of that time, including aspects of law that are still relevant today.
• The code reveals a cultural context quite different from our own modern world.
• The study of the code contains aspects that persisted or were similar to present-day legal systems.

Hammurabi's Code: Activity

• Students should analyze the text of the code of Hammurabi and discover aspects of the law that are relevant today and aspects that are not.
• Explain why aspects are still applicable and why certain portions are not relevant or applicable.
• Discuss the surprises or insights that archaeological studies can provide on societies of the past.