Mesopotamian City Life and Literature

City Life in Mesopotamia

• City life began in Mesopotamia, the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, now part of the Republic of Iraq.
• Mesopotamian civilization is known for its prosperity, city life, literature, mathematics, and astronomy.

Spread of Mesopotamian Writing and Literature

• Mesopotamia's writing system and literature spread to the eastern Mediterranean, northern Syria, and Turkey after 2000 BCE.
• Kingdoms in this region wrote to each other and to the Pharaoh of Egypt in the language and script of Mesopotamia.

Regions of Mesopotamia

• The land was initially called Sumer and Akkad.
• After 2000 BCE, the term Babylonia was used for the southern region.
• From about 1100 BCE, the region became known as Assyria when the Assyrians established their kingdom in the north.

Languages of Mesopotamia

• The first known language of the land was Sumerian.
• Sumerian was gradually replaced by Akkadian around 2400 BCE.
• Akkadian flourished till about Alexander's time (336-323 BCE), with some regional changes.
• From 1400 BCE, Aramaic also emerged, becoming widely spoken after 1000 BCE.
• Aramaic is still spoken in parts of Iraq.

Archaeology in Mesopotamia

• Archaeology in Mesopotamia began in the 1840s.
• Excavations continued for decades at sites like Uruk and Mari.
• Thousands of written documents and hundreds of artifacts (buildings, statues, ornaments, graves, tools, and seals) are available as sources.

Mesopotamia's Significance to Europeans

• Mesopotamia was important to Europeans due to references in the Old Testament.
• The Book of Genesis refers to 'Shimar', meaning Sumer, as a land of brick-built cities.
• Europeans saw Mesopotamia as a kind of ancestral land, leading to an attempt to prove the literal truth of the Old Testament through archaeological work.