Mesopotamia

The Seeds of Creativity

 The Rivers and the Land

Between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers

 The Rivers and the Land

Problems
• Flooding during the growing season
• Salt accumulation
This required Creativity for civilization to
flourish
• Flooding: Dams and catch basins connected to
canals.
• Salt: Flushed salt out by moving water from the
high elevation of the Euphrates River to lower
elevation of the Tigris River.
 Domestication of grain
• 56 wild grasses possible (seed size,
seed retention, nutrition, storage,
etc.)
• 32 varieties in Mediterranean Eurasia
(versus 11 max elsewhere)
 Sumerian Period
3500-2350 BC

Note: Few natural barriers to invasion

Sumerian Period
3500-2350 BC

Sumeria
(Southern
Mesopotamia)
 Sumerian Period
3500-2350 BC

• Polytheistic religion
– Religion was directed toward ensuring a good
crop and good trading
– No ethics from religion
• Priests subservient to kings
– Invasion-prone area so armies were important
• First wheeled vehicles
• Ziggurats
– Temples
– Tombs
– Governmental sites
 Ziggurat

Tower of Babel?
 Sumerian Period
3500-2350 BC

Creative Contribution:
Writing (cuneiform)
• Language not connected to any
other (Adamic?)
• Written on clay tablets with
reed or sharpened stick
• Recorded business and laws
• Adopted by other empires
because it could apply to any
language
• 1200 known characters
• Started as Pictograms (pictures that were individualized)
• Developed to being Ideograms (stylized pictures that were
customized)
• Became Phonetically-related Symbols
Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
 Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
• Descendants of Shem
– Semitic language (Arabic, Hebrew, etc)

Creative Contributions:
• Standing army
• System of royal servants and landholders
• Poetry/epic
• Written law
• Governmental bureaucracy
• Mathematics
 Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
• Standing army
– Led by Sargon I the King of Akkad
– Conquered the Sumerians
– Expanded the empire greatly (paid the army
from the spoils of war)
– New lands and territories that had to be
controlled
• Royal servants given new lands
– Very loyal
– Created economic vigor in trade
– Created intelligent division of labor
 Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
• Poetry
– Epic of Gilgamesh
• About 2000 B.C.
• Oldest known literary document
• Account of King Gilgamesh
• Includes a flood story (similar to Bible)
 Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
• Written Law: The Code of
Hammurabi
– Developed by King Hammurabi (~1700 B.C.)
• Great leader, ruled during the cultural
pinnacle of the early Babylonian Period
• Personally supervised navigation, construction
of temples, agriculture, and tax collection.
– First set of laws (predates Moses by 200
years)
– Brought uniformity to society
– Reduced resentment and possibilities for
revolt
– Engraved on 8-foot stella (pillar)
 Code of Hammurabi –
Trial by ordeal
"If a man has accused another of laying a
death spell upon him, but has not proved
it, the accused shall go to the sacred river,
he shall plunge in the sacred river, and if
the sacred river shall conquer him, he that
accused him shall take possession of his
house. If the sacred river shall show his
innocence and he is saved, his accuser
shall be put to death. He that plunged in
the sacred river shall appropriate the
house of him that accused him."
 Hammurabi Code vs The Bible
• Source: Existing laws
• Religious: Little
• Capital crimes:
– False accusation or witness
– Stolen temple goods
– Stolen child
– Assisted fleeing slave
– Adultery
• Justice: Eye for eye or
compensation
• Equality: Changes by rank
• Responsibility: Surgeon,
home builder
• Source: God
• Religious: Strong
• Capital crimes:
– Murder (unless God
delivered him)
– Smite or curse parents
– Steal man and sell him
– Killed fetus
– Adultery
• Justice: Eye for eye or
compensation
• Equality: No differences
• Responsibility: Repeated
ox goring
 Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
• Governmental Bureaucracy
– Established by King Hammurabi
– Administrators paid by the government
(local taxes), unlike Sargon I’s.
– Could keep an eye on empire without
expensive and continuous military
entanglements.
 Akkadian/ Early Babylonian
Period (2350-1650 BC)
• Mathematics
– Decimal and sexigesimal system
• 60 and 360 – religious numbers
– Sexigesimal numbers today
• Circle
• Time
– Placeholder concept
– No Concept of Zero
 Hittites (1450-1200 B.C.)
• From Anatolia (present day Turkey)
• Creative Contribution:
– Iron
 Hittites (1450-1200 B.C.)
• Iron
– Much harder and stronger than all former
metals
• Found in natural state (soft)
– Gold and copper
• Bronze (copper with tin)
• Brass (copper with zinc)
• Iron required much higher temperatures
– Conquered Mesopotamia because of weapon
strength (~1650 B.C)
– Agricultural productivity higher when farming
tools were made of iron
– Started the move from the Bronze Age to the
Iron Age (~1500 B.C.)
 Phoenicians/Philistines/Sea
Peoples (~1200 B.C.)
• Conquered Hittites and
learned the secrets of
iron-working
• Dominated Israelites until
time of David
• Controlled the coastal
regions of Mesopotamia
(then called Canaan)
Phoenicians/Philistines/Sea
Peoples (~1200 B.C.)

And the children of Israel cried unto the

Lord: for he [Jabin, King of Canaan] had
nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty
years he mightily oppressed the children
of Israel.
-Judges 4:3
Now there was no smith found throughout
all the land of Israel: for the Philistines
said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords
or spears: But all the Israelites went down
to the Philistines, to sharpen every man
his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and
his mattock. Yet they had a file for the
mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the
forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen
the goads. So it came in the day of the
battle, that there was neither sword not
spear found in the hand of any of the
people that were with Saul and Jonathan…
-1 Samuel 13:19-22
 Assyrians (900-626 B.C.)
• Creative contribution:
– Torture
• Creativity can be good or bad
• Extremely vicious
• Entire cities surrendered because of fear
• Conquered Mesopotamia from within the
territory of old Babylonian empire
• Capital was Ninevah (Jonah story)
• Captured the 10 tribes and carried them
northward (721 BC)
• Defeated by the Babylonians and Medes
(626 BC)
Babylonians, Medes, Persians
626-333 BC
Babylonians, Medes, Persians
626-333 BC

• Powerful rulers
– Nebuchadnezzar
– Cyrus the Great
– Xerxes
– Darius
• Empire very large
– Included Chaldeans and others
• Established king worship
– Daniel and the 3 Israelites
• Jewish temple was built
• Esther’s story
Babylonians, Medes, Persians
626-333 BC

Creative Contibutions:
• Art/technology
– Hanging Gardens
• Government
• City planning
• Ethical Monotheism
• Zodiac (astrology and astronomy)
• Mathematics
Babylonians, Medes, Persians
626-333 BC

• Ethical monotheism
– Zoroastrianism (Zoroaster/Zarathustra)
• Arose from Persia in 7th Century B.C.
• Founded by the prophet Zarathustra who
used fire as part of worship
• Communication with God
• The three wise men in the story of Christ’s
birth were likely Zoroastrians
• Driven from Persia in 700 A.D. to India where
they are known as the Parsi
Babylonians, Medes, Persians
626-333 BC

• Zodiac
– Method of measuring the
earth’s movements
though the year’s sky
with respect to 12
constellations
– Earthly events (seasons
and tides) based on
celestial bodies
– No difference between
astrology and astronomy
in ancient times
– Astrologers became
common
• Three wise men
Babylonians, Medes, Persians
626-333 BC

Astrology was, after all, a reasonable

science. The sun dominates life on earth;
the moon has many, more subtle,
influences: for example, it rules the tides.
Surely, then, on commonsense grounds,
the minor planets must have their own
distinctive influences on the lives of men
and women?

—Donald Cardwell, The Norton History of Technology, 1994

 Mesopotamia

• Conquered by Alexander the Great

(333 BC)
– This was the end of what is considered
Mesopotamian history
– We will discuss him later
 Mesopotamia

• Overall creativity assessment:

– Many conquerors kept creativity fresh
Thank You