Mesopotamia The Worlds first cities began as farming villages in the Middle East. As they grew they began to trade with each other. Trade, like farming, became a very important source of wealth. Catalhoyuk Was located in Turkey. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic City. Neolithic means the later part of the Stone Age, when ground or polished stone weapons and implements prevailed. So these people were still using stone-age technology. The settlement was made up of mostly private dwellings. Meaning that people just built their houses and there were no large public buildings or places of worship. It was during the Neolithic age that farmers emerged and changed the way people lived. This can be seen in Catalhoyuk. Here the farmers built permanent shelters made of mad and straw which they baked together to form walls. The mud was combined with the straw, which held it together, and it hardened in the sun. The roofs were made of placing poles and branches across the upper part of the walls and covering them with mud. Catalhoyuk is one of the oldest farming settlements in the world. It is over 7,000 years old. When it was flourishing a few thousand people lived there. They found sources of water and building material around them which. Each home had its own kitchen and food storage area. The people grew grains and raised flocks of sheep and goats. Uruk The worlds first advanced city was Uruk. It was the capital city, that Gilgamesh was said to have ruled over. Although the story is just a myth, the actual city was real. Uruk differed from Catalhoyuk, and all of the earlier farming villages, in several ways. 1 st, Catalhoyuk covered only about 32 acres total and supported 6 to 7 thousand people. Uruk was much larger. It existed 7,000 years ago. It had 40,000 people living there. The city covered about 1,000 acres with houses, gardens and large public buildings like places of worship. Catahoyuk had little need for a complex government. People there acted and made decisions based on ancient village customs. A village council settled disputes.
Uruk was way to large to conduct its day to day business that way. Uruk had to have had a complex government, which was strong and well organized. The cities first rulers probably were temple priests. As time went on military rulers most likely took control. Uruk had a complex economy. An economy is the system that a community uses to too produce and distribute goods and services. An economy of a society, or nation, is defined by answering 3 basic questions. 1. What goods and services should be produced? What are we making, growing, mining, etc.. 2. How should goods and services be produced? How are we going to make, grow, or mine this stuff? 3. Who should get and use goods and services? Who are we going to sell or trade this stuff too? And who is going to get paid? In the earliest human communities, each group produced those goods and services, which were necessary for it s survival. Goods and services were produced by hunting and gathering. Those goods and services, were then, shared by the members of the community. Catalhoyuk s economy was based mainly on farming. Uruk s, in contrast, was much more complex and based on both farming and trade. Workshops produced all sorts of goods, which were sold in shops on the streets. Also, Uruk merchants traveled far and wide, selling their products. We know this because archeologists have found their pottery and crafts all throughout the Middle East. The wealth and allure of the city lured many people in from the countryside. As the city grew they built walls for protection against raiders. Uruk was protected by a thick wall, which stretched for over 6 miles around the city. This allowed the city to focus protection onto several entry points. Thus watching and allowing who they wanted entering and leaving the city. We know that because of this wall, the people who dwelled within the city felt that whatever was inside the walls was worth protecting. Also, the building of such a public work would have been very expensive and would have taken a considerable amount of planning and supervision. The Civilization of Sumer The Fertile Crescent is a region of the Middle East that stretches in a large, crescent-shaped curve from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. The Fertile Crescent includes the region of Mesopotamia, which is found in present day Iraq. The fertile plain lies between two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Mesopotamia means land between the rivers in Greek. It was here the world s first civilization began to develop. This was the civilization of Sumer. The soil of this land was rich and fertile. It had some of the most productive land in the region. This allowed the Sumerian farmers to grow many different types of grains and vegetables. They also raised sheep, goats, and cattle here. The geography of this region was unique which allowed for all of these things to happen. In the north there were the Taurus and Zagros mountain chains. To the south, the foothills flatten into plains and stretched towards the Persian Gulf. In the south, Mesopotamia is a hot, dry region that gets very little rainfall. Most of this land looks like desert, but looks are deceiving. The soil was not that of desert soil, lacking nutrients. Instead it was rich from the nutrients, which came down stream from the mountain regions. Each year these rivers flooded their banks, spreading these nutrients out along the sides of the rivers. When the water recedes, the nutrients stay, providing a nutrient rich topsoil which was perfect for farming and growing grass for animals to graze upon. This was not a perfect situation though. Nature could be cruel and the people were very dependent upon good conditions. In the spring, unpredictable floods could wash away whole villages and fields of crops. During the summer, a drought could lead to sunbaked rock hard ground, which was good for nothing. To combat these forces of nature, the Sumerians had to come up with a way to tame nature. To do this they created technology, or the practical application of knowledge to accomplish a task, which allowed them to turn Mesopotamia into fertile farmland. Sumerians used technology to irrigate, or supply water to, their crops. To do this they dug many miles of irrigation canals to bring water from the rivers to their fields. This allowed them to bring more water inland thus expanding the land in which they could grow crops on. This also allowed the crops to get water during the hot summer months without rain. They also developed a new way to plant seeds. The old way involved an oxen, which would plow the land. After the land was plowed, men followed spreading seeds by hand. The Sumerians devised an invention called a seed funnel, which attached to the plows, and planted seeds behind the oxen. This was way more efficient and quicker. These agricultural techniques allowed the Sumerians to produce more food, which led to the population growing. Around 3400 B.C. cities started to form in southern Mesopotamia.
The first Mesopotamian city was Uruk. Others were Ur, Lagash, and Nippur. These cities grew powerful and became the first city-states. A city-state is an independent state that includes a city and its surrounding area. Each Sumerian city-state had its own government and laws, and each had its own main god. Each city-state was a center for trade. They traded with each other for goods and services that they needed. Southern Mesopotamia had fertile soil but it lacked in in wood and stone for building. To gain such items they would trade for it using a system of trade called bartering. Barter is a trading system in which people exchange goods directly without using money. The rivers on either side of Mesopotamia were used to transport goods by way of barges, which floated down the rivers. Workers on land used ropes to pull the barges upstream. They also invented the wheel, which they used on carts and sails on their boats. This spurred trade throughout their region and also to far away lands. The Sumerians developed a social order, which is made up of 3 classes. People within each class had distinct roles within their society. The classes were divided like so: 1. Upper class- the ruler, top officials, powerful priests, wealthy merchants, and owners of large plots of land. 2. Middle class- Farmers and skilled workers. 3. Lower class- mostly slaves, criminals, and the poor. Sumerian Religion The Sumerians were polytheistic, or worshipped multiple gods. They believed that these gods controlled every aspect of life including all of the elements. They also had gods, which represented agriculture and other activities. Sumerians believed that the gods behaved much like people including taking part in activities like eating, drinking, sleeping, and marrying. Sumerians believed in a very simple principle. Hey felt that if the gods were happy with the prayers and offerings of the people they would reward the cities with good fortune and protection from natural disasters. In contrast, they felt that if the gods were not happy with their offerings then they would bring about war, floods, or other natural disasters. So keeping the gods happy was a top priority. As with many religions, in their primitive states, the Sumerians felt that only the priests could directly communicate with the gods. They depended on the priests to communicate what the gods were saying and the word of the people to them. This put the priests in a very powerful position which made it easy for them to take advantage of the people. The priests lived in the temples, which were very large. These temples were called ziggurats. The largest ones were over 7 stories high. The temples often laid claim to large plots of land around them, which were farmed
and worked by the people in the area. The priests, kept surplus grain and other goods in large storehouses. Cuneiform Writing developed in Sumeria. The priests needed a system to keep track of all of their goods. They developed a system of pictographs. Pictographs were symbols, or pictures, which represented something. These simple symbols progressed, overtime, into a complex system of writing. This writing was called cuneiform. It was first created in 3400 B.C. In this system of writing, triangular shaped symbols were used to stand for ideas or things. They recorded these symbols onto clay tablets which later dried leaving a permanent record. Cuneiform was first used to record sales, taxes, and agreements. Later it was used as a form of communication. Gilgamesh Around 2000 B.C. a long epic poem appeared which was called the Epic of Gilgamesh. This poem tells of a Mesopotamian hero named Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a myth, or a made up story about gods and heroes. Some believe that Gilgamesh may have been a real king. If this was so and he did exist, he probably ruled around 3000 B.C. Sumerian Government The first leaders of the Sumerian city-states were priests. As the cities grew people from different cities began to argue with one another over the control of land and water. These sometimes led to war over the resources. During times of war the priests chose someone to lead the state. This leader was expected to give up their position of power after the war was over. Some of these leaders did not want to give up the power and held onto their control long after the wars were over. These people became the first kings. To stay in power the kings needed the support of the priests. Because of this the kings respected the rights and power of the priests. This often came in the form of compensation or offerings which led to the priests becoming wealthy. In exchange, the priests then declared the kings vessels of the gods. The idea that the kings had been chose by the gods became really common throughout the area. Slowly the kings took over more and more responsibilities of the priests like hiring workers to build public works. Written Laws The earliest law code, or written set of laws was issued in 2100 B.C. by Ur-Nammu, the King of Ur. These laws included laws about marriage, slavery, and causing harm to other people.
Achievements Sumerians produced many advances in technology. These included the advanced planting tools with the plow and seed planter. Also the wheel and use of sails, irrigation and calendars. These advances spread throughout the region through trade. One of the most important advances was the development of bronze. This was done by mixing copper and tin, making an alloy. The bronze was harder then copper making it better suited for making weapons and tools. These weapons gave Sumerians an edge on the battlefield and would later play a large role in the expansion of the empires.