ANT/HIST 500

The Ancient City

Day 5

Mesopotamia

From Ur to the Iron Age

Bronze Age

• Early Bronze Age: 2900-2000 BC

• Middle Bronze Age: 2000-1600 BC

• Late Bronze Age: 1600-1200 BC

• Not really used in reference to Mesopotamia, but in Levant

Mesopotamia Polity

• Expansion and Recession of Social Complexity

• Noticeable as rise of territorial states and regression to city states

• Third Dynasty of Ur ca. 2100-1950 BC

• City States until Hammurabi & rise of Babylon around 1800 BC

Mesopotamia Polity

• Hammurabi & Babylon: Babylon is a minor city state before 1800 BC; not mentioned in earlier texts

• Hammurabi consolidates Old Babylonian Empire

• Babylon will be central to southern Mesopotamia, hereafter known as Babylonia

Ishtar Gate, Babylon

Code of Hammurabi

• Law codes are common before Hammurabi as well

• Written on stele as act of propaganda to show how merciful a ruler he was

• If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

• If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.

Mesopotamia Polity

• Participation in global system of economic and social contacts

• Some societies considered “equal,” such as Egypt, the Hittites, and other Mesopotamian states such as Mari and Assyria

• At its peak in Late Bronze Age

Mesopotamia Economy

• Global trade in luxury goods and food products

• Mesopotamia had a thriving textile industry, pottery, jewelry

• Imports included Lapis Lazuli (a jewel) from Afghanistan, wine and olive oil from southern Levant, wood from Turkey and Lebanon, spices from Arabia, among other societies such as Egypt and Mycenae

Mesopotamia Economy

• The “Basic” economy stayed much the same as before, with food and most manufactured products being produced locally

• Stratification intensifies

• “Amnesties” required through 3rd and 2nd Millennium; custom largely disappears by Iron Age

Mesopotamia Culture

• Religion continues with minor elaboration (examples)

• Major exception: Enuma Elish, written perhaps as early as Hammurabi, creates the theological justification for the rise of Babylon and its patron god, Marduk

• Why did Babylon need such justification?

Mesopotamia Culture

Ziggurat at Ur

Mesopotamia Culture

Mesopotamia Cultureca. 2500 BC

Mesopotamia Culture

Inanna (Sumerian)/Ishtar (Akkadian)

Mesopotamia Environment

Mesopotamia Environment

Mesopotamia Environment