Ancient Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia, general introduction
Millennia ago the low-lying fertile lands in the basins of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers were the seat of a rich and complex society. These civilizations were saved from oblivion by the unexpected discovery in the last century of libraries complete with archaeological remains. Hundreds of clay tablets, written in a cuneiform writing system, buried deeply under the ruins of ancient cities, which had been looted and burned. The clay tablets, usually only dried in the sun and stored on (flammable) wooden filing cabinets, were often inadvertently baked as the city was destroyed and the treasures removed. Clay was not the precious treasure of hunters and thieves in ancient times and clay tablets (at least until the 19th century) were left intact and thus saved for eternity.
The branch of science dealing with the study of ancient civilizations in the Near East is called Assyriology, named after an Assyrian empire was discovered by early archaeological excavations. This empire is now known as the New Assyrian Empire.
Geography
Mesopotamia
The word "Mesopotamia" is originally a Greek name (mesos "middle" and potamos "river," thus "land between rivers"). The name is used for the area watered by the Euphrates and Tigris and its tributary peoples, roughly including modern Iraq and part of Syria.
South of modern Baghdad, the river floodplains were called the land of Sumer and Akkad in the third millennium. Sumer is the southernmost part, while the land of Akkad is the area around modern Baghdad, where the Euphrates and Tigris close to each other.
In the second millennium both regions were called Babylon, for the most part a flat country. The territory to the north (between the rivers Tigris and the Great Zab) is called Assyria, with the city A ur as its centre. It was bordered by mountains.
Neighboring regions
The region containing the Asian part of modern Turkey is referred to as Anatolia. The countries along the east-Mediterranean coast (modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel) bounded on the east by the Syrian desert and extending north through Mesopotamia will be called Syria-Palestine. Modern Iran is roughly equivalent to Persia and includes ancient Elam in its southwestern part.
Human use of rivers
Man has been drawn to both rivers since prehistoric times. Like waterways that make inland navigation possible. The annual flooding of the rivers produces fertile land. The character of Euphrates and Tigris are different.
The Tigris is rough and fast flowing. "Tigers" is the Greek pronunciation of the Akkadian name idiqlat, (initial vowel disappears and "l" instead of "r"), Sumerian idigna meaning "swift as an arrow." The upper course in particular is difficult to pass. The river cuts deeply into the surrounding land and the flowing water can hardly be used for irrigation.
The Euphrates is more comfortable. It can more easily be used by ships. The banks are lower, suitable for irrigation, with less violent flooding. Precipitation in the mountains in the north are great and the rain makes agriculture possible. In the Babylonian lowlands, rainfall is scarce and moreover the rain is concentrated in the short winter period from December to February. The intense sunlight after a short spring scorches the soil in summer. Without irrigation, agriculture is not possible.
River flow changes and shorelines
In the last hundreds of kilometers in the lower course, the river drops only on the order of 10 metres. As a result the river flow has changed significantly over time. The ruins of many famous ancient cities, such as Eridu, Ur, Nippur and Kish are now far from the river, but were formerly located between the banks of the river. The location of the seashore is determined by the extent of sediment deposition in the Persian gulf and sea level rise. The river delta probably gained territory above the Persian Gulf. The shoreline has moved further south or at least past lagoons and estuaries have now silted up.
The change of course of many branches of the river has had great consequences in the past. An overflow further north of the Mesopotamian plains could have dried up many branches of the river and rendered a network of irrigation canals useless. It was a matter of constant debate, struggle and warfare among the early Sumerian cities.
Euphrates vs Nile Delta
The Euphrates reaches its highest water levels from the end of March to the beginning of May, the Tigris a few weeks earlier. In both cases the crops are already growing in the fields. A river flood can only be used for agriculture when the fields are protected by a system of dams and canals. This contrasts with the Nile in Egypt. The high water in the Nile is a result of the summer monsoons in Central Africa and has its highest water levels in September - October. The Nile fertilizes the land in autumn and crops can grow in early spring when no flooding occurs. Furthermore, the Nile is fed by rivers of a large area, has a more continuous flow and carries soluble salts and silt into the sea. The Euphrates is more easily ready for salinization.
The irrigation system had already been attested in very ancient times, the first around 6000 B.C. Through a system of dams and canals the rainfall in the mountainous region in the north is used in the south. This required a high level of organization of society and collective efforts for the construction, maintenance, supervision and adaptations of the irrigation network. Limited irrigation and drainage, gradually slowed down in the fields, often cause an ecological crisis. Along with the changing flow of the river, the foundation of new settlements and cities was encouraged throughout Mesopotamian history.
Our knowledge of the history of irrigation networks is limited by the difficulty of dating most of the water works.
Climate and environment
Pleistocene climate
The engine of the general atmospheric circulation is the warming of the tropics and the evaporation of the tropical seas. The Pleistocene is the geological period of cold climates (glaciers in mountains and at high latitudes) which coincides with the Paleolithic cultural period (ancient Stone Age). The atmospheric circulation and evaporation of tropical seas is "in low gear." Monsoon rains now water the southernmost fringes of the Near East, have receded at lower latitudes, and mid-latitude westerly thunderstorms bring little moisture. The Ice Age at Near Eastern latitude is characterized by low evaporation and little precipitation. Large quantities of water held in the form of ice have lowered sea level to 100 meters below present sea level.
The Würm of the Ice Age it made its last attack around 8000 B.C.
The beginning of the geological epoch is called the Holocene. In a fairly short time (on the order of 1000 years) the world's climate is basically the same as today, with fluctuations over a large time scale. Recovery to normal temperature after an ice age is generally fast. It was as hot and humid as it has ever been since. The ideal conditions of the warm and humid period (called Atlanticum, one of the subdivisions of the Holocene) is around 5000 B.C. and the era in which England becomes an island again and northern Europe is transformed into a marsh by the heavy rain. The modern coastlines are about re-established. The coastal settlements prior to 5000 B.C. are now under water. During the Atlanticum, westerly thunderstorms deviated deeply in the desert areas of North Africa and the Near East. Today's steppes had become green land. Many lakes have been seen, particularly in Africa, which are now always dry. The distribution of precipitation is the same as today, only the absolute values change.
The Fertile Crescent
Because of the shape of this distribution in the Near East (nearly no rainfall in the central desert regions and high rainfall in the mountains around it), the area is called the Fertile Crescent. Total precipitation is known indirectly from the deposition of organic material of seabed sediments in the Gulf of Persia, from radiocarbon fixed in lake sediments. The ratio of the Oxygen-18 isotope in lake sediments is an indicator of the total lake water volume. There is no systematic trend over the past 5000 years (historical times), but there are three dry periods affecting the entire Near East: 3200-2900, 2350-2000 and around 1300 B.C.
Anomalies
Local anomalies in climate history are important to humanity, but are not always visible in the data (which have coarse resolution). In an arid environment, where water resources are at a premium, local climatic anomalies are of real significance and can cause abandonment of settlements and movements of nomadic groups.
Agriculture
After 8000 B.C. the environment of the Near East becomes substantially more attractive for human settlements. The Atlanticum is the period in which agriculture developed in the Near East, around the Nile in Egypt and in the Indus valley in India. The use of agriculture gradually expands further north and west. The Atlanticum is followed by a climate of lower temperatures and precipitation. One of the relatively cold and dry periods (4000-3000 B.C.) coincides with the expansion of the cities in Mesopotamia and the founding of the first dynasty of Egypt.
Climate determinism
Many attempts have been made (particularly in the early parts of this century) to explain the course of history as the result of large-scale climatic changes. These theories are called climate determinism. The modern equivalent of this is an explanation from an ecological perspective, in which again external influences (variations in the natural environment, now eg including deforestation etc) are the driving factor. Another school emphasizes human relationships and social change as the dominant processes. It is clear now that a combination of these and additional factors play a significant role (cultural changes, technological innovations, new tools).
Populations
Two cultural groups form the major elements of the population of Mesopotamia before the beginning of history and in the millennia thereafter (the 3rd millennium B.C.). These are the Sumerians and the Akkadians. They have lived peacefully together and have created in mutual fertilization, by symbiosis and osmosis, the conditions for a common high civilization. Mesopotamian sources from all periods appear to be free from strong racial ideologies or ethnic stereotypes. The enemies, from both groups and individuals, can be cursed and heavily insulted, but this associates them more strongly with the king of a nearby city than with one of a remote territory.
Sumerians
The people responsible for the early monumental temples and palaces, for the founding of the first city-states and probably for the invention of writing (all in the period 3100-3000 B.C.) are the Sumerians. The first written signs are pictographic, so they can be read in any language and one cannot infer a particular language. A pictograph of an arrow means "arrow" in any language. A few centuries later, however, these signs were used to represent Sumerian phonetic values and words. The pictograph for an arrow is now used to represent "ti", the Sumerian word for "arrow," but also for the phonetic sound "ti" in words not referring to "arrow." Thus it is generally assumed that the Sumerians were also responsible for pictographic signs, or possibly together with (or with a great deal of influence from) contemporary Elamites. If the Sumerians aren't the ones who actually invented writing they are at least responsible for quickly adopting it and expanding the invention to their economic needs (the earliest tablets are predominantly economic in nature).
The name "sumer" is derived from the Babylonian name for southern Babylon: mät umeri "the land of sumer" (constructed from mätum "country" followed by the genitive of sumer; meaning unknown in Akkadian). The Sumerians called their country ken.gi(r) "civilized land," their language eme.gir and themselves sag.gi.ga "the black-headed ones." [the consonant between the brackets appears in writing depending on the following sounds. Comparing, for example the French "les Francais" where in both words the final s is not pronounced, but are explicitly heard when followed by a vowel, e.g. in "les Anglaises."]
The Sumerian language is not Semitic. It is thus called an agglutinative language, like Finnish and Japanese (and in fact like most languages in the world). This is a term in the typology of languages that oppose inflectional language, such as Indo-European and Semitic languages. In an agglutinative (or agglutinative) language words are composed of a set of forms in sequence, often in quite long sequences. In inflectional languages the basic element (the stem) of the word can change (as foot, feet and sings, sang, sings, called internal inflection).
Sumerian has no known relationship to any other language. There appears to be a remote relationship to the Dravidian languages (such as the speech of the Tamils, now in southern India). Dravidian languages are attested to have been spoken in northern India, and displaced by the arrival of Indo-European invaders around 1500 B.C. Due to the term "black-headed ones" it is possible (but far from verified) that the Sumerians are an early branch of one of the populations now living in southern India.
Sumerian/Elamite Inventions: Cylinder Seals (French Sceaux-cilindres, German Zylindersiegel)
Are small (2-6 cm) shaped stone cylinders carved with a decorative (engraved) design. The cylinder was rolled over wet clay to mark or identify clay tablets, envelopes, pottery and bricks. Thus they cover as large an area as desired, an advantage over early stamp seals. Its use and expansion coincides with the use of clay tablets, beginning at the end of the 4th millennium until the end of the first millennium. After this period the seals are still used.
Scope. Seals are required as a signature, acknowledgment of receipt, or for marking clay tablets and building blocks. The invention fits the needs caused by the general development of city-states.
The inscriptions are carved mostly in reverse, so as to leave a positive image on the clay with the position of the figures facing out. Some are carved directly and leave a negative print.
Pre-Sumerian
The origin of the Sumerians is unknown. The intriguing question returns in the literature but has so far unsatisfactory answers. The Sumerians were not the first population in Mesopotamia. They were not present before 4000 B.C., despite before that time village communities existed with a high degree of organization. The "principle of agriculture" was not discovered by the Sumerians. This is evident from words the Sumerians used in relation to the domestication of plants and animals.
Language substrate
A language (particularly as it appears in proper names and geographic names) may show signs of so-called language substrate (such as the influence of Celtic on ancient Gauls; compare some Indian geographic names in the US that attest to the original inhabitants). Some implementations of occupational and agricultural names in Sumerian show that agriculture and the economic use of metals existed before the arrival of Sumerian. Sumerian words with a pre-Sumerian origin are:
- occupational names like simug "blacksmith" and tibira "coppersmith," "metal builder" are not originally Sumerian words.
- agricultural terms, such as engar "cultivator," apin "plough" and absin "furrow," are not of Sumerian origin.
- artisans such as nangar "carpenter," agab "leatherworker"
- religious terms such as sanga "priest"
- some of the older cities, such as Kish, have names that are not Sumerian in origin.
These words are borrowed from a substrate language. The words show how advanced the division of labor was already before the arrival of the Sumerians.
Some craftsmen have Sumerian names
Some professions are typically Sumerian: za.dim "stonecutter", from za "(precious) stone" and dim "build," "cut," "make." The stonecutter makes the cylinder seals which are a typical Sumerian invention. These activities are characteristic for the growing urban society.
Other terminology is also typically Sumerian, such as en.si(k) "king of the city" derived from en "lord" and si "region," "country";
lu.gal means "military authority," and later "king"; the word is derived from lu "man," "someone" and gal "big": "big man."
Akkadians
Semi-nomads in the Near East
As at the time a large part of the population in Mesopotamia lived a sedentary life in settlements, large groups of people (nomads) emigrate at the same time. Nomads roam from place to place in search of pasture and move with the season. Semi-nomads thanks to their small livestock near settlement fields, often trading in goods obtained elsewhere, and all other kinds of interactions. This feature is still present today in the Near East. The nomads leave little archaeological traces and are illiterate, so they are not well known by their direct means. However, some description appears in written form: they were recorded by the Sumerians and later by the Akkadians. Some of the semi-nomads, individuals or groups, they mix with the sedentary population and become sedentary themselves. In times of political or economic crisis they may do so by force, but they quickly adapt to the current civilization as to the dominant language. Their increased influence on society is manifested by a change in the type of personal names. Sometimes the names are the only remnants of their original language. In their new positions they often foster cultural development.
The Akkadians, speaking a Semitic language, may have been present in Mesopotamia at the time of the arrival of the Sumerians, or may have spread to the region later. Their culture mixed and they were able to live peacefully together. On Sumerian clay tablets dated around 2900-2800 B.C. found at Fara, Semitic (Akkadian) names are attested for early times. They concern the names of kings in the city of Kish. Kish is in northern Babylon where according to the Sumerian King Lists "ruling power again descended from heaven" after the great flood. Proper nouns often contain animal names such as zuqiqïpum "scorpion" and kalbum "dog." Kings with Semitic names are the first post-Flood kings to rule over Kish.
A few centuries later the first Akkadian ruler Sargon of Akkad ruled over an empire which included a large part of Mesopotamia. Popular Semitic speech apparently lived on for centuries among the Sumerians and gradually became an integral part of Sumerian culture. We don't know much about them in the early part of the 3rd millennium, because the learned language used in writing is Sumerian.
Borders
Mesopotamia has no natural border and is difficult to defend. The influence of neighboring countries is great. Throughout Mesopotamian history trade contacts, slow spread of foreign tribes, and military confrontations were of great influence.
You border on the 3rd millennium
In the east: Elamites
In the west: city of Ebla. The discovery in the 19th of the 3rd millennium city of Ebla took Assyriologists by surprise. The extent of Sumerian culture in the 3rd millennium is not known, but it wasn't expected to go that far west. Ebla is located at Tell Mardikh 65 km south of Aleppo in Syria and appeared to be an urban culture in the middle of the 3rd millennium in far western Mesopotamia. The archaeological site shows impressive remains (royal palace) and has a rich archive of cuneiform tablets attesting to a new (Western) Semitic language (called Eblaite) different and slightly older than the ancient Akkadian.
The Ebla archive was found as a room with ~2100 clay tablets archived. Subjects range from administration, textile and metal accounting, tax deliveries, temple offerings, letters, state reports, and scribal exercises. Texts and excavations show Ebla to be a complex mixture of borrowings from local (Sumerian) traditions. By ~2600-2350 B.C. much Sumerian literature and scholastic lore had been assimilated by Ebla scribes who engrave with a metal point plus use cuneiform for their own language. Ebla's power depended on political hegemony over a territory with autonomous minor urban centres. Hundreds of villages are named in the archives, mention is made of large (~6700 animals) [heards], of wool industry, and large quantities of gold and silver. For at least 26 years tribute is paid to Mari (an important city on the middle Euphrates), with which Ebla usually had a friendly relationship (exchange of gifts). From the lack of long distances in the speculations it has been concluded that Ebla was probably not a trading empire, but only benefited from the strategic location at the crossroads of major trade routes.
Ebla was destroyed by fire in ~2350, probably in a conflict with Sargon of Akkad, the first governor of the Mesopotamian empire. Ebla was rebuilt and flourished again during the Ur III dynasty, in a period that roughly coincides with the Old Babylonian period. A final destruction took place by a Hittite ruler ~1600 B.C., after which Ebla remained a small village.
Gutiani
Amorriti
Borders to the 2nd millennium
Kassiti
Hittiti
Sea people
Borders to the 1st millennium
Arameans
Economy, trades and natural resources
The floodplains in Mesopotamia are perfectly appropriate for high food production. The economy was based on agriculture, mainly the cultivation of barley. Barley was used as a means of payment for wages and daily rations. Barley was also the basis for a natural drink: beer. Other products are oil (sesame seeds, linseed, flax, Triticum vulgare), wheat and horticultural products. Herds of sheep and goats graze in the meadows. Cattle graze when sufficient water is available. Wool production was large which was converted into an assortment of textile fabrics. The extreme south of Mesopotamia has always had a diverse economy (dates and fishing).
No stone = end of the stone age
In the huge clay fields, there is a lack of basic natural resources, materials that are indispensable for an urban society. The lack of stone can be seen literally as attributed to the end of the stone age. Timber and stone are needed for the construction of buildings, metals become increasingly important. A 10-span roof requires strong rafters, but lumber made from date palm trees is also flexible. Good timber was available (in those days) in the forests of distant Lebanon or closer in the mountains of modern Iran. The mountains are also rich in minerals, stones and metals. If you don't have them, go and get them. History has not changed in five millennia.
Tribute and booty
There are two basic methods of obtaining the required basic materials: by warfare or by trade. These materials were often demanded as tribute or taken as loot after a military expedition. An ancient Sumerian epic (account of the legendary king Gilgamesh, king of Uruk "who builds the walls," "who goes to the cedar forest"). Others tell of King Lugalbanda's victories, tributes and the bartering of grain for precious stones.
Trades and Barter
Military expeditions were done after harvest time (often on an annual basis, particularly in the first millennium) when peasants were available as soldiers. Minerals (such as copper, tin, silver, a black stone called diorite, etc.) were only available in remote parts of the area, for which a military action would also take a long time, be vulnerable and probably expensive. Then trade is the only way. In texts from the 19th century B.C., trade appears to have been carried out in a professional, capitalist way (at least during a period of nearly a century in the ancient Assyrian period): trade with boats on the Euphrates and Persian Gulf and with regular caravans of donkeys from Anatolia (modern Turkey).
Trade
Other than grains, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia had little to offer. Cereals were indeed exported but they were also large enough to be transported by donkey over long distances. It imported materials from elsewhere and was exported again. Like tin, an important metal for bronze, which probably came out of Afghanistan in those times. It was exported to Anatolia, a major center of the metal industry, where extensive forests were abundantly available to fuel the furnaces. Other goods were dates, sesame oil and special art materials. Babylon had an extensive wool industry. Fabrics measuring 4 by 4.5 meters were transported by the hundreds in the 19th century BC Silver and gold was imported from Anatolia (see Kültepe and trade processes).
Assyriology
Decipherment of Akkadian.
Early Excavations in the Near East
During excavations in 1843 and 1845 large collections of clay tablets were found bearing cuneiform marks. These pointed to a forgotten Assyrian civilization that was alluded to in the bible and Greek scriptures (Herodotus). The decipherment of the language was essentially completed in 1851 and the language was first called Assyrian. Today Assyrian is considered a dialect of Akkadian. The branch of science dealing with language and civilization has been called Assyriology. The name is now applied to a much larger field: the study of all civilizations in Mesopotamia and all related matters. Assyriology relies on information from archaeological excavations on one hand and the study of written records by philologists on the other hand.
The discovery in 1854 of the library of Aurbanipal (mid-7th century B.C.) at Nineveh, midway up the river Euphrates, has aroused great interest. This Kuyunjik collection (named after the discovery located near Nineveh) is in the British Museum. These clay tablets are identified with a K number.
Discovery of the Sumerians
The writing system did not appear to be well adapted to the specific needs of the Semitic languages (with many consonants not used in other languages). It was at the beginning already suspected that cuneiform developed from another hitherto unknown language. A decisive clue came from a special type of tablets. Some tablets appear to be lexical lists, written in two or three columns. In some lists the middle columns are a logogram of Akkadian, the last column apparently giving the Akkadian meaning written phonetically and corresponding to the logogram. The first column points to another language. These lists confirm the existence of a pre-Assyrian writing system now called Sumerian. And a language that has probably not been spoken for almost two millennia (the era of Sargon of Akkad, around 2350 B.C.). It was a learned and liturgical language, as Latin was used for many centuries after native speakers existed. At the moment the understanding of Sumerian writing is still growing. Modern translations sometimes deviate significantly as compared to translations made decades or more ago.
Since some Mesopotamian rulers used the title "king of sumer and akkad" and since "akkad" is known from the bible (Gen.10:10) the new language in the first column of the lexical lists was called "Akkadian", until some decades later (1889) it appeared that the ancient scribes called the extinct language
li-a-an u-me-ri "the language/ tong of Sumer"
and called them "Akkadian." A philologist who studies Sumerian is called a Sumerologist. S. N. Kramer is an early sumerologist who has written a number of popular books on sumer (and an autobiography In the World of Sumer, 1988 at the age of 91).
Tell, tepe or höyuk
Human habitation is often built on the fragments of previous habitation, using the previous remains as crushed stone. Today, villages on hills up to 10 meters high are sometimes visible. The Near East knows that these hills, called (in Arabic and Hebrew) tell, (in Persian) tepe or (in Turkish) hüyuk (all words for "hill") with or without present-day house on top. They are often covered with sand from the strong desert winds. The area of the hill can be larger than 10000 m2. The deepest layers can be dated to the end of the Mesolithic (10000 B.C.). Some Tells have not been used for millennia. The absence of homes can often be related to a change in the local climate or in the course of a river, which could make the surrounding fields less suitable for agriculture. This is especially true when many surrounding Tells show the same absence of habitation.
In the excavations the layers are numbered with Roman numerals. The strata are sometimes subdivided. p. eg. archaeologists report a discovery of clay tablets in the Uruk-IVa layer, used as a related dating system. From artifacts (human made objects) this layer can be dated to the end of the 4th millennium (3100- 3000 B.C.). Many impressive Tells are visible in the Near East, the origin of which is unknown or only conjectured. Modern scientific excavations are slow and expensive, due to the painstaking methods applied.
