Mesopotamia

Definition

by Joshua J. Mark
published on 14 March 2018

Listen to this article, narrated by James Lloyd

Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning 'between two rivers’) was an ancient region
located in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains
and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today’s Iraq, mostly, but
also parts of modern-day Iran, Syriaand Turkey. The 'two rivers' of the name referred
to the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and the land was known as 'Al-Jazirah' (the
island) by the Arabs referencing what Egyptologist J.H. Breasted would later call
the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization began.
THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
Unlike the more unified civilizations of Egypt or Greece, Mesopotamia was a collection
of varied cultures whose only real bonds were their script, their gods, and their attitude
toward women. The social customs, laws, and even language of Akkad, for example,
cannot be assumed to correspond to those of Babylon; it does seem, however, that the
rights of women, the importance of literacy, and the pantheon of the gods were indeed
shared throughout the region (though the gods had different names in various regions
and periods). As a result of this, Mesopotamia should be more properly understood as a
region that produced multiple empires and civilizations rather than any single
civilization. Even so, Mesopotamia is known as the “cradle of civilization” primarily
because of two developments that occurred there, in the region of Sumer, in the
4th millenium BCE:

 the rise of the city as we recognize that entity today.

 the invention of writing (although writing is also known to have developed in
Egypt, in the Indus Valley, in China, and to have taken form independently in
Mesoamerica).

The invention of the wheel is also credited to the Mesopotamians and, in 1922 CE, the
archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley discovered “the remains of two four-wheeled
wagons, [at the site of the ancient city of Ur] the oldest wheeled vehicles in history ever
found, along with their leather tires” (Bertman, 35). Other important developments or
inventions credited to the Mesopotamians include, but are by no means limited to,
domestication of animals, agriculture, common tools, sophisticated weaponry
and warfare, the chariot, wine, beer, demarcation of time into hours, minutes, and
seconds, religious rites, the sail (sailboats), and irrigation. Orientalist Samuel Noah
Kramer, in fact, has listed 39 `firsts' in human civilization that originated in Sumer.
These include:

The First Schools, The First Case of `Apple Polishing’, The First Case of Juvenile
Delinquency, The First `War of Nerves’, The First Bicameral Congress, The First
Historian, The First Case of Tax Reduction, The First `Moses’, The First Legal
Precedent, The First Pharmacopoeia, The First `Farmer’s Almanac’, The First
Experiment in Shade-Tree Gardening, Man’s First Cosmogony and Cosmology, The
First Moral Ideals, The First `Job’, The First Proverbs and Sayings, The First Animal
Fables, The First Literary Debates, The First Biblical Parallels, The First `Noah’, The
First Tale of Resurrection, The First `St. George’, The First Case of Literary Borrowing,
Man’s First Heroic Age, The First Love Song, The First Library Catalogue, Man’s First
Golden Age, The First `Sick’ Society, The First Liturgic Laments, The First Messiahs,
The First Long-Distance Champion, The First Literary Imagery, The First Sex
Symbolism, The First Mater Dolorosa, The First Lullaby, The First Literary Portrait, The
First Elegies, Labor’s First Victory, The First Aquarium.

Lion of Babylon
Archaeological excavations starting in the 1840s CE have revealed human settlements
dating to 10,000 BCE in Mesopotamia that indicate that the fertile conditions of the land
between two rivers allowed an ancient hunter-gatherer people to settle in the land,
domesticate animals, and turn their attention to agriculture. Trade soon followed, and
with prosperity came urbanization and the birth of the city. It is generally thought that
writing was invented due to trade, out of the necessity for long-distance
communication, and for keeping more careful track of accounts.

THERE WERE OVER 1,000 DEITIES IN THE

PANTHEON OF THE GODS OF THE
MESOPOTAMIAN CULTURES.

LEARNING & RELIGION

Mesopotamia was known in antiquity as a seat of learning, and it is believed
that Thales of Miletus (c. 585 BCE, known as the 'first philosopher') studied there. As
the Babylonians believed that water was the 'first principle' from which all else flowed,
and as Thales is famous for that very claim, it seems probable he studied in the region.

Intellectual pursuits were highly valued across Mesopotamia, and the schools (devoted
primarily to the priestly class) were said to be as numerous as temples and taught
reading, writing, religion, law, medicine, and astrology. There were over 1,000 deities in
the pantheon of the gods of the Mesopotamian cultures and many stories concerning
the gods (among them, the creation myth, the Enuma Elish). It is generally accepted that
biblical tales such as the Fall of Man and the Flood of Noah (among many others)
originated in Mesopotamian lore, as they first appear in Mesopotamian works such
as The Myth of Adapa and the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written story in the world.
The Mesopotamians believed that they were co-workers with the gods and that the land
was infused with spirits and demons (though `demons’ should not be understood in the
modern, Christian, sense).
The beginning of the world, they believed, was a victory by the gods over the forces of
chaos but, even though the gods had won, this did not mean chaos could not come
again. Through daily rituals, attention to the deities, proper funeral practices, and
simple civic duty, the people of Mesopotamia felt they helped maintain balance in the
world and kept the forces of chaos and destruction at bay. Along with expectations that
one would honor one’s elders and treat people with respect, the citizens of the land
were also to honor the gods through the jobs they performed every day.

Map of
Mesopotamia, 2000-1600 BC

JOBS
Men and women both worked, and “because ancient Mesopotamia was fundamentally
an agrarian society, the principal occupations were growing crops and raising
livestock” (Bertman, 274). Other occupations included those of the scribe, the healer,
artisan, weaver, potter, shoemaker, fisherman, teacher, and priest or priestess. Bertman
writes:

At the head of society were the kings and priests served by the populous staff of palace
and temple. With the institution of standing armies and the spread of imperialism,
military officers and professional soldiers took their place in Mesopotamia’s expanding
and diverse workforce. (274)

Women enjoyed nearly equal rights and could own land, file for divorce, own their own
businesses, and make contracts in trade. The early brewers of beer and wine, as well as
the healers in the community, were initially women. These trades were later taken over
by men, it seems, when it became apparent they were lucrative occupations. The work
one did, however, was never considered simply a `job’ but one’s contribution to the
community and, by extension, to the gods’ efforts in keeping the world at peace and in
harmony.

BUILDINGS & GOVERNMENT

The temple, at the center of every city (often on a raised platform), symbolized the
importance of the city’s patron deity who would also be worshipped by whatever
communities that city presided over. Mesopotamia gave birth to the world’s
first citieswhich were largely built of sun-dried brick. In the words of Bertman:

The domestic architecture of Mesopotamia grew out of the soil upon which it stood.
Unlike Egypt, Mesopotamia –especially in the south– was barren of stone that could be
quarried for construction.” The land was equally devoid of trees for timber, so the people
“turned to other natural resources that lay abundantly at hand: the muddy clay of its
riverbanks and the rushes and reeds that grew in their marshes. With them, the
Mesopotamians created the world’s first columns, arches, and roofed structures. (285)

Simple homes were constructed from bundles of reeds lashed together and inserted in
the ground, while more complex homes were built of sun-dried clay brick (a practice
followed later by the Egyptians). Cities and temple complexes, with their famous
ziggurats (the step-pyramid structures indigenous to the region), were all built using
oven-baked bricks of clay which were then painted.
 PRIOR TO THE CONCEPT OF A KING, THE
PRIESTLY RULERS ARE BELIEVED TO HAVE
DICTATED THE LAW ACCORDING TO RELIGIOUS
PRECEPTS.
The gods were thought to be present in the planning and execution of any building
project and very specific prayers, recited in a set order to the proper deity, were
considered of utmost importance in the success of the project and the prosperity of the
occupants of the home.

Whichever kingdom or empire held sway across Mesopotamia, in whatever historical

period, the vital role of the gods in the lives of the people remained undiminished. This
reverence for the divine characterized the lives of both the field worker and the king.
The historian Helen Chapin Metz writes:

The precariousness of existence in southern Mesopotamia led to a highly developed

sense of religion. Cult centers such as Eridu, dating back to 5000 BCE, served as
important centers of pilgrimage and devotion even before the rise of Sumer. Many of the
most important Mesopotamian cities emerged in areas surrounding the pre-Sumerian
cult centers, thus reinforcing the close relationship between religion and government.
(2)

The role of the king was established at some point after 3600 BCE and, unlike the priest-
rulers who came before, the king dealt directly with the people and made his will clear
through laws of his own devising. Prior to the concept of a king, the priestly rulers are
believed to have dictated the law according to religious precepts and received divine
messages through signs and omens; the king, while still honoring and placating the
gods, was considered a powerful enough representative of those gods to be able to
speak their will through his own dictates, using his own voice.
 Shalmaneser III

This is most clearly seen in the famous laws of Hammurabi of Babylon (r. 1792-1750
BCE), but a ruler claiming direct contact with the gods was quite common throughout
Mesopotamian history, most notably in the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (r. 2261-2224
BCE) who went so far as to proclaim himself a god incarnate. The king was responsible
for the welfare of his people and a good king, who ruled in accordance with divine will,
was recognized by the prosperity of the region he reigned over.

Still, even very efficient rulers, such as Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE), had to deal
with perpetual uprisings and revolts by factions, or whole regions, contesting his
legitimacy. As Mesopotamia was so vast a region, with so many different cultures and
ethnicities within its borders, a single ruler attempting to enforce the laws of a central
government would invariably be met with resistance from some quarter.

THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA

The history of the region, and the development of the civilizations which flourished
there, is most easily understood by dividing it into periods:

Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age

Also known as The Stone Age (c. 10,000 BCE though evidence suggests human
habitation much earlier). There is archaeological confirmation of crude settlements and
early signs of warfare between tribes, most likely over fertile land for crops and fields
for grazing livestock. Animal husbandry was increasingly practiced during this time
with a shift from a hunter-gatherer culture to an agrarian one. Even so, the historian
Marc Van De Mieroop notes:

There was not a sudden change from hunting-gathering to farming, but rather a slow
process during which people increased their reliance on resources they managed
directly, but still supplemented their diets by hunting wild animals. Agriculture enabled
an increase in continuous settlement by people (12).

As more settlements grew, architectural developments slowly became more

sophisticated in the construction of permanent dwellings.

Pottery Neolithic Age (c. 7,000 BCE)

In this period there was a widespread use of tools and clay pots and a specific culture
begins to emerge in the Fertile Crescent. Scholar Stephen Bertman writes, “during this
era, the only advanced technology was literally 'cutting edge'” as stone tools and
weapons became more sophisticated. Bertman further notes that “the Neolithic
economy was primarily based on food production through farming and animal
husbandry” (55) and was more settled, as opposed to the Stone Age in which
communities were more mobile. Architectural advancements naturally followed in the
wake of permanent settlements as did developments in the manufacture of ceramics
and stone tools.

Reconstruction
of the Ziggurat of Ur

Copper Age (5,900 – 3,200 BCE)

Also known as The Chalcolithic Period owing to the transition from stone tools and
weapons to ones made of copper. The rise of cities began in this period, most notably in
the region of Sumer in which thrived the cities of Eridu, Uruk, Ur, Kish, Nuzi, Lagash,
Nippur, and Ngirsu, and in Elam with its city of Susa. The earliest city is often cited as
Uruk, although Eridu and Ur have also been suggested. Van De Mieroop writes,
“Mesopotamia was the most densely urbanized region in the ancient world” (as cited in
Bertman, 201), and the cities which grew up along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as
well as those founded further away, established systems of trade which resulted in
great prosperity.

This period saw the invention of the wheel (c. 3500 BCE) and writing (c. 3000 BCE),
both by the Sumerians, the establishment of kingships to replace priestly rule, and the
first war in the world recorded between the kingdoms of Sumer and Elam (3,200 BCE)
with Sumer as the victor. Increased prosperity in the region gave rise to ornate temples
and statuary, sophisticated pottery and figurines, toys for children (including dolls for
girls and wheeled carts for boys), and the use of personal seals (known as Cylinder
Seals) to denote ownership of property and to stand for an individual’s signature.
Cylinder Seals would be comparable to one's modern-day identification card or driver's
license and, in fact, the loss or theft of one's seal would have been as significant as
modern-day identity theft or losing one's credit cards.

Early Bronze Age (3,000 – 2119 BCE)

During this period, bronze supplanted copper as the material from which tools and
weapons were made. The rise of the city-state laid the foundation for economic and
political stability which would eventually lead to the rise of the Akkadian Empire (2350
BCE) and the rapid growth of the cities of Akkad and Mari, two of the most prosperous
urban centers of the time. The cultural stability necessary for the creation of art in the
region resulted in more intricate designs in architecture and sculpture, as well as the
following inventions or improvements:

a number of specific and momentous inventions: the plough and the wheel, the chariot
and the sailboat, and the cylinder-seal, the single most distinctive art form of ancient
Mesopotamia and a pervasive demonstration of the importance of property ownership
and business in the country’s daily life. (Bertman, 55-56)

The Akkadian Empire of Sargon was the first multi-national realm in the world and
Sargon's daughter, Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE), the first author of literary works
known by name. The library at Mari contained over 20,000 cuneiform tablets (books)
and the palace there was considered one of the finest in the region.

HAMMURABI, KING OF BABYLON (1792-1750

BCE), ROSE FROM RELATIVE OBSCURITY
TO CONQUER THE REGION & REIGN FOR 43
YEARS.
Middle Bronze Age (2119-1700 BCE)

The expansion of the Assyrian Kingdoms (Assur, Nimrud, Sharrukin, Dur,

and Nineveh) and the rise of the Babylonian Dynasty (centered in Babylon and
Chaldea) created an atmosphere conducive to trade and, with it, increased warfare. The
Guti Tribe, fierce nomads who succeeded in toppling the Akkadian Empire, dominated
the politics of Mesopotamia until they were defeated by the allied forces of the kings of
Sumer. Hammurabi, King of Babylon rose from relative obscurity to conquer the region
and reign for 43 years. Among his many accomplishments was his famous code of laws,
inscribed on the stele of the gods. Babylon became a leading centre at this time for
intellectual pursuit and high accomplishment in arts and letters. This cultural centre
was not to last, however, and was sacked and looted by the Hittites who were then
succeeded by the Kassites.

Late Bronze Age (1700-1100 BCE)

The rise of the Kassite Dynasty (a tribe who came from the Zagros Mountains in the
north and are thought to have originated in modern-day Iran) leads to a shift in power
and an expansion of culture and learning after the Kassites conquered Babylon. The
collapse of the Bronze Age followed the discovery of how to mine ore and make use of
iron, a technology which the Kassites and, earlier, the Hittites made singular use of in
warfare.

The period also saw the beginning of the decline of Babylonian culture due to the rise in
power of the Kassites until they were defeated by the Elamites and driven out. After the
Elamites gave way to the Aramaeans, the small Kingdom of Assyria began a series of
successful campaigns, and the Assyrian Empire was firmly established and prospered
under the rule of Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1115-1076 BCE) and, after him, Ashurnasirpal
II (r. 884-859 BCE) consolidated the empire further. Most Mesopotamian states were
either destroyed or weakened following the Bronze Age Collapse around 1200 BCE,
leading to a short "dark age".
 Ashurnasirpal II Wall Relief

Iron Age (1000 – 500 BCE)

This age saw the rise and expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser
III (r. 745-727 BCE) and that Empire’s meteoric rise to power and conquest under the
rule of great Assyrian kings such as Sargon II (722-705 BCE), Sennacherib (705-681
BCE), Esarhaddon (681-669 BCE) and Ashurbanipal (c. 668-627 BCE, who
conquered Babylonia, Syria, Israel, and Egypt). The Empire suffered a decline as rapid
as its rise due to repeated attacks on central cities by Babylonians, Medes, and
Scythians.

The tribes of the Hittites and the Mitanni consolidated their respective powers during
this time which resulted in the rise of the Neo-Hittite and Neo-Babylonian Empires.
King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem (588 BCE) during this period
and forced the inhabitants of Israel into the “Babylonian Exile”. He was also responsible
for extensive construction in Babylon, creating famous buildings such as the Ishtar
Gate and the Great Ziggurat (the "Tower of Babel"). The fall of Babylon to Cyrus
II of Persia in 539 BCE effectively ended Babylonian culture.

AFTER CYRUS II TOOK BABYLON, THE BULK OF

MESOPOTAMIA BECAME PART OF THE PERSIAN
EMPIRE & SAW A RAPID CULTURAL DECLINE.
Classical Antiquity (500 BCE – 7th century CE)

After Cyrus II (d. 530 BCE) took Babylon, the bulk of Mesopotamia became part of
the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and this period saw a rapid cultural decline in the
region, most notably in the loss of the knowledge of cuneiform script. The conquest of
the Persians by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE brought Hellenization of the culture
and religion but, even though Alexander tried to again make Babylon a city of
consequence, its days of glory were now in the past. After his death, Alexander’s
general Seleucus took control of the region and founded the Seleucid Dynasty which
ruled until 126 BCE when the land was conquered by the Parthians who were, in turn,
dominated by the Sassanians (a people of Persian descent). Bertman writes,
“Under Sassanian domination, Mesopotamia lay in ruins, its fields dried out or turned
into a swampy morass, its once great cities made ghost towns” (58).

By the time of the conquest by the Roman Empire (116 CE), Mesopotamia was a largely
Hellenized region, lacking in any unity, which had forgotten the old gods and the old
ways. The Romans improved the infrastructure of their colonies significantly through
their introduction of better roads and plumbing and brought Roman Law to the land.
Even so, the region was constantly caught up in the wars various Roman emperors
waged with other nations over control of the land.

The entire culture of the region once known as Mesopotamia was swept away in the
final conquest of the area by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century CE which resulted in the
unification of law, language, religion and culture under Islam. Bertman notes, “With the
Islamic conquest of 651 CE the history of ancient Mesopotamia ends” (58). Today the
great cities that once rose along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are largely unexcavated
mounds or broken bricks on arid plains, and the once fertile crescent has steadily
dwindled to a wasteland due to human factors (such as overuse of the land through
agricultural pursuits or urban development) and also due to climate change.

Queen of the Night

LEGACY
The legacy of Mesopotamia endures today through many of the most basic aspects of
modern life such as the sixty-second minute and the sixty-minute hour. Helen Chapin
Metz writes,

Because the well-being of the community depended upon close observation of natural
phenomena, scientific or protoscientific activities occupied much of the priests' time. For
example, the Sumerians believed that each of the gods was represented by a number.
The number sixty, sacred to the god An, was their basic unit of calculation. The minutes
of an hour and the notational degrees of a circle were Sumerian concepts. The highly
developed agricultural system and the refined irrigation and water-control systems that
enabled Sumer to achieve surplus production also led to the growth of large cities. (4)

Urbanization, the wheel, writing, astronomy, mathematics, wind power, irrigation,

agricultural developments, animal husbandry, and the narratives which would
eventually be re-written as the Hebrew Scriptures and provide the basis for the
Christian Old Testament all came from the land of Mesopotamia.

As noted, Kramer lists 39 `firsts' from Mesopotamia in his book History Begins at
Sumer and yet, as impressive as those `firsts' are, Mesopotamian contributions to world
culture do not end with them. The Mesopotamians influenced the cultures of Egypt and
Greece through long-distance trade and cultural diffusion and, through these cultures,
impacted the culture of Rome which set the standard for the development and spread
of western civilization. Mesopotamia generally, and Sumer specifically, gave the world
some of its most enduring cultural aspects and, even though the cities and great palaces
are long gone, that legacy continued into the modern era.

In the 19th century CE, archaeologists of varying nationalities arrived in Mesopotamia

to excavate for evidence which would corroborate the biblical tales of the Old
Testament. At this time, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and the
stories found in its pages were thought to be original compositions. The archaeologists
who sought physical evidence to support the biblical stories found exactly the opposite
once cuneiform was deciphered by the scholar and translator George Smith (1840-1876
CE) in 1872 CE. The story of the Great Flood and Noah's Ark, the story of the Fall of
Man, the concept of a Garden of Eden, even the complaints of Job had all been written
centuries before the biblical texts by the Mesopotamians.

Once cuneiform could be read, the ancient world of Mesopotamia opened up to the
modern age and transformed people's understanding of the history of the world and
themselves. The discovery of the Sumerian Civilization and the stories of the cuneiform
tablets encouraged a new freedom of intellectual inquiry into all areas of knowledge. It
was now understood that the biblical narratives were not original Hebrew works, the
world was obviously older than the church had been claiming, there were civilizations
which had risen and fallen long before that of Egypt and if these claims by authorities of
church and schools had been false, perhaps others were as well.

The spirit of inquiry in the late 19th century was already making inroads into
challenging the paradigms of accepted thought when Smith deciphered cuneiform but
the discovery of Mesopotamian culture and religion encouraged this further. In ancient
times, Mesopotamia impacted the world through its inventions, innovations, and
religious vision; in the modern day it literally changed the way people understood the
whole of history and one's place in the continuing story of human civilization.

History of Ancient Mesopotamia

Contents
Origins
The Sumerians
The first empires
Early Babylon
Further study
Origins
The first civilization in human history was that of the Sumerians. This emerged in the mid-
4th millennium BCE, with the appearance of the first cities on the Mesopotamian flood plain.
This was a pivotal event for mankind – but why here? And why now?
The Rise of Farming in Mesopotamia
By 6000 BCE, farming settlements dotted the Middle Eastern landscape from Egypt to Iran.
Most of these were small villages, but some, like Jericho, were sizeable towns. Jericho,
situated in a large oasis, consisted of 8 to10 acres of mud-brick homes surrounded by
substantial walls. Large water tanks were probably used for irrigation, and a massive stone
tower for defence. It had a population of some 2,500 people.
The farming population in the Middle East was distributed across the “Fertile Crescent”, that
huge stretch of territory from Egypt in the west to Iran in the east were farming is easy and
productive. One region where farming was not yet present, however, was southern
Mesopotamia. This low-lying plain was too dry to allow farming; there simply was not
enough rain, apart from during a very brief period in the spring, to grow crops.
Irrigation
In about 6000 BCE, irrigation began to be practised in the foothills of the Zagros mountains,
very near southern Mesopotamia. Communities of farmers dug tanks and reservoirs to store
water, and ditches to lead it to the fields throughout the growing season. In this way they
were able to water their fields over a long period of time, increasing their yield of crops.
The techniques learnt here enabled farmers to settle in the dry southern Mesopotamian
plains. By creating irrigation systems, they were able to feed their crops with water well
beyond the brief rainy season.
Trade
The farming villages faced a further challenge, however. This region has no mineral
resources to speak of, so the new communities had to import all their stone – for tools,
decorations and weapons – from elsewhere.
Trade networks can be traced far back into pre-history, before agriculture in fact. Hunter-
gatherer sites 100 miles inland show stores of shellfish which must have come from the
coast. The spread of agriculture, however, would have greatly stimulated trade.
One of the beneficial characteristics of cereal staples such as wheat and barley is that they
can be stored for a long time before eating, unlike fruit, berries and meat. Buildings for
communal grain storage are a universal feature of early farming villages, and they will have
been able to build up food surpluses. This in turn will have allowed them to survive periods
of drought as well as use grain for trade with neighbouring peoples. Trade routes gradually
developed over long distances. These would almost certainly not have been operated by
long-distance traders, but rather have grown up through repeated local exchanges. Bladed
tools of obsidian, a semi-precious stone found in Asia Minor, have been discovered in south
western Iran dating from as early as 8000 BCE.
Expansion
Returning to the period just after 6000 BCE, then, and to those new communities in the dry
and mineral-poor plain of southern Mesopotamia, they were able to survive only by creating
irrigation systems and tapping into the already-existing trade routes of the region. Having
survived, however, they thrived. The plains of southern Mesopotamia have wonderfully rich
soils, deposited by the rivers Tigris and Euphrates over thousands of years. Watered by
means of irrigation, they turned into highly productive farm land, able to sustain large
populations.
Archaeology traces the growth of these early southern Mesopotamian communities from
just after 6000 BCE down to historic times, and witnesses their growth from farming villages
into the first true cities in history, two and a half thousand years later.
This comparatively sudden growth of a dense new population in the Middle East must by
itself have quickened trade in the region. The two thousand years between 6000 BCE and
4000 BCE saw a very large expansion of population in southern Mesopotamia. The pace of
change quickened, with new inventions appearing. Most notable, the wheel had arrived by
4000 BCE, and a few hundred years later they were being fixed to ox carts.

Ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seal

Reproduced under Creative Commons 3.0
They were also being used by pottery makers – and indeed the potter’s wheel is a pointer to
the appearance of craftsmen making artefacts for a wide market. The artistic standard of
pots in fact declines with the advent of this device, as for the first time potters churn out their
wares quickly and cheaply. This is a clear sign of the increasing trade of the region.
Early States
Within southern Mesopotamia itself, the archaeological record indicates that over the course
of hundreds of year, the Tigris and Euphrates plain became ever more thickly studded with
farming villages. Some of these became religious centres, each home to a small temple of a
local god which the people of the surrounding villages worshipped. It was these centres
which later evolved into the Sumerian city-states of later centuries.
How exactly this happened is of course unknown. One likely scenario is that, as the
population grew and the available land came under the plough, disputes arose between
villages as to land- and water-rights. To resolve these disputes they turned more and more
to the local temple, with its (at that time small) group of priests, whose religious prestige
thus gradually evolved into a judicial authority covering a locality.
This authority was further augmented by the need to build large-scale dykes and canals to
contain the flooding of the turbulent rivers; this would have involved the labour of men from
a whole locality, not just one village, who would need to be controlled as a body.
Furthermore, as groups of villages were co-ordinated into tighter co-operative, even
“political”, units, conflict would now involve locality against locality. Individual villages would
have been very vulnerable in these circumstances, and the trend would all have been
towards greater power shifting to the temple priests, now transformed into something like a
ruling class.
An Urban Revolution
The archaeological evidence would harmonize with this narrative, as it shows the gradual
enlargement of these temple centres surrounded by many villages. This was the situation
by about 4000 BCE. Over the following few centuries, however, the temple centres – and
indeed the temples themselves – grew massively.
Sizeable towns appear, and by 3500 BCE several are true cities with tens of thousands of
inhabitants. The largest, Uruk, may have been home to 40,000 people. This development
was accompanied by the decline in the number of small villages. Clearly a concentration of
the population within the city precincts was taking place, very likely for protection.
This dramatic development has been called an “urban revolution”, and it reflects in physical
settlement patterns the transformation of society into a much more complex organism than
any up to this time. The large surpluses made possible by the rich soil of the plains had
come under the control of religious and political elites, centred on the temples. By imposing
tribute and taxes on the surrounding population, these had accumulated wealth on a scale
undreamt of in previous times.
This they used to construct monumental public buildings – granaries, temples and palaces.
These overawed the people and proclaimed their power, and indeed helped to reinforce it.
The granaries were centres of a distributive system whereby the temple officials controlled
much of the economic life of the people. The god (and therefore his temple) was held to
own the land and people of the state (which the locality can now fairly be called); and this
translated into the temple elite directly controlling much of the land and labour of the city
and its surrounding area.
New Horizons
Much of this wealth was devoted to the decorative arts, and along with a ruling group a
class of full-time professional craftsmen emerged. The standard of craftsmanship – indeed,
of representational art – was raised to new heights. This was not only stimulated by the
desire to decorate temples and other public spaces, but also to manufacture trade goods
needed to keep the inward flow of raw materials, in which southern Mesopotamia was so
sadly lacking, open. This in turn stimulated long-distance commerce.
A final development needs to be noted, perhaps the most important of all. The demands of
administering land and wealth on a scale hitherto unknown presented significance
challenges to the temple officials. To meet this challenge, they developed a system of
symbols to record the huge number of economic transactions they were overseeing. From
these early foundations writing scripts evolved, and the first literate societies appeared.
Link: Map of Ancient Mesopotamia c. 3500 BCE

The Sumerians
The period after 3500 BCE saw the world’s first civilization, that of the Sumerians, reach a
peak of cultural dynamism as their small city-states competed with one another for
dominance.
Early Sumerian Advances
The period after 3500 BCE is known to historians as the Early Dynastic period of
Mesopotamian history. It saw Sumerian civilization increase in complexity and
sophistication. In particular, writing made important advances. From the early pictograms,
the script gradually became more abstract and stylized. It also became more linear,
reflecting the use of the wedge-shaped styluses used to inscribe the clay tablets.
By around 2500 BCE the script had developed into classic Sumerian cuneiform writing, with
which a subtle and varied literature, containing economic and administrative documents,
letters, stories, prayers, hymns and so on was being committed to writing.

Sumerian inscription on a creamy stone plaque,

9,2×9,2×1,2 cm, 6+6 columns,120 compartments of archaic monumental cuneiform
script
The urbanization process reached its peak in the early 3rd millennium, and spread
throughout the whole of Mesopotamia and beyond. In northern Mesopotamia cities
appeared at places like Mari and Assur, and other cities appeared in Elam, Syria and
eastern Turkey. The people of these cities were influenced to a great extent by Sumerian
art and architecture; colonies of Sumerian merchants were established in some centres,
though more local influences were also apparent.
Sumerian City-States
The eighteen recorded Sumerian cities of southern Mesopotamia remained concentrated
along the branches and irrigation canals of the Euphrates in a narrow strip of land extending
from south of present-day Baghdad to the marches bordering the Gulf. This region was
divided between people of two language groups: in the south, Sumerian-speakers, in the
north, Semitic speakers, or Akkadians.
Each Sumerian city was the centre of a small city-state, consisting of the city itself and its
surrounding territory – farmlands, gardens and orchards in the irrigated land near the city,
grazing land for herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats on the arid land further out,
between the cities.
The city was surrounded by a wall. A large Sumerian city held between 30,000 and 40,000
inhabitants, and one of the largest, Lagash, had a territory of 2,880 square kilometres. At
the heart of the city, both physically and metaphorically, stood the temple to its patron god.
The Sumerians regarded their city-god as the true owner of the city. This may originally
have had its earthly expression in the temple owning all the land in the city-state, but by the
Early Dynastic period this was no longer the case. The temple owned an estimated third of
the arable land in each city-state, and was therefore a major economic unit. It used the
revenue to maintain the priest, officials, craftsmen and other servants of the temple; to store
as a provision against drought; and to exchange with goods from abroad – international
trade was in the hands of the temple or palace.