Chapter 1

Writing and Urban Life

Mesopotamia

The name Mesopotamia is derived from two Greek words mesos and potamos.

1. Meaning of Mesos - Middle

2. Meaning of Potamos – River

Thus Mesopotamia means the region between two rivers.
Mesopotamia was the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers .
Historians believe that urban life began in Mesopotamia .
Mesopotamia is present day part of Iraq .

What was the Mesopotamian civilization famous for?

The region of Mesopotamia developed for agriculture and trade due to its location between rivers.
Ancient cities developed in Mesopotamia which later became important cultural centers .
Here civilization and science developed and vast and rich literature was composed.
Records and writing were first used in this civilization; mathematics and astronomy are also its gifts.

Mesopotamian languages

The earliest language in the Mesopotamian civilization was Sumerian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) from about 3000 BCE.
The Akkadian language began to be spoken around 2400 BC. It was spoken in northern Mesopotamia (parts of modern northern Iraq and Syria).
The Aramaic language began to be spoken around 1400 BC. ( The Aramaic language was similar to Hebrew.)

Geographic location of Mesopotamia

This area is currently a part of the Republic of Iraq. Iraq is a country full of geographical diversity.
Its urbanized southern part was called Sumer and Akkad. Later, when the influence of Babylon increased in this part, it came to be known as Babylonia.
Its northern part came to be known as Assyria after Assyrian occupation .
Cities like Ur, Uruk and Mari were famous in the Mesopotamian civilization .

Northeast part -

There are lush green fields here, there are tree covered mountain ranges, clean springs are available here.
There are wild flowers here and there is enough rain for a good crop.
Farming started here between 7000 and 6000 BC.

Northern part

In the north there are grasslands (steppe) on higher lands .
Animal husbandry is a good source of livelihood here.
Here fodder (grass) becomes available for the animals after the winter rains .

Eastern part -

The Tigris and its tributaries provide a good means of transportation to Iran.

South part

The southern part is a desert .
It was here that the first writing system and cities emerged .
Fertile land is available.

Sources of information on Mesopotamian civilization

1. Archaeological discoveries :-

Physical remains such as artefacts and buildings found at an excavation site that provide information about daily life .

2. Cuneiform Tablets: -

These clay tablets provide detailed information about governance , economy , religion and culture.

3. Historical texts :-

Various ancient texts written in the languages range from historical narratives , royal inscriptions , epic literature , and religious texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish.

4. Art and Architecture :-

Sculptures , carvings , memorial structures , social structures are revealed.

5. Information is also obtained from sources like ancient jewellery , graves , tools , currency and temples.

Living in Mesopotamia

1. Agricultural system

The land in the southern part of Mesopotamia was very fertile.
Here the Euphrates River, after entering the desert, used to flow by dividing into several streams .
Due to flooding in these streams, these streams used to work as irrigation canals.
When needed, wheat, barley, peas and lentil fields were irrigated .

2. Animal husbandry

The people of Mesopotamia raised sheep and goats from which they obtained meat, milk and wool.
These animals were raised in the steppe grasslands, northeastern plains and mountain slopes.
Fish were available in the rivers here.
In summer, date palms bore abundant fruit.

Features of urban life

1. A large number of people lived in cities. When economic activities other than food production start developing in an economy, then the population starts increasing at one place. As a result, towns start to settle. In such a situation, it is beneficial for people to live together in towns because apart from food production, trade, production and other services also play an important role in the urban economy .

2. The people of the city are not self-sufficient, they have to depend on other people of the city or village for the goods produced or the services provided by them, there is constant transaction among them.

3. Facilities were available to the people in urban life. People involved in different works were connected with each other through transactions. In urban life, people were often dependent on other people.

4. Thus division of labour was a characteristic of urban life which took place under a social organisation because essential goods came from different places and organised trade and storage was necessary.

5. In such a system some people give orders and others follow them. For example, those who mint coins need not only stones but also tools and utensils to carve them.

movement of goods in cities

1. Mesopotamia, however rich its food resources were, was deficient in mineral resources. In most parts of the south there was a great shortage of stones for making tools, seals and ornaments .

2. The wood of the Iraqi date palms and poplar trees was not very good for making carts, wheels or boats. No metal was available for making tools, utensils or ornaments. So the Mesopotamians must have imported wood, copper, tin, silver, gold, shells and various kinds of stones from Turkey and Iran or the countries across the Gulf, to which they exported their textiles and agricultural produce in large quantities .

transportation

1. The cheapest mode of transport was waterways. Boats laden with sacks of grain would travel down the river at the speed of the wind, which involved no expense, while animals had to be fed to transport goods.

2. The waves and natural water currents of Mesopotamia were a good means for transporting goods between settlements .

Writing in Mesopotamian Civilization

The people here knew the art of writing .
These people used clay tablets for writing .
Cuneiform symbols were used for sounds .
There were different symbols for different sounds .
Writing was used to keep accounts, create dictionaries, legalize the transfer of land, and describe the actions of kings .
Mesopotamian scribes had to learn hundreds of signs and write on wet slate before it dried .
The writing work required great skill .

Literacy

Very few people in Mesopotamia could read or write.
Not only did the symbols number in the hundreds, but they were also far more complex
If the king himself could read, he would have wanted those facts to be mentioned in the eulogistic inscriptions.
Most of the writing reflected the way of speaking.

development of writing skills

Clay tablets found in Mesopotamia date back  to around 3200 BC .
About 5000 lists of bulls, fish, breads etc. have been found in these tablets.
Writing of things coming in and going out of the temples of the southern city of Uruk   may have begun then .
When the society felt the need to keep a permanent record of its transactions,  as in urban life the transactions took place at different times,  it became very important to keep a record of it .
Here people used to use tablets made of wet clay for writing,  which was later dried in the sun .
Around 2600 BC the letters had become cuneiform;  the language at this time was Sumerian. Eventually a dictionary was also created here .

Use of writing in Mesopotamia

According to the ideology of Mesopotamia, the king was the first one to make arrangements for trade and writing.
Information related to religious texts, temples and worship was preserved in written form.
Writing was also used to preserve rules and laws regarding social justice and dispute-related matters in written form.

Cities of Mesopotamia

From 5000 BC onwards, settlements developed in southern Mesopotamia, including several types of cities.

1. Cities developed around the temple .

2. Cities developed as centres of trade .

3. Royal City .

1. Temple

i . The settlers who came from outside started building or rebuilding temples at selected locations in their villages.

ii. The early temples of Mesopotamia were like ordinary houses because the temple was also the house of some god. was bent inwards and outwards after certain intervals. This was a special feature of temples, the walls of ordinary houses were not like this.

iii. God was the center of worship, people brought food grains, curd, fish for the gods and goddesses. Temples were the abode of various gods and goddesses .

As -

Ur who was the moon god .

Inanna who was the goddess of love and war .

iv. These temples were built of bricks and they grew larger over time .

2. New social structure

i. Despite the natural fertility of the land, agriculture was often plagued by crises.

ii. Villages were resettled from time to time in case of natural calamities like floods and droughts

iii. There were also many man-made problems such as frequent conflicts over land and water between people living upstream and those living downstream.

iv. The leaders who won the battle would make their companions and followers happy by distributing the looted goods among them

v. New institutions and practices were established with a focus on the welfare of the community.

3. Relationship between the king and the temple

i. War-winning chiefs (kings) began to offer precious gifts to the gods, thereby enhancing the beauty of the temples of the community.

ii. The king sent his men to bring precious stones and metals that could benefit the deity and the community

iii. The king encouraged the villagers to settle near him so that he could quickly assemble his army when needed.

iv. Prisoners of war and local people were compulsorily required to work for the temple or directly for the ruler.

v. Even though one did not have to pay agricultural tax, it was mandatory to work.

vi. According to an estimate, 1500 men worked 10 hours a day for five years to build one of these temples.

vii. Under the orders of the ruler, the common people were engaged in the work of quarrying stones, bringing metal minerals, making bricks from clay and laying them in the temple, and travelling to distant lands to bring materials suitable for the temple.

4. Temple construction art and technology development

i. Under the orders of the ruler, the common people were engaged in works such as digging stones, bringing metal minerals, preparing bricks from clay and using them in the temple .

ii. Use of bronze tools for crafts, architects learnt to make brick pillars, beams to support the load of roofs of large rooms, clay cones were made and baked .

iii. Great success was also achieved in the field of sculpture.

iv. An important change in technology, one that proved extremely useful for the urban economy, was the invention of the potter’s wheel, which allowed dozens of identical pots to be easily produced .

Urban life and social order

i. Class had emerged in the social system and most of the wealth was concentrated in a small section.

ii. Example - Precious things like jewellery, gold vessels, shells, ornaments, wooden musical instruments, all these were found buried in large quantities with the kings and queens of Ur in their graves or mausoleums but the condition of the common man was not like this.

iii. Legal documents show that the nuclear family was the norm in Mesopotamian society.

iv. The father was the head of the family; a married son and his family often lived with his parents.

v. The intention to marry was announced and the bride's parents gave their consent to the marriage. Thereafter the groom's side gave gifts to the bride .

vi. When the marriage rituals were completed, gifts were exchanged by both the parties .

vii. They used to sit together and have a meal, then go to the temple and make offerings.

Features of the city of Uruk

i. Was one of the oldest temple-towns .

ii . From here we get pictures of armed heroes and the enemies they killed .

iii. Archaeological surveys have revealed that around 3000 BC the city of Uruk expanded to cover 250 hectares of land .

iv. A strong rampart had been built around the city of Uruk quite early to protect it.

v. The city of Uruk existed from about 4200 BC to about 400 AD, and during that period it expanded to cover about 400 hectares by about 2800 BC.

v. Uruk made a special contribution in the field of culture, art and religion. There were many important cultural sites and temples here .

vii. It developed as a centre of trade, business, market and social activities .

viii. It was twice the size of Mohenjodaro city at that time .

Features of Ur City

1. Lack of a system of town planning

It was one of the towns first excavated in the 1930s.
There, crooked and narrow streets were found where vehicles could not reach.
Sacks of grain and fuel pits were probably brought to the house on donkeys.

2. Drainage

Drains and clay pipes have been found in the inner courtyards of houses in the city of Ur. Rainwater was diverted to cisterns built in the courtyards.
All the garbage was thrown out in the streets, where it would get crushed under the feet of people passing by.
The thresholds of the houses were also made high so that mud would not flow inside the houses after rain.
Light inside the rooms did not come from windows, but through doors that opened into the courtyard. This also ensured privacy among the families living in the houses.

3. Superstition

Things related to omens and bad omens have been found written on the tablets found in Ur
For example, if the threshold of the house is raised high, it brings wealth
If the front door does not open towards someone else's house, it brings good luck
If the wooden main door of the house opens outwards then the wife will become a cause of torture for her husband.
Ur had a cemetery for the townspeople, in which the tombs of rulers and common people were found
Some people were even found buried under the floors of ordinary houses.

Rulers and government

Gilmanish ruled the city of Uruk sometime after Enmerkar. He was a great warrior who conquered and subjugated distant regions .
The Assyrian ruler Ashur Banipal brought many clay tablets from Babylonia and set up a library .
Nabopolassar liberated Babylonia from Assyrian occupation in 625 BC. The period division was adopted by Alexander's successors .
After this it reached Rome and the Islamic world and later Europe .

a trading town in a pastoral region

1. Mari Nagar

After 2000 BC the city of Mari flourished as a royal capital.
The city of Mari was located upstream of the Euphrates River where agricultural production was low
Although there were both farmers and cattle herders in the Mari state, most of them were engaged in sheep and goat herding.
Pastoralists obtained goods from their animals and their cheese, leather, and meat in exchange for grains and metal tools.

2. Struggle between nomads and farmers

There were frequent fights between farmers and shepherds because shepherds used to damage the crops by letting their sheep and goats pass through the fields sown by the farmers.
People living in the settlements also blocked the path of these herders and did not allow them to take their animals to the river or canal.
Shepherd nomads would often attack farmers' villages and loot the goods they had collected.
Hordes of nomadic communities came from the western desert as shepherds, harvesters, or mercenaries, and after becoming prosperous, they settled here.
Some of them even gained the power to establish their own rule. These nomadic people were of Akkadian, Amorite, Assyrian and Armenian origin.
The kings of Mari belonged to the Amorite community. The kings of Mari belonged to the Amorite community, their dress was different from that of the natives there, along with respecting the gods and goddesses of Mesopotamia, they also respected Dagon, the god of the steppe region.

3. Features of Mari Nagar

Mari Nagar emerged as an urban center that prospered on the strength of trade
Mari city was located at a very important trading place
Through which wood, copper, resin, oil, wine were traded through Navo via the Euphrates River
Ships carrying grinding stones, vikarma, timber and casks of wine and oil used to stop at Mari
Trade extended to the south and to Türkiye, Syria and Lebanon
About 10 per cent charge had to be paid for taking out the goods from Murree
The Mari kingdom was not so strong militarily, but it was unique in terms of trade and prosperity.

inundation

According to the Bible, this flood was going to destroy all life on earth
But God chose a man named Noah to preserve life on earth even after the flood
He built a very large boat and kept a pair of each animal in it . When the flood came, everything else was destroyed, but all the pairs kept in the boat remained safe.
A similar story is also found in the traditional literature of Mesopotamia . The main character of this story is
were called Jyushudra or Utnapishtim

Importance of Mesopotamia to Europeans

Mesopotamia was important to Europeans  because it is mentioned in several contexts in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible
The Book of Genesis in the Old Testament mentions Shimar,  meaning the land of Sumerian brick cities.
European travelers and scholars  considered Mesopotamia as the land of their ancestors  and when archaeological discoveries began in this region,  attempts were made to prove the truth of the Old Testament.

time calculation

Mesopotamia's greatest contribution to the world is the scholarly tradition of chronology and mathematics.
Many such tablets have been found around 1800 BC which contain information on multiplication and division tables, squares and square roots .
according to the orbit of the moon around the earth

1. Division of 1 year into 12 months

2. Division of 1 month into 4 weeks

3. Division of 1 day into 24 hours

4. Division of 1 hour into 60 minutes

Which is still a part of our lives .
We have got this chronology from the Mesopotamians .

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