Introduction

• City life began in Mesopotamia, located between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in present-day Iraq.
• Mesopotamia is renowned for its prosperity, city culture, rich literature, mathematics, and astronomy.
• Its writing system spread to regions like the eastern Mediterranean, northern Syria, Turkey, and Egypt after 2000 BCE.
• Early Mesopotamia was called Sumer and Akkad, with the southern area later known as Babylonia (post-2000 BCE) and the north as Assyria (from 1100 BCE).
• Sumerian, the first known language, was replaced by Akkadian around 2400 BCE, and Aramaic became widespread after 1000 BCE.
• Archaeology began in the 1840s, with key sites like Uruk and Mari undergoing long-term excavations. Thousands of artifacts and written documents have been uncovered.
• Mesopotamia was significant to Europeans due to references in the Old Testament, such as Sumer (“Shimar”) being described as a land of brick-built cities.
• By the 1960s, scholars recognized that Biblical stories, while not literally true, might represent memories of historical changes.
• Archaeological techniques became more advanced, shifting focus to ordinary lives rather than proving Biblical narratives.

Mesopotamia and its Geography

• Iraq’s environments are diverse:

  • North-east: Green plains, tree-covered mountains, clear streams, and sufficient rainfall for crops; agriculture began here between 7000-6000 BCE.
  • North: Upland steppe, ideal for animal herding (sheep and goats) after winter rains.
  • East: Tributaries of the Tigris provided routes into Iran’s mountains.
  • South: Desert, where cities and writing first emerged due to fertile silt deposited by flooding rivers.

• The Euphrates and Tigris rivers enabled agriculture through irrigation from small channels, producing crops like wheat, barley, peas, and lentils.

• Southern Mesopotamian agriculture was highly productive despite insufficient rainfall.

• Livestock in the steppe and mountains supplied abundant meat, milk, and wool, while fish and dates added to food resources.

• Cities grew not just from rural prosperity, but due to other factors, which are explored further.

The Significance of Urbanism

• Cities and towns are defined by economic diversification beyond food production, including trade, manufactures, and services.
• Urban populations depend on specialization and the products or services of others, fostering continuous interaction.
• Division of labor is key:
  • A stone seal carver needs bronze tools and coloured stones, neither of which he produces or acquires himself.
  • A bronze tool maker requires copper, tin, and charcoal, supplied through organized systems.
• Urban social organization ensures coordination:
  • Trade and storage manage the inflow of materials like fuel, metals, wood, and food from villages and other regions.
  • Activities like seal cutting depend on the availability of multiple resources, requiring central planning.
• Command structures emerge for coordination, along with the necessity of written records to manage complex economies.

Movement of Goods into Cities

• Mesopotamia lacked stones for tools, seals, or jewels in most southern areas.
• The wood of date-palm and poplar was unsuitable for carts, wheels, or boats.
• There were no metals for tools, vessels, or ornaments.
• Mesopotamians likely traded textiles and agricultural produce for wood, metals, and stones from Turkey, Iran, and across the Gulf, regions with fewer agricultural opportunities.
• Trade required social organization to equip expeditions and manage exchanges.
• Efficient transport was vital for urban viability.
• Water transport via river boats or barges was cheaper and more sustainable than land transport involving pack animals or carts.
• Canals and natural channels served as key routes for goods between settlements.

The Development of Writing

• All societies have languages where certain spoken sounds convey specific meanings, forming verbal communication.
• Writing is also verbal communication, representing spoken sounds through visible signs.
• The first Mesopotamian tablets (c. 3200 BCE) had picture-like signs and numbers, listing goods such as oxen, fish, and bread loaves, mainly from the temples of Uruk.
• Writing began to maintain records of transactions due to the complexity of city life involving various goods, people, and times.
• Mesopotamians used clay tablets for writing:
  • Clay was wet, shaped, and smoothed.
  • A reed stylus made wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs.
  • Once dried, the tablets became as durable as pottery but couldn’t be reused.
• Tablets were discarded after their purpose ended, leading to a large archaeological record.
• By 2600 BCE, the script became cuneiform, and the language was Sumerian.
• Writing expanded to include:
  • Dictionaries
  • Land transfer records
  • Royal deeds
  • Legal changes by kings
• Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian after 2400 BCE, with cuneiform in use until the first century CE, spanning over 2,000 years.

The System of Writing

• A cuneiform sign represented syllables (e.g., put, la, in) rather than single consonants or vowels like m or a in the English alphabet.
• Mesopotamian scribes had to learn hundreds of signs.
• Writing required handling a wet clay tablet and completing the text before it dried.
• Writing was a skilled craft and a significant intellectual achievement, enabling the visual representation of a language’s sound system.

Literacy

• Few Mesopotamians could read and write due to the hundreds of complex signs involved.
• If a king could read, it was often boastfully recorded in inscriptions.
• Writing largely mirrored spoken language.
• Letters from officials to the king were structured for oral presentation, starting with phrases like:
  “To my lord A, speak: … Thus says your servant B: …”
• A mythical poem on creation emphasized oral transmission:
  “Let these verses be held in remembrance … let the father repeat them to his sons … let the herdsman hear them.”

The Uses of Writing

• The connection between city life, trade, and writing is illustrated in a Sumerian epic about Enmerkar, ruler of Uruk, the city known as The City.
• The epic describes early trade when it was not yet known.
• Enmerkar sent a messenger to obtain lapis lazuli and precious metals from Aratta for a temple.
• The messenger traveled by stars at night and sun by day, crossing multiple mountain ranges to reach Aratta.
• After repeated unsuccessful trips, the messenger grew weary, mixing up threats and promises.
• Enmerkar then created a clay tablet to record the words, marking the first use of writing in the story.
• The chief of Aratta examined the tablet, seeing the words as “nails,” signifying the power of writing.
• The epic implies that kingship organized trade and writing, and writing symbolized the superiority of urban Mesopotamian culture.

Urbanisation in Southern Mesopotamia: Temples and Kings

• From 5000 BCE, settlements began to develop in southern Mesopotamia, leading to the emergence of cities of various kinds: temple-based, trade-based, and imperial.
• Early settlers built and rebuilt temples using unbaked bricks, with temples dedicated to gods like the Moon God of Ur and Inanna.
• Temples became larger over time, featuring several rooms around open courtyards, and were considered the house of a god.
• People brought grain, curd, and fish to temples as offerings, with the god being seen as the owner of local fields, fisheries, and herds.
• Over time, temples began to organize the processing of produce like oil pressing, grain grinding, and spinning, thus developing into the main urban institution.
• Despite natural fertility, agriculture faced challenges like flooding and the diversion of water by upstream communities, leading to conflicts over land and water.
• War leaders, through victories, started offering loot to gods, beautifying temples, and organizing wealth distribution efficiently through written records, raising the king’s status and authority.
• Leaders encouraged the settlement of people near them to quickly assemble armies, while also providing safety within the growing urban centers.
• Uruk, one of the earliest temple towns, grew to 250 hectares around 3000 BCE, with a defensive wall and a major population shift.
• War captives and locals were employed for the temple or ruler, receiving rations as payment.
• Technical advances emerged in Uruk, such as the use of bronze tools, brick columns, and potter’s wheels, enabling the mass production of similar pots.
• Imported stone was used for sculptures, and clay cones were baked to create colorful mosaics on temple walls.

Life in the City

• A ruling elite emerged in Mesopotamian society, with a small section holding significant wealth, evident from the riches buried with kings and queens at Ur.
• Ordinary people, as seen in legal texts concerning disputes and inheritance, lived in nuclear families, with the father as the head of the household.
• Marriage procedures involved a declaration of willingness to marry, followed by parental consent and a gift exchange between the bride and groom’s families.
• When the bride left for her husband’s home, she received her inheritance share from her father, while the sons inherited the father’s property.
• Ur, one of the earliest cities excavated, had narrow winding streets, making it difficult for wheeled carts to access many houses. Grain and firewood were transported by donkey-back.
• House plots lacked town planning, and street drains were absent, unlike in Mohenjo-daro. Drains were instead found in inner courtyards, with roofs sloping inward to channel rainwater into sumps.
• People disposed of household refuse by sweeping it into the streets, leading to the rising of street levels, and house thresholds had to be raised to prevent mud from entering during rains.
• Light entered homes through doorways into courtyards, providing both light and privacy.
• Superstitions about houses were recorded on omen tablets: a raised threshold signified wealth, a door not facing another house was lucky, and an outward-opening door meant the wife would be a torment to her husband.
• A town cemetery at Ur contained graves of both royalty and commoners, with some individuals buried under the floors of ordinary houses.

A Trading Town in a Pastoral Zone

• After 2000 BCE, the royal capital of Mari flourished, located upstream on the Euphrates, far from the southern plains with their productive agriculture.
• Agriculture and animal rearing coexisted in Mari, with some communities practicing both farming and pastoralism. However, most of the territory was used for pasturing sheep and goats.
• Herders exchanged animals, cheese, leather, and meat for grain, metal tools, and manure. Conflicts arose when shepherds crossed sown fields with their flocks or raided agricultural villages.
• Nomadic communities from the western desert often filtered into the agricultural regions, becoming herders, labourers, or hired soldiers. Some gained power, establishing their own rule, such as the Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians, and Aramaeans.
• The kings of Mari were Amorites, distinct in dress from the native inhabitants. They respected the gods of Mesopotamia but also built a temple to Dagan, the god of the steppe, showing an openness to various cultures.
• The kings of Mari had to remain vigilant, watching the herders who moved in and out of the kingdom. Communication between herder camps, such as fire signals, indicated potential raids or attacks.
• Mari’s location on the Euphrates made it a prime center for trade between the southern cities and the mineral-rich uplands of Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.
• Boats carrying wood, copper, tin, oil, wine, and other goods would stop at Mari, where officers would inspect the cargo and charge a toll of one-tenth the value of the goods.
• Important trade goods included copper from Alashiya (Cyprus) and tin, essential for making bronze tools and weapons.
• Although Mari was not militarily strong, it was exceptionally prosperous due to its strategic trade position.

Cities in Mesopotamian Culture

• Mesopotamians valued city life, where people from many communities and cultures lived side by side.
• After cities were destroyed in war, they were often remembered and celebrated in poetry.
• A poignant example of this pride is found at the end of the Gilgamesh Epic, written on twelve tablets.
• Gilgamesh, who ruled Uruk after Enmerkar, was a great hero who subdued distant peoples.
• Upon the death of his heroic friend, Gilgamesh set out to discover the secret of immortality, crossing the waters that surrounded the world.
• After failing to find immortality, Gilgamesh returned to Uruk, where he walked along the city wall, reflecting on its greatness.
• He admired the foundations made of fired bricks that he had contributed to.
• The epic ends with Gilgamesh finding consolation in the city that his people had built, rather than in the legacy of sons, unlike a tribal hero.

The Legacy of Writing

• While oral traditions can transmit stories, science requires written texts for future generations to read and build upon.
• One of the greatest legacies of Mesopotamia is its scholarly tradition, particularly in time reckoning and mathematics.
• Around 1800 BCE, Mesopotamians created tablets containing:
  • Multiplication and division tables
  • Square and square-root tables
  • Compound interest tables
• The square root of 2 was written as:
  1 + 24/60 + 51/60² + 10/60³.
• The calculation of the square root of 2 (1.41421296) is slightly off from the exact value (1.41421356), showcasing the accuracy of Mesopotamian mathematics.
• Students were tasked with solving problems like determining the volume of water covering a field.
• Time divisions we use today, such as:
  • 12 months based on the lunar cycle
  • 4 weeks in a month
  • 24 hours in a day
  • 60 minutes in an hour
    were all developed by the Mesopotamians.
• These divisions were passed down to:
  • Alexander’s successors
  • the Roman Empire
  • the Islamic world
  • medieval Europe.
• Eclipses, and positions of stars were systematically recorded with year, month, and day annotations.
• These scientific advancements were facilitated by writing and the urban institution of schools, where students copied texts and learned to build upon earlier knowledge.
• There were efforts to preserve and locate historical texts and traditions in Mesopotamia