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The main characteristic of the ancient civilization of the interfluve. A Brief History of Mesopotamia. Ancient cities of Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia- one of the great civilizations of the Ancient World that existed in the Middle East, in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Conditional chronological framework - from the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. (epoch Uruk) to October 12, 539 BC e. ("Fall of Babylon"). At different times, the kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria were located here.

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From IV millennium BC. e. and up to the 13th century. n. e. in Mesopotamia were the largest [ ] cities with the largest number of adjacent settlements. In the Ancient World, Babylon was synonymous with the World City. Mesopotamia prospered under Assyrian and Babylonian rule, and then under Arab domination. From the time of the appearance of the Sumerians and until the fall of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, 10% of the population of the entire Earth lived on the territory of the Mesopotamian lowland. Mesopotamia is attributed to one of the oldest centers of civilization in the 4th - 3rd millennium BC. e., who formed the ancient city-states, including the Sumerian cities of Kish, Uruk (biblical Erech), Ur, Lagash, Umma, the Semitic city of Akshak, the Amorite / Sumerian city of Larsa, as well as the states of Akkad, Assyria and at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC e. - Babylonia. Later, the territory of Mesopotamia was part of Assyria (IX-VII centuries BC), the Neo-Babylonian kingdom (VII-VI centuries BC).
Perhaps the most significant thing about the history of Mesopotamia is that its beginning coincides with the beginning of world history. The first written documents belong to the Sumerians. It follows that history in the proper sense began in Sumer and may have been created by the Sumerians.
However, writing did not become the only determining factor in the beginning of a new era. The most important achievement was the development of metallurgy to the point where society had to create new technologies in order to continue its existence. The deposits of copper ores were far away, so the need to obtain this vital metal led to the expansion of geographical horizons and a change in the very pace of life.
Historical Mesopotamia existed for almost twenty-five centuries, from the beginning of writing to the conquest of Babylonia by the Persians. But even after that, foreign domination could not destroy the cultural independence of the country. The Greek word "Mesopotamia" refers to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates. Just the existence of two rivers - the Tigris and the Euphrates - should be considered the main topographic feature of Mesopotamia. The late flood of the rivers forced people to build dams, dams, in order to save seedlings. In addition, in the conditions of standing heat, the water quickly evaporated, leading to soil salinization. Note that the Euphrates silt was far inferior in its fertility to the Nile, clogging the canals as well. The southern part of the interfluve, which became the cradle of Mesopotamian civilization, was a place where the rays of the scorching sun made the soil hard, like a stone, or it was hidden under the sands of the desert. From swamps, huge puddles of stagnant water came the danger of epidemics. Lev Mechnikov, who authored the book “Civilization and Great Historical Rivers”, published in Paris in 1889, considered it necessary to emphasize “that here, too, history turned away from fertile countries ... under the threat of the most terrible misfortunes, they were forced to complex and wise coordination of their individual efforts. Unlike the regular Nile floods, the floods of the Euphrates and the Tigris did not differ in periodicity, which determined the more significant and permanent nature of human labor in creating irrigation.
In general, from the point of view of L. Mechnikov, historical rivers were the great educators of mankind. “All these rivers have one remarkable characteristic that can explain the secret of their outstanding historical role. All of them turn the areas they irrigate either into fertile granaries or infectious swamps .... The specific geographical environment of these rivers could be turned to the benefit of man only by the collective, severely disciplined work of large masses of the people ... ". L. Mechnikov considered significant the idea that the reason for the emergence, the nature of primitive institutions, their subsequent evolution should be seen not in the environment itself, but in the relationship between the environment and the ability of the people inhabiting this environment to cooperate and solidarity.
Mass archaeological studies of traces of the most ancient settlements of Lower Mesopotamia indicate that in the process of improving local irrigation systems, residents moved from more than small settlements of large family communities to the center of the nomes, where the main temples were located. At the beginning of the second quarter of the III millennium BC. e. city walls become an attribute of densely populated spaces around the main temples.
In accordance with another point of view, the rise of civilization was determined by the interaction of the settled population of the villages and the nomads of the Mesopotamian region. Despite the mutual suspicion and even hostility inherent in relations between settled communities and nomads, the latter, due to their mobility, pastoral lifestyle, occupied an important place in the life of the inhabitants of agricultural settlements, being necessary for communication, trade, raising livestock, possessing valuable information. Constant migrations allowed the nomads to keep abreast of political events in different places, to have information about the availability of certain resources, to act as intermediaries in the exchange of goods and ideas between the settled inhabitants of the mountainous regions and the Mesopotamian plain.

Chronology of events
- Middle of the 4th millennium BC e.- The Uruk era in Southern Mesopotamia, the beginning of the Bronze Age. Formation of the foundations of the Sumerian civilization, the formation of nomes, the first archives of economic documents written with pictographic signs (for example, the Tablet from Kish), deepening social inequality, the development of temple farms, proto-cities, the urban revolution, the Sumerian colonies in Upper Mesopotamia (Khabuba Kabira, Jebel Aruda), monumental temple buildings, cylinder seals, etc. In Upper Mesopotamia - the beginning of the Bronze Age, the formation of proto-cities on a local basis (Tell Brak), Sumerian colonies.
- End of IV - beginning of III millennium BC. e.- Jemdet Nasr period in Southern Mesopotamia. Completion of the formation of the nome system, deepening of social differentiation, images of leaders; towards the end of the period - the emergence of early states and dynasties of Sumer.
- XXVIII - XXIV centuries. BC e.- Early Dynastic period (abbreviated: RD) in Mesopotamia. The heyday of the Sumerian civilization - cities, states, writing, monumental structures, irrigation systems, crafts, trade, science, literature, etc. It is divided into three stages: RD I, RD II and RD III.
- XXVIII - XXVII centuries. BC e.- the first stage of the Early Dynastic period (abbreviated: RD I). Rise of archaic Ur. Hegemony of Kish in Sumer. Prominent kings (lugali) of the 1st dynasty of Kish - Etana, En-Mebaragesi. The legendary rulers of the 1st dynasty of Uruk are Meskianggasher (son of the god Utu), Lugalbanda, Dumuzi.
- XXVII-XXVI centuries BC e.- the second stage of the Early Dynastic period (abbreviated: RD II). The defeat of the troops of the Kish king Aggi under the walls of Uruk (ruler - Gilgamesh), the fall of the hegemony of Kish. Invasion of the Elamites in Ki-Uri and the ruin of Kish by them and the accession of a new (II) dynasty there. Uruk is the strongest state of Sumer.
- XXVI-XXIV centuries BC e.- the third stage of the Early Dynastic period (abbreviated: RD III). Aggravation of political instability in Sumer. Rise and rise of Ur; tombs of the 1st dynasty. The kings of Ur are the strongest rulers of Sumer. Separation of Lagash from Kish dependence, strengthening of this state under Ur-Nanshe. The rise of Lagash under Eannatum. A series of frontier wars between Lagash and Umma over the fertile Guedinnu Plain. Unification of Ur and Uruk into a single state. Reforms of the Lagash ruler Uruinimgina and the creation of ancient laws by him. Lugalzagesi is the sole ruler of the Sumerian city-states. War between Lugalzagesi and Uruinimgina. Rebellion of the Eastern Semites in Ki-Uri.
- XXIV - XXII centuries. BC e.- Akkadian power in Mesopotamia. The East Semite uprising in Ki-Uri was successful; the leader of the rebellion under the name "True King" (Sargon) defeated a coalition of Sumerian city-states and completely unified Sumer for the first time in history. The capital of Sargon was transferred from Kish to Akkad, after which the new state and the Ki-Uri region itself began to be called Akkad. Strengthening of statehood, the fight against separatism under the successors of Sargon - Rimush and Manishtushu; the heyday of the policy of conquest under Naram-Suen. Drought, separatism, economic recession and movements of the Gutian hill tribes lead to the weakening of Akkad. In the XXII century. - civil strife, loss of independence and the destruction of the Akkadian kingdom by the Gutians.
- 22nd century BC e.- dominion of the Gutians in Mesopotamia. Rise of the Second Dynasty of Lagash; reign of Gudea and his descendants. Utu-hengal's rebellion in Uruk; overthrow of the power of the Gutians.
- XXII - XXI centuries. BC e.- The Sumero-Akkadian kingdom (Power of the III dynasty Ur) is the largest state in Western Asia. After the death of Utuhengal, power passes to Ur-Nammu, Ur becomes the capital. "Sumerian Renaissance". The reign of Shulga is the heyday of the Sumero-Akkadian kingdom. The flourishing of Sumerian literature, architecture, art against the background of the displacement of the Sumerian language by Akkadian in colloquial speech. At the end of the period - the economic crisis, the struggle against the Amorite nomads. The raid of the Elamites in the reign of Ibbi-Suen and the collapse of the state.
- XX - XVI centuries. BC e.- Old Babylonian period in Lower Mesopotamia. On the fragments of the power of the III dynasty of Ur, several states arise, the rulers of which retain the title "King of Sumer and Akkad": These are Issin and Larsa (both in Sumer). Capture by the Amorites of the Mesopotamian city-states, the establishment of Amorite dynasties there. The strongest Amorite kingdoms are Larsa (in Sumer), Babylon (in Akkad), Mari (in Northern Mesopotamia). Rise of Babylon, subjugation of Akkad. The struggle of the Babylonian kings with Larsa for influence in Sumer. The defeat of Larsa and the unification of the Mesopotamian states under Hammurabi. The beginning of the formation of the Babylonian people (from the Sumerians, Akkadians and Amorites). The rapid development of Babylon, turning it into the largest city of Mesopotamia. The flourishing of the economy and culture. Laws of Hammurabi. The weakening of the Babylonian kingdom under subsequent kings. Emergence of the Maritime kingdom in the south. The defeat of the Babylonian kingdom by the Hittites and Kassites in the XVI century.
- XX - XVI centuries. BC e.- Old Assyrian period in Upper Mesopotamia. After the fall of the Sumero-Akkadian kingdom, the ancient nomes - Nineveh, Ashur, Arbela and others - gained independence. International trade through the steppes of the upper Khabur and the future Assyria. The attempts of the early rulers from Ashur to gain a foothold on the trade routes - the formation of the Assyrian state. The rise of Mari, the influence of the Hittite kingdom, the settlement of the Hurrians and Amorites - the crisis of the Upper Mesopotamian trade. Creation by the Amorite leader Shamshi-Adad I of a vast state with its capital in Shubat-Enlil (the so-called "Old Assyrian state"); subjugation to them of a significant part of Upper Mesopotamia. The weakening of the state under the successors of Shamshi-Adad and the subjugation of these lands by Babylon. Formation of the people of the ancient Assyrians on the basis of the Akkadian-speaking population and other Semites of Upper Mesopotamia.
- XVI - XI centuries. BC e.- The Middle Babylonian or Kassite period in the history of Lower Mesopotamia. The capture of Babylonia by the Kassites and the revival of the kingdom of Hammurabi by them within Lower Mesopotamia. The destruction of Primorye. Heyday under Burna-Buriash II. Diplomatic relations with Egypt and the Hittite kingdom. The weakening of the centralization of Babylonia. Migration of a new wave of Semitic-speaking nomads - Arameans. Fall of Babylon.
- XVI - XI centuries. BC e.- Middle Assyrian period in the history of Upper Mesopotamia. Consolidation of the Hurrian world, rise of the Mitanni state. The confrontation between Mitanni, the Hittite kingdom, Babylonia and Egypt in the Middle East. Weakening of Mitanni. First rise of Assyria; its transformation into a major regional power (under Tiglathpalasar I). The sudden decline of Assyria as a result of the Aramaean invasion.
- Frontier II-I millennium BC e.- Catastrophe of the Bronze Age in the Middle East. The decline of all significant states, the movement of numerous tribes - Arameans, Chaldeans, "peoples of the sea", etc. The end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age. Beginning of Aramaicization of Mesopotamia; Aramaic and its dialects begin to displace Akkadian from spoken language.
- X - VII centuries. BC e.- Neo-Assyrian period in Upper Mesopotamia. The economic and military-political rise of Assyria against the background of the decline of its neighbors (the second rise of Assyria). Conquest policy of Ashshurnatsirapal II and Shalmaneser III. Temporary decline of Assyria (late IX - first half of VIII). Reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III and the beginning of the third rise of Assyria; the defeat of the northern Syrian states, the unification of Mesopotamia, the annexation of part of Media. Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon: Assyria is the first "world empire"; annexation of Egypt. Ashurbanapal: suppression of uprisings, civil war and the collapse of the Assyrian state. After the death of Ashurbanipal: war with Babylon, Media and Scythian tribes; destruction of the Assyrian state. The indigenous territory of Assyria is part of the Median power.
- X - VI centuries. BC e.- Neo-Babylonian period in Lower Mesopotamia. The penetration of the Arameans and Chaldeans into the country; crisis of the Babylonian statehood. Union with Assyria (Tiglathpalasar III - the first single king of Assyria and Babylon). Strengthening of the Chaldeans in Lower Mesopotamia, Chaldean rulers in Babylon. Sennacherib and the tightening of policy towards Babylonia. Revolts against Assyria and the destruction of Babylon. Restoration of Babylon by Esarhaddon. Rebellion of Shamash-noise-ukin. The resumption of the Babylonian struggle for independence. The collapse and death of the Assyrian state. Nabopolassar is the first king of the new independent Babylon. Creation of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar II. Economic, political and cultural flourishing of the state. Babylon is the largest city in the world; first metropolis. Domestic political struggle after the death of Nebuchadnezzar II. Nabonidus and the struggle with the priesthood. The war with the Persian state and the transition of the opposition of Nabonidus to the side of the enemy. Battle of Opis. The troops of Cyrus II enter Babylon without a fight.
- October 12, 539 BC e.- Persian troops occupy Babylon. The end of the history of Ancient Mesopotamia as a politically independent region.
Creation of irrigation

This country, separated from the rest of Asia Minor by barely passable deserts, began to be settled around the 6th millennium BC. e. During the VI-IV millennia, the tribes that settled here lived extremely poorly: barley, sown on a narrow strip of land between swamps and a scorched desert and irrigated by unregulated and uneven floods, brought small and unstable crops. The crops did better on lands that were irrigated by canals diverted from the small river Diyala, a tributary of the Tigris. Only in the middle of the IV millennium BC. e. separate groups of communities coped with the creation of rational drainage and irrigation systems in the Euphrates basin.
The basin of the lower Euphrates is a vast flat plain, bounded from the east by the Tigris River, beyond which the spurs of the Iranian mountains stretch, and from the west by the cliffs of the Syrian-Arabian semi-desert. Without proper irrigation and reclamation works, this plain is in places a desert, in places - swampy shallow lakes, bordered by thickets of huge reeds teeming with insects. At present, the desert part of the plain is crossed by ramparts of emissions from canal digging, and if the canal is active, then date palms grow along these ramparts. In some places, clay hills rise above the flat surface - telli and ash - ishans. These are the ruins of cities, more precisely, hundreds of adobe brick houses and temple towers, reed huts and adobe walls coexisting in succession in the same place. However, in ancient times there were no hills or ramparts here. Marshy lagoons occupied much more space than now, stretching across all of what is now southern Iraq, and only in the extreme south came across low-lying deserted islands. Gradually silt the Euphrates, the Tigris and those fleeing from the northeast Elamite rivers(Kerkhe, Karun and Diz; in ancient times they also flowed into the Persian Gulf, like the Tigris with the Euphrates, but at an angle of 90 degrees to the latter) created an alluvial barrier that expanded the territory of the plain by 120 kilometers to the south. Where there used to be swampy estuaries freely communicated with the Persian Gulf (this place was called in ancient times the "Bitter Sea"), now the Shatt al-Arab river flows, in which the Euphrates and the Tigris now merge, which previously each had its own mouth and its own lagoons.
The Euphrates within Lower Mesopotamia was divided into several channels. Of these, the most important were the western, or the Euphrates proper, and the more eastern, Iturungal; from the latter to the lagoon in the southeast, the I-Nina-gena channel departed. The Tigris River flowed further east, but its banks were deserted, except for the place where the Diyala tributary flowed into it.
From each of the main channels in the IV millennium BC. e. several smaller canals were diverted, and with the help of a system of dams and reservoirs, it was possible to retain water on each for regular irrigation of fields throughout the growing season. Thanks to this, yields immediately increased and the accumulation of products became possible. This, in turn, led to the second great division of labor, that is, to the singling out of specialized crafts, and then to the possibility of class stratification, namely, to the singling out of a class of slave owners, on the one hand, and to the widespread exploitation of slave-type servile people and slaves - with another.
At the same time, it should be noted that the extremely hard work of building and clearing canals (as well as other earthworks) was carried out mainly not by slaves, but by community members in the order of duty; every free adult spent an average of a month or two a year on this, and this was the case throughout the history of ancient Mesopotamia. The main agricultural work - plowing and sowing - was also carried out by free community members. Only noble people, invested with power and performing positions that were considered socially important, did not personally participate in duties, did not plow the land.
A massive survey by archaeologists of the traces of the most ancient settlements of Lower Mesopotamia shows that the process of improving local reclamation and irrigation systems was accompanied by the resettlement of residents from scattered, smallest settlements of large family communities to the center of nomes (units of administrative division), where the main temples with their rich granaries and workshops were located. The temples were centers for collecting nome reserve funds; from here, on behalf of the temple administration, trading agents - tamkars - were sent to distant countries to exchange bread and fabrics of Lower Mesopotamia for timber, metals, slaves and slaves. At the beginning of the second quarter of the III millennium BC. e. densely populated areas around the main temples are surrounded by city walls. About 3000 - 2900 years. BC e. temple households are becoming so complex and extensive that accounting for their economic activities was needed. As a result, writing was born.

The emergence of writing

The Sumerians created the first writing system in the foreseeable history of mankind. It's called cuneiform. The history of the creation of cuneiform is documented in Mesopotamia from icons-pictures to signs denoting syllables of speech and abstract concepts. At first, writing in Lower Mesopotamia arose as a system of three-dimensional chips or drawings. They painted on plastic tiles made of clay with the end of a reed stick. Each sign-drawing denoted either the depicted object itself, or any concept associated with this object. For example, the firmament, drawn with strokes, meant "night" and thus also "black", "dark", "sick", "illness", "darkness", etc. The sign of the foot meant "go", "walk", “stand”, “bring”, etc. The grammatical forms of words were not expressed, and it was not necessary, since usually only numbers and signs of countable objects were entered into the document. True, it was more difficult to convey the names of the recipients of the objects, but even here at first it was possible to get by with the names of their professions: the forge denoted a coppersmith, the mountain (as a sign of a foreign country) - a slave, terrace (?) (perhaps, the kind of tribune) - the leader- priest, etc. But soon they began to resort to a rebus: if na meant “stone”, “weight”, then the sign of the weight next to the sign of the leg suggested reading the gene - “walking”, and the sign of the heap - ba - next to the same sign the lip prompted reading - “standing”, etc. Sometimes whole words were written in a rebus way, if the corresponding concept was difficult to convey in a drawing; so, ha (“return, add”) was denoted by the sign of “reed” gi. The process of creating writing took place from about 4000 to 3200 BC. BC e. It took at least 400 years until the letter from a system of purely reminder signs turned into an ordered system of information transmission in time and at a distance. This happened around 2400 BC. e.
By this time, due to the impossibility of quickly drawing curvilinear figures without burrs, etc., on the clay, the signs had already turned into simple combinations of straight lines, in which it was difficult to recognize the original drawing. At the same time, each dash, due to the pressure on the clay with the corner of a rectangular stick, received a wedge-shaped character; hence such writing is called cuneiform. Each sign in cuneiform can have several verbal meanings and several purely sound ones (usually they talk about syllabic meanings of signs, but this is not true: sound values \u200b\u200bcan also mean half a syllable, for example, the syllable bob can be written with two “syllabic” signs: baab; the meaning will be the same , as with one sign of women, the difference is in the convenience of memorization and in saving space when writing signs, but not in reading). Some signs could also be "determinatives", that is, unreadable signs that only indicate which category of concepts the neighboring sign belongs to (wooden or metal objects, fish, birds, professions, etc.); thus facilitating the correct choice of reading from several possible ones.
The study of the language of some later cuneiform inscriptions (from about 2500 BC) and proper names mentioned in the inscriptions (from about 2700 BC) showed scientists that already at that time a population lived in Lower Mesopotamia who spoke (and later wrote) two completely different languages - Sumerian and East Semitic. The Sumerian language, with its bizarre grammar, is not related to any of the languages that have survived to this day. The East Semitic language, which was later called Akkadian or Babylonian-Assyrian, belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasian family of languages. Like a number of other Semitic languages, it died out before the beginning of our era. The Afroasian family (but not its Semitic branch) also belonged to the ancient Egyptian language, and it still includes a number of languages of North Africa, up to Tanganyika, Nigeria and the Atlantic Ocean.
Before the IV millennium BC. e., in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, a population still lived who spoke the Sino-Caucasian languages. After the desertification of the savannas of the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula in the IV millennium BC. e. nomadic peoples who spoke Afroasiatic languages inhabit the Nile Delta, and later the Levant and Mesopotamia. Up to the middle course of the Tigris, Semites and Sumerians mastered simultaneously. The upper course was repeatedly inhabited by Central Asian nomads. Most modern inhabitants of Mesopotamia are genetically descended from the Armenian Highlands. The Hurrians and Hittites left numerous written records in northern Mesopotamia. The Hurrians, presumably, were carriers of the Sino-Caucasian dialects, the Hittite, the oldest written Indo-Aryan language, borrowed the Sumerian cuneiform.
As for the most ancient Mesopotamian written texts (from about 2900 to 2500 BC), they are undoubtedly written exclusively in the Sumerian language. This is evident from the nature of the rebus use of signs: it is obvious that if the word “reed” - gi coincides with the word “return, add” - gi, then we have exactly the language in which such a sound coincidence exists, that is, Sumerian. Nevertheless, apparently, the population of the southern part of Mesopotamia until about 2350 spoke mainly Sumerian, while in the central and northern part of Lower Mesopotamia, along with Sumerian, East Semitic also sounded, in Upper Mesopotamia Hurrian prevailed.
Judging by available data, there was no ethnic hostility between people who spoke these languages, so different from each other. Obviously, at that time people did not yet think in such large categories as monolingual ethnic arrays: they were friends with each other, and smaller units were at enmity - tribes, nomes, territorial communities. All the inhabitants of Lower Mesopotamia called themselves the same - "black-headed" (in Sumerian sang-ngiga, in Akkadian tsalmat-kakkadi), regardless of the language each spoke. Since the historical events of such an ancient time are unknown to us, historians use archaeological periodization to subdivide the ancient history of Lower Mesopotamia. Archaeologists distinguish between the Proto-literate period (2900-2750 BC, with two sub-periods) and the Early Dynastic period (2750-2310 BC, with three sub-periods).
Three archives have come down to us from the Proto-Written Period, with the exception of individual random documents: two (one older, the other younger) from the city of Uruk (now Varka) in the south of Lower Mesopotamia and one, contemporary to the later Uruk, from the settlement Jemdet-Nasr in the north (the ancient name of the city is unknown).

Note that the writing system used in the Proto-writing period was, despite its cumbersomeness, completely identical in the south and north of Lower Mesopotamia. This speaks in favor of the fact that it was created in one center, authoritative enough for the local invention to be borrowed by various nome communities of Lower Mesopotamia, although there was neither economic nor political unity between them and their main canals were separated from each other by strips of desert . This center seems to have been the city of Nippur, located between the south and north of the lower Euphrates plain. Here was the temple of the god Enlil, who was worshiped by all the "blackheads", although each nome had its own mythology and pantheon. Probably, there was once a ritual center of the Sumerian tribal union in the pre-state period. Nippur was never a political center, but it remained an important cult center for a long time.

temple economy

All documents come from the household archive of the temple of Eanna, which belonged to the goddess Inanna, around which the city of Uruk was consolidated, and from a similar temple archive found at the site of Jemdet-Nasr. From the documents it is clear that there were many specialized artisans in the temple economy and many captive slaves and slaves, however, male slaves probably merged with the general mass of people dependent on the temple - in any case, this was undoubtedly the case two centuries later. It also turns out that the community allocated large plots of land to its chief officials - the priest-soothsayer, the chief judge, the senior priestess, and the foreman of commercial agents. But the lion's share went to the priest, who bore the title en.
En was the high priest in those communities where the goddess was revered as the supreme deity; he represented the community before the outside world and headed its council; he also participated in the rite of "sacred marriage", for example with the goddess Inanna of Uruk - a rite that was apparently considered necessary for the fertility of the entire Uruk land. In communities where the supreme deity was a god, there was a priestess-en (sometimes known under other titles), who also participated in the rite of sacred marriage with the corresponding deity.
The land allotted to the enu - ashag-en, or nig-en - gradually became specially temple land; the harvest from it went to the community's reserve insurance fund, for exchange with other communities and countries, for sacrifices to the gods and for the maintenance of the temple staff - its artisans, warriors, farmers, fishermen, etc. (priests usually had their own personal land in communities in addition to the temple) . Who cultivated the land of the nig-en in the Proto-literate period is not yet entirely clear to us; later it was cultivated by helots of various kinds. We are told about this by an archive from a city adjacent to Uruk - an archaic

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" MaintraitsandpeculiaritiesMesopotamia"

Introduction

The study of the culture of ancient peoples is an integral part of culture in our times. The cultural experience accumulated over thousands of years by many peoples is of great importance. The culture of Mesopotamia was distinguished by a rich cultural life: writing, scientific research, art, literature, architecture - all this left us many monuments of its genius and distinctive originality. Many ideas, discoveries, records made by the peoples of Mesopotamia are used today and they are undoubtedly of great importance to scientists in many fields.

"Mesopotamia" means "Land between the rivers" (between the Euphrates and the Tigris). Now, Mesopotamia is understood mainly as a valley in the lower reaches of these rivers, and lands are added to it east of the Tigris and west of the Euphrates. In general, this region coincides with the territory of modern Iraq, with the exception of mountainous regions along the borders of this country with Iran and Turkey.

1. PeculiaritiescultureMesopotamia

The Mesopotamian civilization is one of the oldest in the world. It was in Sumer at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. humanity is leaving the stage of primitiveness and entering the era of antiquity, i.e. from "barbarism" to civilization, creating its own type of culture. The historical conditions for the development of this region determined a number of characteristic features. The culture of Mesopotamia is not homogeneous in composition. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hurrians, Hittites, Elamites and other tribes participated in its creation and development.

The main inhabitants of Mesopotamia were the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Chaldeans in the south; Assyrians, Hurrians and Arameans in the north. The cultures of Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria reached the greatest development and importance.

In the Mesopotamian civilization, urbanization occupies a significant place. At the end of IV millennium BC. e. only in the region of Sumerian Uruk there were 112 small settlements and more than 10 large urban centers. In the III millennium BC. e. all of Mesopotamia was covered with a dense grid of cities. This leads to the folding and development of the administrative apparatus, the priesthood, the creation of a permanent market, the emergence of a wide specialization of artisans in the cities. Cities in Mesopotamia appear as trade and craft centers. Throughout the entire period of antiquity, the coexistence of primitive and ancient culture takes place. Some tribes and villages turned out to be culturally at the stage of primitiveness at the end of the period of antiquity. A special place in Mesopotamia was played by writing. The cuneiform script invented by the Sumerians is the most significant achievement of Mesopotamian culture in the modern sense, since it is precisely from written monuments that it is possible to restore the historical past of Ancient Mesopotamia. The existence of vague ideas in religious beliefs about the afterlife and the transmigration of souls contributed to the fact that the formation of portrait art is not typical for Mesopotamia. All images are conditional. Due to the special geographical position, material culture occupies a special place, which manifested itself in the development of the irrigation system.

2. cultureSumer

The basis of the economy of Sumer was agriculture with a developed irrigation system. Hence it is clear why one of the main monuments of Sumerian literature was the "Agricultural Almanac", containing instructions on farming - how to maintain soil fertility and avoid salinization. Cattle breeding was also important. Sumerian metallurgy reached a high level. Already at the beginning of the III millennium BC. the Sumerians began to manufacture bronze tools, and at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. entered the Iron Age. From the middle of the III millennium BC. potter's wheel is used in the production of dishes. Other crafts are successfully developing - weaving, stone-cutting, blacksmithing. Extensive trade and exchange take place both between the Sumerian cities and with other countries - Egypt, Iran. India, the states of Asia Minor.

The importance of Sumerian writing should be emphasized. The cuneiform script invented by the Sumerians turned out to be the most successful and effective. Improved in the II millennium BC. Phoenicians, it formed the basis of almost all modern alphabets.

The system of religious and mythological ideas and cults of Sumer partly echoes the Egyptian one. In particular, it also contains the myth of a dying and resurrecting god, which is the god Dumuzi. As in Egypt, the ruler of the city-state was declared a descendant of a god and was perceived as an earthly god. At the same time, there were notable differences between the Sumerian and Egyptian systems. So, among the Sumerians, the funeral cult, belief in the afterlife did not acquire great importance. Equally, the priests among the Sumerians did not become a special layer that played a huge role in public life. In general, the Sumerian system of religious beliefs seems to be less complex.

As a rule, each city-state had its own patron god. However, there were gods who were revered throughout Mesopotamia. Behind them stood those forces of nature, the significance of which for agriculture was especially great - sky, earth and water. These were the sky god An, the earth god Enlil and the water god Enki. Some gods were associated with individual stars or constellations. It is noteworthy that in Sumerian writing, the pictogram of a star meant the concept of "god". Of great importance in the Sumerian religion was the mother goddess, the patroness of agriculture, fertility and childbearing. There were several such goddesses, one of them was the goddess Inanna. patroness of the city of Uruk. Some Sumerian myths - about the creation of the world, the global flood - had a strong influence on the mythology of other peoples, including Christian ones.

In the artistic culture of Sumer, architecture was the leading art. Unlike the Egyptians, the Sumerians did not know stone construction and all structures were created from raw brick. Because of the swampy terrain, buildings were erected on artificial platforms - embankments. From the middle of the III millennium BC. The Sumerians were the first to widely use arches and vaults in construction.

The first architectural monuments were two temples, White and Red, discovered in Uruk (end of the 4th millennium BC) and dedicated to the main deities of the city - the god Anu and the goddess Inanna. Both temples are rectangular in plan, with ledges and niches, decorated with relief images in the "Egyptian style". Another significant monument is the small temple of the goddess of fertility Ninhursag in Ur (XXVI century BC). It was built using the same architectural forms, but decorated not only with relief but also with round sculpture. In the niches of the walls there were copper figurines of walking gobies, and on the friezes there were high reliefs of lying gobies. At the entrance to the temple there are two statues of lions made of wood. All this made the temple festive and elegant.

In Sumer, a peculiar type of cult building developed - a ziggurag, which was a stepped, rectangular in plan tower. On the upper platform of the ziggurat there was usually a small temple - "the dwelling of the god." The ziggurat for thousands of years played approximately the same role as the Egyptian pyramid, but unlike the latter, it was not an afterlife temple. The most famous was the ziggurat (“temple-mountain”) in Ur (XXII-XXI centuries BC), which was part of a complex of two large temples and a palace and had three platforms: black, red and white. Only the lower, black platform has survived, but even in this form, the ziggurat makes a grandiose impression.

Sculpture in Sumer was less developed than architecture. As a rule, it had a cult, "initiatory" character: the believer placed a figurine made to his order, most often small in size, in the temple, which, as it were, was praying for his fate. The person was depicted conditionally, schematically and abstractly, without respect for proportions and without a portrait resemblance to the model, often in the pose of a prayer. An example is a female figurine (26 cm) from Lagash, which has mostly common ethnic features.

In the Akkadian period, sculpture changes significantly: it becomes more realistic, acquires individual features. The most famous masterpiece of this period is the copper head of Sargon the Ancient (XXIII century BC), which perfectly conveys the unique traits of the king's character: courage, will, severity. This work, rare in expressiveness, is almost indistinguishable from modern ones.

Sumerian literature reached a high level. In addition to the above-mentioned Agricultural Almanac, the Epic of Gilgamesh became the most significant literary monument. This epic poem tells about a man who saw everything, experienced everything, knew everything and who was close to unraveling the mystery of immortality.

By the end of the III millennium BC. Sumer gradually declines and is eventually conquered by Babylonia.

3. Babylonia

geographicalmesopotamian civilization

Its history is divided into two periods: the Ancient, covering the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, and the New, falling in the middle of the 1st millennium BC.

Ancient Babylonia reaches its highest rise under King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). Two significant monuments remain from his time. The first of them - the Laws of Hammurabi - became the most outstanding monument of ancient Eastern legal thought. 282 articles of the Code of Law cover almost all aspects of the life of Babylonian society and constitute civil, criminal and administrative law. The second monument is a basalt pillar (2 m), which depicts King Hammurabi himself, sitting in front of Shamash, the god of the sun and justice, as well as a part of the text of the famous codex.

New Babylonia reached its highest peak under King Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC). Under him, the famous "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" were built, which became one of the seven wonders of the world. They can be called a grandiose monument of love, since they were presented by the king to his beloved wife in order to alleviate her longing for the mountains and gardens of her homeland.

No less famous monument is also the Tower of Babel. It was the highest ziggurat in Mesopotamia (90 m), consisting of several towers stacked on top of each other, on the top of which was the sanctuary of Marduk, the main god of the Babylonians. Seeing the tower, Herodotus was shocked by its greatness. She is mentioned in the Bible.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder in 1563, inspired by the image of the Colosseum, painted the Tower of Babel. When the Persians conquered Babylonia (VI century BC), they destroyed Babylon and all the monuments in it.

The achievements of Babylonia in astronomy and mathematics deserve special mention. The Babylonian stargazers calculated with amazing accuracy the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth, compiled a solar calendar and a map of the starry sky. The names of the five planets and twelve constellations of the solar system are of Babylonian origin. Astrologers gave people astrology and horoscopes. Even more impressive were the successes of mathematicians. They laid the foundations of arithmetic and geometry, developed a “positional system”, where the numerical value of a sign depends on its “position”, knew how to square a power and extract a square root, created geometric formulas for measuring land.

4. Assyria

The third powerful power of Mesopotamia - Assyria - arose in the 3rd millennium BC, but reached its peak in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. Assyria was poor in resources but rose to prominence due to its geographic location. She found herself at the crossroads of caravan routes, and trade made her rich and great. The capitals of Assyria were successively Ashur, Calah and Nineveh. By the XIII century. BC. it became the most powerful empire in the entire Middle East.

In the artistic culture of Assyria, as in the whole Mesopotamia, architecture was the leading art. The most significant architectural monuments were the palace complex of King Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin and the palace of Ashur-banapala in Nineveh.

Assyrian reliefs also became widely known, decorating the palace premises, the subjects of which were scenes from royal life: cult ceremonies, hunting, military events.

One of the best examples of Assyrian reliefs is the “Great Lion Hunt” from the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, where the scene depicting the wounded, dying and killed lions is filled with deep drama, sharp dynamics and vivid expression.

In the 7th century BC. the last ruler of Assyria, Ashur-banapap, created a magnificent library in Nineveh containing more than 25,000 clay cuneiform tablets. The library has become the largest in the entire Middle East. It contained documents that, to one degree or another, related to the entire Mesopotamia. Among them was kept the above-mentioned "Epic of Gilgamesh".

Mesopotamia, like Egypt, has become a real cradle of human culture and civilization. Sumerian cuneiform and Babylonian astronomy and mathematics are enough to speak of the exceptional significance of Mesopotamian culture.

5.Scientificknowledge

The medicine. According to its content, medicine in Mesopotamia was folk. They used mainly various local herbs, animal products (fat, blood, bones, milk). The texts do not mention any rare and expensive substances. Medical instruments were used only the simplest: spatulas, metal tubes, lancets. Surgical operations were practically not performed (excluding caesarean section). The inhabitants of Mesopotamia believed in the effectiveness of both methods, combining both the use of medicines and the use of magic. There was no clear separation between these two methods: when medical treatment was used, magical procedures were used, and when magical measures were used, the pharmacopoeia was also used. The magical elements used by the practitioner consisted of short spells, using the magic of numbers (7 drops of medicine). Herodotus left his testimony about the level of Mesopotamian medicine: "The Babylonians took their patients to the market in order to find out from passers-by what means they would offer for treatment."

Mathematics. There were 2 types of mathematical texts: mathematical tables and the so-called "problem texts". They became widespread in the Old Babylonian and Seleucid periods (IV-I centuries BC). Mathematical tables were intended for multiplication and division. They also list the squares and cubes that the root was used in calculating compound interest. "Problem texts" contain the solution of specific problems, or a large number of problems were listed (the number could reach up to 200), they are listed from simple to extremely complex.

Astronomy. As for astronomy, the Mesopotamians achieved such successes as in mathematics later. The impetus for the development of astronomy was the introduction of mathematical methods into it. Even in the Sumerian texts, the names of stars and constellations appear: the Moon, the Sun, Sirius, Venus, Ursa Major, the Pleiades (a star cluster in the constellation Taurus). In the II millennium BC. e. astronomical observations were made of the disappearance and appearance of Venus from behind the Sun, but this was mainly due to the compilation of astrological forecasts. Later, specific observations began to be made: the position of the planets, the Moon, and eclipses were calculated; the full moon and the new moon were indicated; the zodiac was compiled and rules were developed for the accurate calculation of the lunisolar calendar; planets were studied - Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn. Astrology. The main source of astrological texts is the library of Ashurbanipal. Texts are divided into 2 types: astrological reports, horoscopes. The predictions covered various areas. However, it cannot be argued that the actions of a particular person are carried out in an exact prescription with a prediction. To prevent predictions, complex purification rituals appear, which were intended to ward off evil. Sometimes skeptical attitudes towards predictions were also noted, but only the king could afford this. As an example, "The Tale of Naram-Suen": "Like a robber, I will act according to my own will." In general, for the development of science in ancient Mesopotamia, it is necessary to note: its practical orientation; use of magical rituals and actions

Conclusion

geographicalmesopotamian civilization

In conclusion, it should be said that the culture of Mesopotamia is one of the oldest centers of human civilization, which with full confidence can be called a highly cultured civilization worthy of the attention of contemporaries.

From the life and activities of the peoples of Mesopotamia, many conclusions and discoveries can be drawn that will help in the search for their ideals and life goals. The contribution that they made to world culture will never be forgotten, and for many years will contribute to the development of human culture.

WITHsqueakusedliterature

1. Samuel Hook. Mythology of the Middle East. - M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2005.

2. Cultural studies. Tutorial. - M.: Unity, 2005.

3. Civilization of the Renaissance. Jean Delumeau 2006

4.Journey to Ancient Sumer. Mayorova N. 2010

5. Theory of culture. (Tutorial) Ed. Ikonnikova S.N., Bolshakova V.P. 2008

6. https://www.livelib.ru/tag

postedon theallbest.ru

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MESOPOTAMIA
ANCIENT CIVILIZATION
Mesopotamia is the country where the oldest civilization in the world arose, which lasted approx. 25 centuries, from the time of the creation of writing and ending with the conquest of Babylon by the Persians in 539 BC.
Geographical position."Mesopotamia" means "Land between the rivers" (between the Euphrates and the Tigris). Now, Mesopotamia is understood mainly as a valley in the lower reaches of these rivers, and lands are added to it east of the Tigris and west of the Euphrates. In general, this region coincides with the territory of modern Iraq, with the exception of mountainous regions along the borders of this country with Iran and Turkey. Most of the elongated valley, especially the whole of Lower Mesopotamia, was covered for a long time by sediments brought by both rivers from the Armenian Highlands. Over time, fertile alluvial soils began to attract the population of other regions. Since ancient times, farmers have learned to compensate for scarce rainfall by creating irrigation facilities. The absence of stone and wood gave impetus to the development of trade with lands rich in these natural resources. The Tigris and Euphrates turned out to be convenient waterways connecting the Persian Gulf region with Anatolia and the Mediterranean. The geographical position and natural conditions allowed the valley to become a center of attraction for peoples and an area for the development of trade.
Archaeological monuments. The first information of Europeans about Mesopotamia goes back to such classical authors of antiquity as the historian Herodotus (5th century BC) and the geographer Strabo (turn of AD). Later, the Bible contributed to interest in the location of the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel and the most famous cities of Mesopotamia. In the Middle Ages, notes about the journey of Benjamin Tudelsky (12th century) appeared, containing a description of the location of ancient Nineveh on the banks of the Tigris opposite Mosul, which flourished in those days. In the 17th century the first attempts were made to copy tablets with texts (as it turned out later, from Ur and Babylon) written in cuneiform characters, which later became known as cuneiform. But systematic large-scale studies with careful measurements and descriptions of the surviving fragments of monuments fall on the beginning of the 19th century; in particular, such works were undertaken by the English traveler and politician Clodis James Rich. Soon the visual examination of the surface of the monuments gave way to excavations of cities. During the excavations carried out in the middle of the 19th century. near Mosul, amazing Assyrian monuments were discovered. After unsuccessful excavations in 1842 on the Kuyunjik hill (part of ancient Nineveh) in 1843, the French expedition led by Paul Emil Botha continued to work in Khorsabad (ancient Dur-Sharrukin), the majestic but short-lived capital of Assyria under Sargon II. Great successes were achieved by a British expedition led by Sir Austin Henry Layard, who, from 1845, excavated two other Assyrian capitals - Nineveh and Kalah (modern Nimrud). The excavations sparked a growing interest in Mesopotamian archeology and, most importantly, led to the final decipherment of Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian) cuneiform writing. The beginning was laid in 1802 by the German scientist Georg Friedrich Grotefend, who was trying to read the ancient Iranian text on a trilingual inscription from Iran. It was an alphabetic cuneiform script with a relatively small number of characters, and the language was a dialect of the well-known Old Persian. The second column of the text was written in Elamite in a syllabic script containing 111 characters. The writing system in the third column was even more difficult to understand, as it contained several hundred characters representing both syllables and words. The language coincided with the language of the inscriptions found in Mesopotamia, i.e. with Assyro-Babylonian (Akkadian). The numerous difficulties that arose when trying to read these inscriptions did not stop the British diplomat Sir Henry Rawlinson, who was trying to decipher the signs. Findings of new inscriptions at Dur-Sharrukin, Nineveh and other places ensured the success of his research. In 1857, four Assyriologists meeting in London (Rawlinson was among them) received copies of the newly discovered Akkadian text. When their translations were compared, it turned out that they coincided in all major positions. The first success in deciphering the Akkadian writing system - the most common, centuries-old and complex of all cuneiform systems - led to the suggestion that these texts could certify the veracity of biblical texts. Because of this, interest in the plates has greatly increased. The main goal was not the discovery of things, artistic or written monuments, but the restoration of the appearance of bygone civilizations in all their connections and details. Much in this regard has been done by the German archaeological school, whose main achievements were the excavations under the direction of Robert Koldewey in Babylon (1899-1917) and Walter André in Ashur (1903-1914). Meanwhile, the French were doing similar work in the south, primarily in Tello (ancient Lagash), in the heart of ancient Sumer, and the Americans in Nippur. In the 20th century, between the world wars, many new monuments were explored. Among the major discoveries of this period are the Anglo-American excavations at Ur, probably made especially famous by the finds in the so-called Royal Necropolis, with its incredibly rich, if often cruel, evidence of Sumerian life in the 3rd millennium BC; German excavations in Varka (ancient Uruk, biblical Erech); the beginning of French excavations at Mari on the Middle Euphrates; the work of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago at Tell Asmar (ancient Eshnunna), as well as at Khafaj and Khorsabad, where the French began excavations almost a century earlier; excavations by the American School of Oriental Research (Baghdad) at Nuzi (jointly with Harvard University) and at Tepe Gavre (jointly with the University of Pennsylvania). After World War II, the Iraqi government began independent excavations, mainly in the south of the country.
BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
ethnic groups. Mesopotamia from ancient times was supposed to attract both temporary and permanent settlers - from the mountains in the northeast and north, from the steppes in the west and south, from the sea in the southeast. Before the advent of writing c. 3000 BC it is difficult to judge the ethnic map of the area, although archeology provides abundant evidence that all of Mesopotamia, including the alluvial valley of the south, was inhabited long before writing arose. Evidence of earlier cultural stages is fragmentary, and their validity, as one immerses oneself in antiquity, becomes more and more doubtful. Archaeological finds do not allow us to determine their belonging to one or another ethnic group. Bone remains, sculptural or pictorial images cannot serve as reliable sources for identifying the population of Mesopotamia in the pre-literate era. We know that in historical times all of Mesopotamia was inhabited by peoples who spoke the languages of the Semitic family. These languages were spoken by the Akkadians in the 3rd millennium BC, by the Babylonians who succeeded them (two groups that originally lived in Lower Mesopotamia), and also by the Assyrians of Central Mesopotamia. All these three peoples are united according to the linguistic principle (which turned out to be the most acceptable) under the name "Akkadians". The Akkadian element has played an important role throughout the long history of Mesopotamia. Another Semitic people who left a noticeable mark in this country were the Amorites, who gradually began to penetrate into Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Soon they created several strong dynasties, among them - I Babylonian, the most famous ruler of which was Hammurabi. At the end of the II millennium BC. another Semitic people appeared, the Arameans, who for five centuries posed a constant threat to the western borders of Assyria. One branch of the Aramaeans, the Chaldeans, came to play such an important role in the south that Chaldea became synonymous with later Babylonia. Aramaic eventually spread as a common language throughout the ancient Near East, from Persia and Anatolia to Syria, Palestine, and even Egypt. It was Aramaic that became the language of administration and commerce. The Arameans, like the Amorites, came to Mesopotamia through Syria, but they came, in all probability, from Northern Arabia. It is also possible that the Akkadians, the first of the known peoples of Mesopotamia, used this route earlier. There were no Semites among the autochthonous population of the valley, which was established for Lower Mesopotamia, where the Sumerians were the predecessors of the Akkadians. Outside Sumer, in Central Mesopotamia and further north, traces of other ethnic groups have been found. The Sumerians represent in many respects one of the most significant and at the same time mysterious peoples in the history of mankind. They laid the foundation for the civilization of Mesopotamia. The Sumerians left an important mark on the culture of Mesopotamia - in religion and literature, legislation and administration, science and technology. The world owes the invention of writing to the Sumerians. By the end of the III millennium BC. the Sumerians lost their ethnic and political significance. Among the most famous peoples who played an important role in the ancient history of Mesopotamia, the most ancient and at the same time constant neighbors of the Sumerians were the Elamites. They lived in the southwest of Iran, their main city was Susa. From the time of the early Sumerians until the fall of Assyria, the Elamites occupied a prominent political and economic place in Mesopotamian history. The middle column of a trilingual inscription from Persia is written in their language. However, it is unlikely that they were able to penetrate far into Mesopotamia, since signs of their habitation have not been found even in Central Mesopotamia. The Kassites are the next important ethnic group, immigrants from Iran, the founders of the dynasty that replaced the I Babylonian. They lived in the south until the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC, but in the texts of the 3rd millennium BC. are not mentioned. Classical authors mention them under the name of the Cossians, at that time they already lived in Iran, from where, apparently, they came to Babylonia. The surviving traces of the Kassite language are too scarce to be attributed to any language family. The Hurrians played an important role in interregional relations. Mentions of their appearance in the north of Central Mesopotamia date back to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. By the middle of the II millennium BC. they densely populated the region of modern Kirkuk (here information about them was found in the cities of Arrapha and Nuzi), the valley of the Middle Euphrates and the eastern part of Anatolia; Hurrian colonies arose in Syria and Palestine. Initially, this ethnic group probably lived in the Lake Van region next to the pre-Indo-European population of Armenia, the Urartians related to the Hurrians. From the central part of Upper Mesopotamia, the Hurrians in ancient times could easily penetrate into the neighboring regions of the valley. Perhaps the Hurrians are the main, and it is possible that the original ethnic element of pre-Semitic Assyria.
Further to the west lived various Anatolian ethnic groups;
some of them, such as the Hattians, were probably an autochthonous population, others, in particular the Luwians and the Hittites, were the remnants of the migration wave of the Indo-Europeans.
prehistoric cultures. The most important feature of the information about prehistoric Mesopotamia and its surrounding lands is that it is based on a continuous succession of evidence that, layer by layer, leads to the beginning of written history. Mesopotamia demonstrates not only how and why the actual historical period arises, but also what happened in the critical previous period. Man discovered a direct link between sowing and reaping ca. 12 thousand years ago. The period of hunting and gathering was replaced by regular food production. Temporary settlements, especially in fertile valleys, were replaced by long-term settlements in which their inhabitants lived for generations. Such settlements, which can be excavated layer by layer, make it possible to reconstruct the dynamics of development in prehistoric times and trace the progress in the field of material culture step by step. The Near East is dotted with traces of early agricultural settlements. One of the oldest villages found in the foothills of Kurdistan. The settlement of Jarmo, east of Kirkuk, is an example of the application of primitive farming methods. The next stage is represented in Hassun near Mosul with architectural structures and pottery. The Hassunan stage was replaced by the rapidly developing Khalaf stage, which received its name from a settlement on the Kabur, one of the largest tributaries of the Euphrates. The art of pottery production has reached a high level of development in terms of the variety of forms, the quality of the firing of the vessels, the thoroughness of the finishing and the sophistication of the multi-colored ornament. Construction technology has also taken a step forward. Figurines of people and animals were made from clay and stone. People wore not only beads and pendants, but also stamps. The Khalaf culture is of particular interest in connection with the vastness of the territory in which it was distributed - from Lake Van and northern Syria to the central part of Mesopotamia, the environs of modern Kirkuk. By the end of the Khalaf stage, probably from the east, carriers of another culture appeared, which over time spread across the western part of Asia from the deep regions of Iran to the Mediterranean coast. This culture - Obeid (Ubeid), got its name from a small hill in Lower Mesopotamia near the ancient city of Ur. During this period, significant changes occur in many areas, especially in architecture, as evidenced by the buildings at Eridu in southern Mesopotamia and at Tepe Gavre in the north. Since that time, the south has become the center of the development of metallurgy, the emergence and development of cylinder seals, the emergence of markets and the creation of writing. All these were heralds of the beginning of a new historical era. The traditional vocabulary of historical Mesopotamia in terms of geographical names and cultural terms has developed on the basis of various languages. Many toponyms have survived to our time. Among them are the names of the Tigris and Euphrates and most of the ancient cities. The words "carpenter" and "chair", used in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, still function in the Semitic languages to this day. The names of some plants - cassia, cumin, crocus, hyssop, myrtle, nard, saffron and others - date back to the prehistoric stage and demonstrate a striking cultural continuity.
historical period. Perhaps the most significant thing about the history of Mesopotamia is that its beginning coincides with the beginning of world history. The first written documents belong to the Sumerians. It follows that history in the proper sense began in Sumer and may have been created by the Sumerians. However, writing did not become the only determining factor in the beginning of a new era. The most important achievement was the development of metallurgy to the point where society had to create new technologies in order to continue its existence. The deposits of copper ores were far away, so the need to obtain this vital metal led to the expansion of geographical horizons and a change in the very pace of life. Historical Mesopotamia existed for almost twenty-five centuries, from the beginning of writing to the conquest of Babylonia by the Persians. But even after that, foreign domination could not destroy the cultural independence of the country.

The era of Sumerian dominance. During the first three quarters of the III millennium BC. The leading place in the history of Mesopotamia was occupied by the South. In the geologically youngest part of the valley, along the coast of the Persian Gulf and in the adjoining regions, the Sumerians dominated, and upstream, in the later Akkad, the Semites predominated, although traces of earlier settlers are found here. The main cities of Sumer were Eridu, Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Umma and Nippur. The city of Kish became the center of Akkad. The struggle for dominance took the form of rivalry between Kish and other Sumerian cities. Uruk's decisive victory over Kish, a feat attributed to the semi-legendary ruler Gilgamesh, marks the rise of the Sumerians as a major political force and a decisive cultural factor in the region. Later the center of power moved to Ur, Lagash and other places. During this period, called the Early Dynastic period, the main elements of the civilization of Mesopotamia were formed.
Dynasty of Akkad. Although Kish had previously submitted to the expansion of the Sumerian culture, his political resistance put an end to the dominance of the Sumerians in the country. The ethnic core of the opposition was formed by the local Semites under the leadership of Sargon (c. 2300 BC), whose throne name, Sharrukin, in Akkadian meant "lawful king". To break with the past, Sargon moved his capital from Kish to Akkad. The whole country from then on became known as Akkad, and the language of the victors was called Akkadian; it continued to exist in the form of the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects as the state throughout the further history of Mesopotamia. Having consolidated their power over Sumer and Akkad, the new rulers turned to neighboring regions. Elam, Ashur, Nineveh and even regions in neighboring Syria and Eastern Anatolia were subordinated. The old system of a confederation of independent states gave way to an empire that had a system of central authority. With the armies of Sargon and his famous grandson Naram-Suen, cuneiform writing, the Akkadian language and other elements of the Sumero-Akkadian civilization spread.
The role of the Amorites. The Akkadian empire ceased to exist by the end of the 3rd millennium BC, becoming a victim of unrestrained expansion and barbarian invasions from the north and west. About a century later, the vacuum was filled, and under Gudea of Lagash and the rulers of the III dynasty of Ur, a renaissance began. But the attempt to restore the former greatness of Sumer was doomed to failure. Meanwhile, new groups appeared on the horizon, which soon mingled with the local population to create Babylonia on the site of Sumer and Akkad, and in the north - a new state formation, Assyria. These widespread aliens are known as the Amorites. Wherever the Amorites settled, they became devoted followers and protectors of local traditions. After the Elamites put an end to the III dynasty of Ur (20th century BC), the Amorites gradually began to gain strength in the states of Issin, Larsa, Eshnunna. They were able to establish their own dynasty in the central part of Akkad with its capital in the previously little-known city of Babylon. This capital became the cultural center of the region for the entire existence of the Mesopotamian civilization. The first dynasty of Babylon, identified with good reason as the Amorites, ruled for exactly three hundred years, from the 19th to the 16th centuries. BC. The sixth king was the famous Hammurabi, who gradually gained control over the entire territory of Mesopotamia.
Alien invasion. The Amorite dynasty lost control over Babylonia, which it held for a long time, after the capital around the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. was plundered by the Hittite king Mursilis I. This served as a signal for other invaders, the Kassites. At this time, Assyria fell under the rule of Mitanni, a state founded by the Aryans, but inhabited mainly by the Hurrians. Foreign incursions were the result of extensive ethnic movements that occurred in Anatolia, Syria and Palestine. Mesopotamia suffered the least from them. The Kassites held power for several centuries, but soon adopted the Babylonian language and traditions. The revival of Assyria was even more rapid and complete. From the 14th century BC. Assyria was in decline. For a long time, Ashur felt the strength to enter into rivalry with Babylon. The most striking event in the dramatic reign of the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (late 13th century BC) was his conquest of the southern capital. This meant the beginning of a fierce and long struggle between the two powerful states of Mesopotamia. Babylonia could not compete with Assyria in the military field, but felt its cultural superiority over the "northern upstarts." Assyria, for its part, deeply resented these accusations of barbarism. There is no doubt that the historical and cultural traditions of Babylonia have always been a powerful reserve in the struggle waged by this state. Thus, having captured Babylon, Tukulti-Ninurta immediately assumed the ancient title of king of Sumer and Akkad - a thousand years after it was established. This was his own calculation - to add splendor to the traditional title of the king of Assyria.
The Rise and Fall of Assyria. The center of gravity of the further historical development of Mesopotamia, with the exception of the last decades of its independent history, was in Assyria. The very first sign of this process was expansion, first into Iran and Armenia, then into Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, and finally into Egypt. The Assyrian capital moved from Ashur to Kalah, then to Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad), and finally to Nineveh. Among the prominent rulers of Assyria are Ashurnatsirapal II (c. 883-859 BC), Tiglapalasar III (c. 745-727 BC), perhaps the most powerful of them, and the glorious successive rulers - Sargon II (c. 721-705 BC), Sennacherib (c. 704-681 BC), Assargadon (c. 680-669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (c. 668-626 BC) AD). The life of the last three kings was greatly influenced by the wife of Sennacherib - Nakiya-Zakutu, probably one of the most influential queens in history. A powerful political and military state arose as a result of military campaigns in the remote mountainous regions of Iran and Armenia and as a result of the struggle against the stubbornly resisting cities of the Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Israelites, Jews, Egyptians and many other peoples. All this required not only great military efforts, but also economic and political organization, and finally, the ability to control an ever-growing number of heterogeneous subjects. To this end, the Assyrians practiced the deportation of the conquered population. So, after the conquest of the Israeli city of Samaria in 722-721 BC. its population was resettled in the most remote provinces of Assyria, and its place was taken by people who were also driven from various regions and did not have ethnic roots here. Babylonia languished under the Assyrian yoke for a long time, unable to throw it off, but never lost hope of liberation. In the same position was the neighboring Elam. At this time, the Medes, after a long period of formation of their state, conquered Elam and established power over Iran. They offered help to Babylonia in the fight against Assyria, weakened by constant attacks from the north. Nineveh fell in 612 BC, and the conquerors divided the defeated empire. The northern provinces went to the Medes, the southern provinces to the Babylonians, who by that time had become known as the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans, heirs to the traditions of the south, enjoyed a brief prosperity, especially under Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 605-562 BC). The main danger came from Egypt, which saw in the Chaldeans, who had fortified themselves in Syria and Palestine, a constant threat to their borders. In the course of the rivalry between two powerful empires, an independent tiny Judea (the southern kingdom of the Jews) suddenly acquired great strategic importance. The outcome of the battle turned out to be favorable for Nebuchadnezzar, who took Jerusalem a second time in 587 BC. However, the kingdom of the Chaldeans was not destined to have a long life. The Persian armies of Cyrus the Great at that time wrested power over Iran from the Medes, captured Babylon in 539 BC. and thus opened a new chapter in world history. Cyrus himself was keenly aware of the unrequited debt that his country owed to Mesopotamia. Later, when the era of Persian rule was replaced by the era of Hellenism, Alexander the Great, the leader of the Macedonian conquerors, wanted to make Babylon the capital of his new empire.

CULTURE
saterial culture. Ceramics gradually improved in terms of manufacturing techniques, variety of shapes and ornaments, this can be traced from the ancient Jarmo culture through other prehistoric cultures up to the emergence of a single technology for the production of stone and metal vessels. Now it is impossible to say what important discoveries in the field of ceramics were brought to Mesopotamia from outside. A significant advance was the introduction of the closed kiln, which allowed the craftsman to achieve a higher temperature and more easily control it, and as a result to obtain dishes of high quality in shape and finish. Such ovens were first discovered at Tepe Gavre, north of present-day Mosul. In the same settlement, the oldest known samples of carefully made seals-stamps were found. Mesopotamia created the oldest known structures of monumental architecture in the north - in Tepe Gavre, in the south - in Eridu. The high technical level of this time can be judged by the aqueduct in Jervan, approx. 50 km, through which water entered Nineveh. Mesopotamian craftsmen brought metal work to the level of high art. This can be judged by items made of precious metals, remarkable samples of which, dating back to the early dynastic period, were found in burials in Ur, and a silver vase of the Lagash ruler Entemena is also known. Sculpture in Mesopotamia reached a high level of development even in prehistoric times. Cylinder seals with indented images are known, and rolling them on clay made it possible to obtain convex impressions. The reliefs on the stele of Naram-Suen, carefully executed portrait sculptures of the ruler of Lagash, Gudea, and other monuments are examples of a large form of the ancient era. Mesopotamian sculpture reached its highest development in the 1st millennium BC. in Assyria, when colossal figures and exquisite reliefs were created with images of animals, in particular, galloping horses, wild donkeys struck by hunters, dying lionesses. In the same period, magnificent reliefs depicting individual episodes of hostilities were sculpted. Little is known about the development of painting. Murals could not survive due to moisture and soil conditions, but surviving examples from various eras show that this type of art was widespread. Magnificent examples of painted ceramics were found, in particular, in Ashur. They testify that their creators preferred bright colors.

Economy. The economy of Mesopotamia was determined by the natural conditions of the region. The fertile soils of the valley gave rich harvests. The South specialized in date palm cultivation. The vast pastures of the nearby mountains made it possible to keep large herds of sheep and goats. On the other hand, the country felt a shortage of stone, metal, wood, raw materials for the manufacture of dyes and other vital materials. The surplus of some goods and the lack of others led to the development of trade relations.

Religion. The religion of Mesopotamia in all its major moments was created by the Sumerians. Over time, the Akkadian names of the gods began to replace the Sumerian ones, and the personifications of the elements gave way to star deities. Local gods could also lead the pantheon of a particular region, as happened with Marduk in Babylon or Ashur in the Assyrian capital. But the religious system as a whole, the view of the world and the changes taking place in it differed little from the initial ideas of the Sumerians. None of the Mesopotamian deities was the exclusive source of power, none had supreme power. The fullness of power belonged to the assembly of the gods, who, according to tradition, elected the leader and approved all important decisions. Nothing was set forever or taken for granted. But the instability of the cosmos led to intrigues among the gods, and therefore promised danger and gave rise to anxiety among mortals. At the same time, there was always the possibility that things would turn out for the better if the person behaved correctly. The temple tower (ziggurat) was the place where the celestials stayed. She symbolized the human desire to establish a connection between heaven and earth. As a rule, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia relied little on the goodwill of the gods. They tried to propitiate them by performing increasingly complex rites.
State power and legislation. Since Sumerian society and the later societies of Mesopotamia saw themselves as a kind of self-governing community of gods, power could not be absolutist. Royal decisions had to be approved by collective bodies, a meeting of elders and warriors. In addition, the mortal ruler was a servant of the gods and was responsible for the administration of their laws. The mortal king was rather a confidant, but not an autocrat. Above him there was an impersonal law established by the gods, and he limited the ruler no less than the humblest subject. Evidence of the effectiveness of laws in Mesopotamia are numerous and date from different eras. Since the king was a servant of the law, and not its creator or source, he had to be guided by codes of laws containing both traditional regulations and amendments to laws. Extensive vaults, usually referred to as codices, testify to the fact that in general terms such a system had already developed by the 3rd millennium BC. Among the surviving codes are the laws of the founder of the III dynasty of Ur Ur-Nammu, the Sumerian laws and the laws of Eshnunna (north-eastern part of Akkad). All of them precede the famous laws of Hammurabi. Later periods include the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian collections.
Writing and science. The supreme authority of the law was a characteristic feature of the Mesopotamian historical period and may even have preceded it, but the effectiveness of legislative activity is associated with the use of written evidence and documents. There is reason to believe that the invention of the written language of the ancient Sumerians was led primarily by concern for private and communal rights. Already the earliest texts known to us testify to the need to fix everything, whether it be objects necessary for a temple exchange, or gifts intended for a deity. Such documents were certified by an imprint of a cylinder seal. The most ancient writing was pictographic, and its signs depicted objects of the surrounding world - animals, plants, etc. The signs formed groups, each of which, for example, consisted of images of animals, plants or objects, was composed in a certain sequence. Over time, the lists acquired the character of a kind of reference book on zoology, botany, mineralogy, etc. Since the Sumerian contribution to the development of the local civilization was perceived as very significant, and after the establishment of the Akkadian dynasty, colloquial Sumerian became of little use, the Akkadians did everything in their power to preserve the Sumerian language. Efforts in this direction did not stop with the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur and continued into Amorite times. As a result, word lists, numerous Sumero-Akkadian dictionaries, and grammar studies were created. There were many other cultural phenomena that were systematized thanks to writing. Among them, a special place is occupied by omens, through which people tried to know their future through various signs, such as the shape of the liver of a sacrificed sheep or the location of the stars. The list of omens helped the priest to predict the consequences of certain phenomena. Compilation of lists of the most common legal terms and formulas was also widespread. In mathematics and astronomy, the ancient Mesopotamians also made significant advances. According to modern scholars, the system of Egyptian mathematics was crude and primitive compared to the Babylonian; it is believed that even Greek mathematics learned much from the achievements of earlier Mesopotamian. A highly developed area was the so-called. "Chaldean (i.e. Babylonian) astronomy".
Literature. The most famous poetic work is the Babylonian epic about the creation of the world. But the most ancient work, the legend of Gilgamesh, seems much more attractive. The characters of the world of animals and plants that appeared in fables were very loved by the people, just like proverbs. Sometimes a philosophical note slips through literature, especially in works devoted to the theme of innocent suffering, but the attention of the authors is focused not so much on suffering as on the miracle of liberation from it.
Influence of the Mesopotamian Civilization. The first significant evidence of the penetration of the achievements of Mesopotamian culture into other areas dates back to the 3rd millennium BC, at the time of the emergence of the Akkadian empire. Another evidence is that in the capital of the Elamite state of Susa (southwestern Iran), they used not only cuneiform, but also the Akkadian language and the administrative system adopted in Mesopotamia. At the same time, the leader of the barbarians, Lullubey, erected a stele with an inscription in Akkadian to the northeast of Akkad. The Hurrian ruler of Central Mesopotamia adapted cuneiform to write texts in his own language. The texts adopted by the Hurrians and most of the information contained in them were preserved and passed on to the Anatolian Hittites. A similar situation develops during the reign of Hammurabi. From this time legal and historical texts in Akkadian have come down, which were reproduced in the Amorite-Hurrian center of Alalakh, in northern Syria; this is indicative of Babylonian influence in a region that was not under Mesopotamian control. The same cultural unity, but on an even larger scale, took place in the conditions of political fragmentation in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. By this time, in Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, and even Egypt, cuneiform and Akkadian were used as a means of interethnic communication. Moreover, various languages, among them Hurrian and Hittite, readily adopted cuneiform writing. In the 1st millennium BC Cuneiform began to be used for records in other languages, in particular, in Urartian Old Persian. Along with writing, ideas also spread as a medium. This concerned primarily the concepts of jurisprudence, public administration, religious thought and such types of literature as proverbs, fables, myths and epics. Akkadian fragments of the story of Gilgamesh reached as far away as the Hittite capital of Hattusa (modern Bogazkoy) in northern Central Turkey or Megiddo (in Israel). Translations of the epic into the Hurrian and Hittite languages are known. The spread of Mesopotamian literature was connected not only with the borrowing of cuneiform. Its examples reached Greece, where there were fables about animals that reproduced the Akkadian prototypes almost word for word. Parts of Hesiod's Theogony go back to Hittite, Hurrian, and ultimately Babylonian origins. The similarity between the beginning of the Odyssey and the first lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh is not a coincidence either. Many close links are found between the opening chapters of the biblical Genesis and early Mesopotamian texts. The clearest examples of these connections are, in particular, the order of events of the Creation of the world, the peculiarities of the geography of Eden, the story of the Tower of Babel, and especially the story of the flood, the harbinger of which is contained in the eleventh tablet of the legend of Gilgamesh. The Hittites, from the time of their arrival in Anatolia, made extensive use of cuneiform, using it to write texts not only in their own, but also in Akkadian. In addition, they were indebted to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia for the basics of legislation, as a result of which their own code of laws was created. Similarly, in the Syrian city-state of Ugarit, the local West Semitic dialect and alphabetic script were used to record various literary works, including epic and religious writings. When it came to legislation and public administration, the Ugarit scribes resorted to the Akkadian language and the traditional syllabary. The famous stele of Hammurabi was not found on the ruins of Babylon, but in the distant Elamite capital, in Susa, where this heavy object was delivered as a valuable trophy. No less striking evidence of the influence of Mesopotamia is found in the Bible. The Jewish and Christian religions have invariably opposed the spiritual direction that was formed in Mesopotamia, but the legislation and forms of government discussed in the Bible owe to the influence of Mesopotamian prototypes. Like many of their neighbors, the Jews were subject to legislative and social regulations that were generally characteristic of the countries of the Fertile Crescent and largely dated back to Mesopotamian.
RULERS OF MESOPOTAMIA
The following is a summary of the most significant rulers of Mesopotamia. URUCAGINA
(c. 2500 BC), ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash. Before he reigned in Lagash, the people suffered from excessive taxes levied by greedy palace officials. The practice included illegal confiscations of private property. The reform of Urukagina was to abolish all these abuses, to restore justice and grant freedom to the people of Lagash. LUGALZAGESY
(c. 2500 BC), son of the ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Umma, who created the short-lived empire of the Sumerians. He defeated the Lagash ruler Urukagina and subjugated the rest of the Sumerian city-states. In the campaigns he conquered the lands north and west of Sumer and reached the coast of Syria. The reign of Lugalzagesi lasted 25 years, his capital was the Sumerian city-state of Uruk. He was eventually defeated by Sargon I of Akkad. The Sumerians regained political power over their country only two centuries later, under the 3rd Dynasty of Ur. Sargon I
(c. 2400 BC), creator of the first lasting empire known in world history, which he himself ruled for 56 years. Semites and Sumerians lived side by side for a long time, but political hegemony belonged mainly to the Sumerians. The accession of Sargon marked the first major breakthrough of the Akkadians into the political arena of Mesopotamia. Sargon, a court official in Kish, first became the ruler of this city, then conquered the south of Mesopotamia and defeated Lugalzagesi. Sargon united the city-states of Sumer, after which he turned his eyes to the east and captured Elam. In addition, he carried out aggressive campaigns in the country of the Amorites (Northern Syria), Asia Minor and, possibly, Cyprus. NARAM-SUEN
(c. 2320 BC), grandson of Sargon I of Akkad, who gained almost the same fame as his famous grandfather. Ruled the empire for 37 years. At the beginning of his reign, he suppressed a powerful uprising, the center of which was in Kish. Naram-Suen led military campaigns in Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, Assyria, the Zagros mountains northeast of Babylonia (the famous stele of Naram-Suen glorifies his victory over the local inhabitants of the mountains), in Elam. Perhaps he fought with one of the Egyptian pharaohs of the VI dynasty. Gudea (c. 2200 BC), ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, a contemporary of Ur-Nammu and Shulgi, the first two kings of the III dynasty of Ur. Gudea - one of the most famous Sumerian rulers, left behind numerous texts. The most interesting of them is the hymn, which describes the construction of the temple of the god Ningirsu. For this major construction, Gudea brought materials from Syria and Anatolia. Numerous sculptures depict him seated with a plan of the temple on his knees. Under the successors of Gudea, power over Lagash passed to Ur. Rim-Sin (ruled c. 1878-1817 BC), king of the South Babylonian city of Larsa, one of the strongest opponents of Hammurabi. The Elamite Rim-Sin subjugated the cities of southern Babylonia, including Issin, the seat of a rival dynasty. After 61 years of reign, he was defeated and captured by Hammurabi, who by this time had been on the throne for 31 years. SHAMSHI ADAD I
(ruled c. 1868-1836 BC), king of Assyria, an older contemporary of Hammurabi. Information about this king is drawn mainly from the royal archives in Mari, a provincial center on the Euphrates, which was subordinate to the Assyrians. The death of Shamshi-Adad, one of the main rivals of Hammurabi in the struggle for power in Mesopotamia, greatly facilitated the expansion of Babylonian power to the northern regions. HAMMURAPI
(reigned 1848-1806 BC, according to one of the systems of chronology), the most famous of the kings of the 1st Babylonian dynasty. In addition to the famous code of laws, many private and official letters, as well as business and legal documents, have been preserved. The inscriptions contain information about political events and military actions. From them we learn that in the seventh year of Hammurabi's reign, Uruk and Issin were taken from Rim-Sin, his main rival and ruler of the powerful city of Lars. Between the eleventh and thirteenth years of Hammurabi's reign, the power of Hammurabi was finally strengthened. In the future, he made aggressive campaigns to the east, west, north and south and defeated all opponents. As a result, by the fortieth year of his reign, he led an empire that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the upper Euphrates. TUKULTI-NINURTA I
(reigned 1243-1207 BC), king of Assyria, conqueror of Babylon. Around 1350 BC Assyria was liberated from Mitanni rule by Ashshuruballit and began to gain more and more political and military power. Tukulti-Ninurta was the last of the kings (including Ireba-Adad, Ashshuruballit, Adadnerari I, Salmanasar I), under whom the power of Assyria continued to grow. Tukulti-Ninurta defeated the Kassite ruler of Babylon, Kashtilash IV, for the first time subjugating the ancient center of Sumero-Babylonian culture to Assyria. When trying to capture Mitanni, a state located between the eastern mountains and the Upper Euphrates, met with opposition from the Hittites. TIGLAT-PALASAR I
(reigned 1112-1074 BC), an Assyrian king who tried to restore the power of the country, which she enjoyed during the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta and his predecessors. During his reign, the main threat to Assyria was the Arameans, who invaded the territories in the upper Euphrates. Tiglathpalasar also undertook several campaigns against the country of Nairi, located north of Assyria, in the vicinity of Lake Van. In the south, he defeated Babylon, the traditional rival of Assyria. ASSHURNASIRPAL II
(reigned 883-859 BC), energetic and cruel king who restored the power of Assyria. He delivered devastating blows to the Aramaic states located in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Ashurnasirpal became the next Assyrian king after Tiglathpalasar I, who went to the Mediterranean coast. Under him, the Assyrian Empire began to take shape. The conquered territories were divided into provinces, and those into smaller administrative units. Ashurnasirpal moved the capital from Ashur to the north, to Kalakh (Nimrud). SALMANASAR III
(reigned 858-824 BC; 858 was considered the year of the beginning of his reign, although in reality he could ascend the throne a few days or months before the new year. These days or months were considered the time of the reign of his predecessor). Shalmaneser III, son of Ashurnasirpal II, continued to subdue the Aramaic tribes to the west of Assyria, in particular, the warlike tribe of Bit-Adini. Using their captured capital, Til-Barsib, as a stronghold, Shalmaneser pushed west into northern Syria and Cilicia and attempted to conquer them several times. In 854 BC at Karakar on the Oronte River, the combined forces of twelve leaders, among whom were Benhadad of Damascus and Ahab of Israel, repelled the attack of the troops of Shalmaneser III. The strengthening of the kingdom of Urartu to the north of Assyria, near Lake Van, made it impossible to continue expansion in this direction. TIGLAT-PALASAR III
(ruled c. 745-727 BC), one of the greatest Assyrian kings and the true builder of the Assyrian empire. He removed three obstacles that stood in the way of establishing Assyrian dominance in the region. Firstly, he defeated Sarduri II and annexed most of the territory of Urartu; secondly, he proclaimed himself king of Babylon (under the name of Pulu), subjugating the Aramaic leaders, who actually ruled Babylon; finally, he decisively crushed the resistance of the Syrian and Palestinian states and reduced most of them to the level of a province or tributaries. As a method of management, he widely used the deportation of peoples. Sargon II
(reigned 721-705 BC), king of Assyria. Although Sargon did not belong to the royal family, he became a worthy successor to the great Tiglath-Pileser III (Salmaneser V, his son, ruled for a very short time, in 726-722 BC). The problems that Sargon had to solve were basically the same that faced Tiglath-Pileser: a strong Urartu in the north, an independent spirit that reigned in the Syrian states in the west, the unwillingness of Aramaic Babylon to submit to the Assyrians. Sargon began to solve these problems with the capture of the capital of Urartu Tushpa in 714 BC. Then in 721 BC. he conquered the fortified Syrian city of Samaria and deported its population. In 717 BC he took possession of another Syrian outpost, Karchemysh. In 709 BC, after a short stay in the captivity of Marduk-apal-iddina, Sargon proclaimed himself king of Babylon. During the reign of Sargon II, the Cimmerians and Medes appeared on the arena of the history of the Near East. SINACHERIBE
(reigned 704-681 BC), son of Sargon II, king of Assyria, who destroyed Babylon. His military campaigns were aimed at the conquest of Syria and Palestine, as well as the conquest of Babylon. He was a contemporary of the Jewish king Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah. Besieged Jerusalem, but could not take it. After several trips to Babylon and Elam, and most importantly, after the murder of one of his sons, whom he appointed ruler of Babylon, Sennacherib destroyed this city and took the statue of its main god Marduk to Assyria. ASARHADDON
(reigned 680-669 BC), son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. He did not share his father's hatred of Babylon and rebuilt the city and even the temple of Marduk. The main act of Esarhaddon was the conquest of Egypt. In 671 BC he defeated the Nubian pharaoh of Egypt, Taharqa, and destroyed Memphis. However, the main danger came from the northeast, where the Medes were intensifying, and the Cimmerians and Scythians could break through the territory of the weakening Urartu into Assyria. Esarhaddon was unable to resist this onslaught, which soon changed the entire face of the Middle East. ASSHURBANIPAL
(reigned 668-626 BC), son of Esarhaddon and last great king of Assyria. Despite the success of military campaigns against Egypt, Babylon and Elam, he was unable to resist the growing power of the Persian state. The entire northern border of the Assyrian Empire was under the rule of the Cimmerians, Medes and Persians. Perhaps Ashurbanipal's most significant contribution to history was the creation of a library in which he collected priceless documents from all periods of Mesopotamian history. In 614 BC Ashur was captured and plundered by the Medes, and in 612 BC. The Medes and Babylonians destroyed Nineveh. NABOPALASAR
(reigned 625-605 BC), the first king of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) dynasty. In alliance with the Median king Cyaxares, he participated in the destruction of the Assyrian Empire. One of his main deeds was the restoration of the Babylonian temples and the cult of the main god of Babylon, Marduk. NEBUCHADONOSOR II
(reigned 604-562 BC), second king of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty. He became famous for his victory over the Egyptians at the Battle of Karchemysh (in the south of modern Turkey) in the last year of his father's reign. In 596 BC captured Jerusalem and captured the Jewish king Hezekiah. In 586 BC recaptured Jerusalem and put an end to the existence of an independent kingdom of Judah. Unlike the Assyrian kings, the rulers of the Neo-Babylonian Empire left few documents testifying to political events and military enterprises. Their texts are mostly about construction activities or glorify deities. NABONID
(reigned 555-538 BC), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. Perhaps, in order to create an alliance against the Persians with the Aramaic tribes, he moved his capital to the Arabian desert, to Tayma. He left his son Belshazzar to rule Babylon. The veneration of the moon god Sin by Nabonidus caused opposition from the priests of Marduk in Babylon. In 538 BC Cyrus II occupied Babylon. Nabonidus surrendered to him in the city of Borsippa near Babylon.
Mesopotamian deities and mythological beings
ADAD, the god of storms, was known in Sumer as Ishkur, the Arameans called him Hadad. As a deity of thunder, he was usually depicted with lightning in his hand. Since agriculture in Mesopotamia was irrigated, Adad, who controlled the rains and annual floods, occupied an important place in the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. He and his wife Shala were especially revered in Assyria. Temples of Adad existed in many major cities of Babylonia. ADAPA, the main character in the myth of human mortality. Adapa, half-god-half-man, the creation of the god Ea, was once caught in a storm while fishing. His boat capsized and he was in the water. Angered, Adapa cursed the god of storms, as a result of which the sea was calm for seven days. To explain his behavior, he had to appear before the supreme god Anu, but with the help of Ea he was able to moderate his anger, enlisting the support of two divine intercessors, Tammuz and Gilgamesh. On the advice of Ea, Adapa refused food and drink offered to him by Anu. Anu, in this way, wanted to turn him completely into a deity and deprive Ea of such an amazing creature. From Adapa's refusal, Anu concluded that he was ultimately only a foolish mortal and sent him to earth, but decided that he would be protected from all diseases. ANU(M), Akkadian form of the name of the Sumerian god An, meaning "sky". The supreme deity of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. He is the "father of the gods", his domain is the sky. According to the Babylonian creation hymn Enuma Elish, Anu is descended from Apsu (the original fresh water) and Tiamat (the sea). Although Anu was worshiped throughout Mesopotamia, he was especially revered in Uruk (biblical Erech) and Dere. Anu's wife was the goddess Antu. Its sacred number is 6. ASSHUR, the main god of Assyria, as Marduk is the main god of Babylonia. Ashur was the deity of the city that bore his name from ancient times, and was considered the main god of the Assyrian Empire. The temples of Ashur were called, in particular, E-shara ("House of omnipotence") and E-hursag-gal-kurkura ("House of the great mountain of the earth"). "Great Mountain" - one of the epithets of Enlil, passed to Ashur when he became the main god of Assyria. DAGAN, a non-Mesopotamian deity by origin. He entered the pantheons of Babylonia and Assyria during the mass penetration of Western Semites into Mesopotamia ca. 2000 BC The main god of the city of Mari on the Middle Euphrates. In Sumer, the city of Puzrish-Dagan was named after him. The names of the kings of the north of Babylonia of the Issin dynasty Ishme-Dagan ("Dagan heard") and Iddin-Dagan ("given by Dagan") testify to the prevalence of his cult in Babylonia. One of the sons of the king of Assyria Shamshi-Adad (a contemporary of Hammurabi) was named Ishme-Dagan. This god was revered by the Philistines under the name Dagon. Temple of Dagan excavated at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in Phoenicia. Shala was considered Dagan's wife. EA, one of the three great Sumerian gods (the other two are Anu and Enlil). His original name is Enki ("lord of the earth"), but to avoid confusion with Enlil, whose possession was also the earth, he was called Ea (Sumer. "e" - "house", and "e" - "water") . Ea is closely associated with Apsu, the personification of fresh waters. Because of the importance of fresh water in the religious rituals of Mesopotamia, Ea was also considered the god of magic and wisdom. In the Enuma Elish, he is the creator of man. The cult of Ea and his wife Damkin flourished in Eridu, Ur, Lars, Uruk and Shuruppak. Its sacred number is 40. ENLIL, along with Anu and Enki, is one of the gods of the main triad of the Sumerian pantheon. Initially, he is the god of storms (Sumer. "en" - "lord"; "lil" - "storm"). In Akkadian he was called Bel ("master"). As the "master of storms" he is closely associated with the mountains, and therefore with the earth. In Sumero-Babylonian theology, the universe was divided into four main parts - heaven, earth, water and the underworld. The gods who ruled over them were respectively Anu, Enlil, Ea and Nergal. Enlil and his wife Ninlil ("nin" - "lady") were especially revered in the religious center of Sumer Nippur. Its sacred number is 50. ENMERKAR, legendary king of Uruk and hero of Sumerian myth. Wanting to conquer the rich country of Aratta, he turned to the goddess Inanna for help. Following her advice, he sent a messenger to the ruler of this country, demanding his obedience. The main part of the myth is devoted to the relationship between the two rulers. Aratta eventually gave Enmerkar treasures and gems for the temple of the goddess Inanna. ETANA, the legendary thirteenth king of the city of Kish. Having no heir to the throne, he tried to get the "grass of birth" that grew in heaven. Etata saved the eagle from the snake that attacked him, and in gratitude the eagle offered to carry him on his back to the sky. The end of this myth is lost. Gilgamesh, the mythical ruler of the city of Uruk and one of the most popular heroes of Mesopotamian folklore, the son of the goddess Ninsun and a demon. His adventures are recorded in a long tale on twelve tablets; some of them, unfortunately, have not been completely preserved. Rugged ruler of Uruk and a crude creature of the goddess Aruru, Enkidu, created to oppose Gilgamesh, became his friend after succumbing to the spell of one of Uruk's harlots. Gilgamesh and Enkidu made a campaign against the monster Humbaba, the guardian of the cedar forest in the west, and defeated him with the help of the sun god Shamash. The goddess of love and war, Ishtar, was offended by Gilgamesh after he rejected her love claims, and asked her father, the supreme god Anu, to send a huge bull on two friends. Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew the bull, after which they began to mock Ishtar. As a result of the sacrilege, Enkidu died. Desperate for the loss of a friend, Gilgamesh set out in search of the "secret of life". After long wanderings, he found a plant that restores life, but at the moment when Gilgamesh was distracted, he was kidnapped by a snake. The eleventh tablet tells the story of Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah. ISHTAR, the goddess of love and war, the most significant goddess of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. Her Sumerian name is Inanna ("lady of heaven"). She is the sister of the sun god Shamash and the daughter of the moon god Sin. Identified with the planet Venus. Her symbol is a star in a circle. As a goddess of war, she was often depicted sitting on a lion. As the goddess of physical love, she was the patroness of temple harlots. She was also considered a merciful mother, standing up for people before the gods. In the history of Mesopotamia in different cities she was revered under different names. One of the main centers of the Ishtar cult was Uruk. MARDUK, chief god of Babylon. The temple of Marduk was called E-sag-il. The temple tower, the ziggurat, served as the basis for the creation of the biblical legend of the Tower of Babel. In fact, it was called E-temen-an-ki ("House of the foundation of heaven and earth"). Marduk was the god of the planet Jupiter and the main god of Babylon, in connection with which he absorbed the features and functions of other gods of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. In the Neo-Babylonian time, in connection with the development of monotheistic ideas, other deities began to be considered as manifestations of various aspects of the "character" of Marduk. The wife of Marduk is Tsarpanitu. NABU, god of the planet Mercury, son of Marduk and divine patron of scribes. Its symbol was "style", a reed rod used to mark cuneiform characters on unbaked clay tablets for writing texts. In Old Babylonian times it was known under the name of Nabium; his veneration reached its highest point in the neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire. The names Nabopolassar (Nabu-apla-ushur), Nebuchadnezzar (Nabu-kudurri-ushur) and Nabonidus (Nabu-na "id) contain the name of the god Nabu. The main city of his cult was Borsippa near Babylon, where his temple of E-zid was located (" House of hardness"). His wife was the goddess Tashmetum. NERGAL, in the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon, the god of the planet Mars and the underworld. The name Ne-iri-gal in Sumerian means "The Power of the Great Abode". Nargal also assumed the functions of Erra, originally the plague god. According to Babylonian mythology, Nergal descended into the World of the Dead and took power over it from his queen Ereshkigal. The center of the cult of Nergal was the city of Kuta near Kish. NINGIRSU, god of the Sumerian city of Lagash. Many of his attributes are the same as those of the common Sumerian god Ninurta. He appeared to the ruler of Lagash, Gudea, and ordered him to build a temple to E-ninnu. His wife is the goddess Baba (or Bau). NINHURSAG, mother goddess in Sumerian mythology, also known as Ninmah ("Great Lady") and Nintu ("Lady giving birth"). Under the name Ki ("Earth"), she was originally the wife of An ("Heaven"); from this divine couple all the gods were born. According to one myth, Ninmah helped Enki create the first man out of clay. In another myth, she cursed Enki for eating the plants she created, but then she repented and cured him of the diseases resulting from the curse. NINURTA, Sumerian god of the hurricane, as well as war and hunting. Its emblem is a scepter surmounted by two lion heads. The wife is the goddess Gula. As the god of war, he was highly revered in Assyria. His cult especially flourished in the city of Kalhu. SHAMASH, the Sumerian-Akkadian god of the sun, in Akkadian his name means "sun". The Sumerian name for the god is Utu. The symbol is a winged disk. Shamash is the source of light and life, but also the god of justice, whose rays illuminate all evil in a person. On the stela of Hammurabi, he is depicted passing laws to the king. The main centers of the cult of Shamash and his wife Aya were Larsa and Sippar. Its sacred number is 20. SIN, Sumero-Akkadian deity of the Moon. Its symbol is the crescent. Since the Moon was associated with the measurement of time, he was known as the "Lord of the Month". Sin was considered the father of Shamash (the god of the sun) and Ishtar, also known as Inanna or Ninsianna, the goddess of the planet Venus. The popularity of the god Sin throughout Mesopotamian history is attested by the large number of proper names of which his name is an element. The main center of the cult of Sin and his wife Ningal ("Great Lady") was the city of Ur. The sacred number of Sin is 30. TAMMUS, the Sumerian-Akkadian god of vegetation. His Sumerian name is Dumuzi-abzu ("True Son of Apsu") or Dumuzi, from which the Hebrew form of the name Tammuz is derived. The cult of Tammuz, revered under the West Semitic name Adonai ("My Lord") or under the Greek Adonis, was widespread in the Mediterranean. According to the surviving myths, Tammuz died, descended into the world of the dead, was resurrected and ascended to earth, and then ascended to heaven. During his absence, the land remained barren and the herds fell. Because of the closeness of this god with the natural world, fields and animals, he was also called the "Shepherd".
Collier Encyclopedia. - Open society. 2000 .

Lecture 3. Ancient civilizations

Plan:

1. Civilization of Mesopotamia

2. Egyptian civilization

3. Indian Civilization

4. Chinese civilization

In the IV-II millennium BC. in the territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, the first civilizations in the history of mankind appear. Several centers of formation of ancient civilizations arose, four of which are connected with the basins of the large rivers of the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Huanghe. Independently of each other, the emergence of civilizational structures and the formation of four river civilizations - Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese.

One of the most ancient civilizations in the world arose in Mesopotamia in the fertile lowlands between the Tigris and Euphrates. Already in the IV millennium BC. irrigation began to develop here. In Mesopotamia there were clay and natural asphalt, in the north there were deposits of lead, tin, iron, copper, in mountainous regions there was a lot of stone. In the III millennium BC. The Sumerians discovered bronze. The date palm gave nutritious fruits, but wood of low quality. Other fruit trees, figs, grapes, along the banks of the rivers, willow, reeds and reeds also grew here.

The foundations of civilization in Mesopotamia were laid by the Sumerians. By the end of the III millennium BC. the Sumerian and newcomer Semitic populations mixed up, and the Akkadian language gradually replaced the language of the Sumerians. In the IV millennium BC. large settlements are transformed into city-states. The city of Uruk, located on the Euphrates, played an important role in the development of the Sumerian civilization. In the IV millennium BC. it was the largest city in Mesopotamia.

The main occupation of the Sumerians is agriculture, based on a developed irrigation system. In urban centers, handicraft was gaining strength, the specialization of which was rapidly developing. In all the cities of Sumer there were monumental temple complexes that were of great social and economic importance. At the turn of IV - III millennium BC. writing appears. Writing in Sumer first appeared as a pictogram. Then cuneiform was widely used, which contained about 800 characters, each of which depicted a word or syllable.

The Sumerian civilization created early forms of statehood. In the first half of the III millennium BC. in Sumer there were several political centers that competed with each other.

In 2312 B.C. the ruler of Umma Lugalzagesi managed to unite all of Sumer for some time. This was followed by two attempts to create a united state of Mesopotamia under Sargon of Akkad (2316-2361 BC) and during the III dynasty of Ur (about 2112-2003 BC).

By uniting Akkad and Sumer, Sargon strengthened state power. Sargon managed to create a unified irrigation system, which was regulated on a nationwide scale. Sargon created a permanent professional army for the first time in world history. The despotic-bureaucratic rule of Sargon created a whole army of officials, a new service nobility, whose ranks were not replenished. The despotic form of government was established in Mesopotamia for millennia, determining the specifics of the civilization developing here.

Despotism became a special form of state power in all ancient Eastern states. The essence of despotism was that the ruler at the head of the state had unlimited power. The stability of the despotisms was based on the belief in the divinity of the king. The despot exercised his power through an extensive administrative-bureaucratic system.

The Akkadian state, weakened by social contradictions, collapsed around 2200 BC. under the blows of an external enemy of the Gutians. The rule of the Gutians was short-lived. To replace them in 2112 BC. power came over the Mesopotamia of the city of Ur, its III dynasty, the most prominent representative of which was Shulgi. The new state was called the "Kingdom of Sumer and Akkad." The III dynasty of Ur fell under the blows of external enemies, primarily the Amorite Semites. Taking advantage of the situation, the Elamite tribes invaded from the east. In 2003 BC the city of Ur was destroyed.

In Mesopotamia, the city of Babylon advanced and gradually gained dominance. The first period - Old Babylonian covers the time from the end of the reign of the III dynasty of Ur to 1595 BC, when the Kassites conquered Babylonia. The second period, the Middle Babylonian (Kassite) occupied more than 400 years of Kassite domination (1595-1158 BC). The third Neo-Babylonian period is associated with the reign of the Chaldean dynasty, which ended with the conquest of Babylon by the Persians (626-538 BC).

In 1792 BC the sixth king of Babylon was Hammurabi, who ruled until 1750 BC. The policy of Hammurabi contributed to the transformation of Babylon into the capital of a huge state that subjugated almost all of Mesopotamia. The state power of Babylonia was one of the classic examples of ancient Eastern despotism. The administration of the country was strictly centralized. During the reign of Hammurabi, agriculture, cattle breeding, as well as crafts and trade flourished. Of particular importance was the foreign trade conducted by the Tamkars.

The population of Babylonia was divided into two classes of free and slaves. Free people were divided into two categories with different legal rights: full-fledged free citizens avilum and persons with limited legal and political rights mushkenum, they were not members of the community, did not have immovable property and were used to work on royal land. The true slaves of the Wardum in Old Babylonian society were foreign slaves.

Hammurabi created the first legislative system in the history of civilization. The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the first, most detailed codes of laws. The Code of Hammurabi included 282 articles of laws. When punishing, the law required to follow the basic principle of sentencing a tallion, i.e. recompense equal for equal.

In 538 BC The king of the Persians, Cyrus, annexed Babylonia to the powerful Persian state, and it forever lost its independence.

So, it was in Sumer at the end of the 4th millennium BC. Humanity has emerged from primitive times and entered the era of civilization. The transition to civilization has formed a new specific worldview. The people of Mesopotamia were afraid of death and strove for the fullness of their earthly existence. In the worldview of the Sumerians, and then the Akkadian Semites, an important role was played by the deification of those forces of nature, the importance of which was especially great for agriculture - sky, earth and water. A unified system of religious beliefs developed around the time of the III dynasty of Ur. Anu ruled in the sky, Enlil in the earth, Enki in the oceans. Marduk was considered the supreme god and creator of the universe. Each city and settlement revered its patron god.

Mesopotamian civilization gave the first experience of training educated people. The training was based on copying texts for various purposes. In large temples, palaces of rulers, schools, as well as private individuals, entire collections of clay books were created, a kind of library. An important role in this was played by the Sumerian school - eduba, which trained scribes and surveyors.

The treasury of world literature includes Tales and Gilgamesh, the Poem of the Suffering Righteous Man, the myths of the ancient Sumerians and many other works.

Mesopotamian architecture created the original temple ziggurats, the memories of which have been preserved in biblical legends. The population of Mesopotamia lived according to the lunar calendar, which had its own differences for each city-state. After the rise of Babylon, the whole country switched to the calendar of the city of Nippur.

The foundations of ancient scientific thought were also laid in Mesopotamia. The source of the development of science was the economic practice of royal and temple households. Significant achievements of the Mesopotamian civilization in the field of medicine. The symbol of Mesopotamian medicine, the serpent (the god Ningishzida), wrapped around a wand, has been preserved as an emblem of medicine in our time.

The Mesopotamian civilization had no immediate successors, although many civilizations of the world took advantage of its achievements and scholarship.

Articles:

Culture of Ancient Mesopotamia (briefly)

Mesopotamia - Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia - is a historical and geographical region in the Middle East, located in the valley of two great rivers - the Tigris and the Euphrates. This plain, along the middle and lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, is almost entirely located within Iraq, in the southeast it enters Iran, in the northwest - into Syria and Turkey. Ancient Mesopotamia is one of the great civilizations of the Ancient World. Conditional chronological framework - from the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. (Uruk era) to October 12, 539 BC. e. (fall of Babylon). At different times, the kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria were located here.

Writing

One of the most important achievements of the Sumerian period was the invention of writing. They wrote in cuneiform on clay, which was abundant in Mesopotamia. Burnt clay tablets are better preserved than papyrus or other writing material of plant or animal origin. Thanks to this, many written monuments came from Mesopotamia. Entire libraries of cuneiform tablets have been discovered. The collection of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in Nineveh of the 7th century BC gained world fame. In the 19th century, a part of this library was found - more than 25 thousand tablets. The texts were classified by branches of knowledge. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this discovery for world history.

An outstanding monument of legal thought were the laws of King Hammurabi, the record of which was preserved on a two-meter stone pillar. The laws consisted of 282 articles, which reflected all aspects of society. Legal norms protected the interests of the ruling class of slave owners.

Astronomy

The needs of life and economy contributed to the development of science and scientific knowledge. The needs of the agricultural economy forced the inhabitants of Mesopotamia to turn to the study of heavenly bodies. They observed the movement of the sun, moon and stars. A star chart was created and all the celestial bodies visible to the naked eye were marked on it. Babylonian astronomers. from among the fixed stars, or, as they were called, "calmly grazing celestial sheep", five bright stars with independent movement (planets) were identified, and their complex path was determined quite accurately. In the 7th century BC e. they learned to predict lunar eclipses.

The development of astronomical knowledge made it possible to create a calendar. The year was divided into twelve lunar months, each of which consisted of either 29 or 30 days, so that there were 354 days in a year. The error compared to the solar year was corrected by introducing a leap year consisting of 13 months.

Medicine of Mesopotamia

Significant development reached in Mesopotamia medicine. Surgeons were able to perform complex operations. Diseases were treated with medicines. Medicines were made mainly from plants. Lack of understanding of the causes of diseases caused the use by doctors of all kinds of conspiracies and spells to expel the "evil spirit" that supposedly inhabited a person.

Mathematics in Mesopotamia

Developing knowledge in the field of mathematics. For practical needs, numerous tables were compiled for four arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The Babylonian number system was based on the numbers 12 and 60. The remnants of this system in our division of day and night into 12 hours, hours into 60 minutes, year into 12 months. In Mesopotamia, units of measures of weight, length, area, volume, money count were developed, subsequently borrowed by other peoples.

Already in the third millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia they knew how to make glass. Cuneiform tablets describing the construction of a glass-melting furnace, as well as glass decorations, have been preserved. Durable paints (enamels) were created to cover bricks. Tiles made with their help, having lain in the ground for thousands of years, look as if they were made quite recently.

Architecture in Mesopotamia

The inhabitants of Mesopotamia achieved great skill in the construction business. They first learned how to fold vaults, widely used in architecture of a later time. Majestic royal palaces with many halls, courtyards, corridors were built from raw, rarely burnt, brick. The royal palaces of the Assyrians were distinguished by special splendor, in the 7th century. BC e. The walls of palaces were often covered by artists with images of court life, battles and hunting. They skillfully conveyed the tension of the battle, the fury of predators pursued by hunters and wounded by arrows, and often strings of prisoners ruthlessly driven by warriors.

The classical form of the temples was a high stepped tower - a ziggurat, surrounded by protruding terraces. The most famous ziggurat in history can be considered the temple of the god Marduk in Babylon - the famous Tower of Babel, the construction of which as the Babylonian pandemonium is mentioned in the Bible (90 meters high). The landscaped terraces of the Tower of Babel are known as the seventh wonder of the world - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

According to the teachings of the Babylonian priests, people were created from clay to serve the gods. And it was the gods who determined the fate of people. Only the priests could know the will of the gods: they alone knew how to call and conjure spirits, to talk with the gods.

The myth of the flood

Some legends reflect natural disasters faced by people in antiquity. The legend of the flood is written on clay tablets. It tells that the gods, angry with people, sent a flood to the earth to exterminate mankind. Only one person was warned of the impending disaster. He built a large ship with a mast and a sail, took his family, domestic and wild animals, plant seeds. The flood continued for six days. Water filled the whole earth. All living things perished. Only one ship rushed across the boundless sea. On the seventh day, the sea calmed down, and above the watery desert, the man saw an island, which turned out to be the top of a high mountain. A ship has come to her. The surviving people and animals got out on land.

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The main characteristic of the ancient civilization of the interfluve. A Brief History of Mesopotamia. Ancient cities of Mesopotamia

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Chronology of events

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Culture of Ancient Mesopotamia (briefly)