Mesopotamia - module 10

Eridu

~ Eridu was an early village in Iraq that later developed into an important city. Founded around 7000 years ago, Eridu continued to be occupied for thousands of years, becoming a tell like so many other Near Eastern sites. Today, Eridu is in arid lands away from the river and is visible as a series of rectangular mounds on the dry desert landscape. ~ The inhabitants of Eridu, like all Sumerians, relied on irrigation agriculture for their survival. During the 'Ubaid Period (6500 - 4000 BCE), this farming would have been conducted by families or small landholding groups. There was no evidence of inequality or political authority. Although Eridu was an autonomous and largely egalitarian village, the town's residents chose to build a small building near the center of their community. This structure, depicted on the far right (Building XV) in the image below, was a small T-shaped building that contained a possible altar.

Uruk Inequality

~ In sum, evidence for inequality at this time is limited. Political authority was not held by individual rulers. The extent of that authority, furthermore, was limited to the city itself and the nearby countryside. Heterogeneity, however, may have been relatively high. There were craftspeople, priests, secular community leaders, city-dwellers, rural farmers, and many other social groups within the city-states. We get some sense of that heterogeneity from the written documents of the time. Uruk Period writing is the first writing in human history.

Cuneiform

~ Invented by Sumerians ~ While writing developed independently in several parts of the world, including China and Mexico, Mesopotamian writing is the earliest. Its development is particularly well-understood because of environmental conditions in southern Iraq. The lack of wood meant that people in Sumeria wrote on clay, which preserves very well. In other world regions, early writing took place on perishable materials like wood or cloth, and so has been lost. ~ date before 3100 BCE

Early Occupation of Mesopotamia

~ Mesopotamia was settled by sedentary farmers moving south out of the Fertile Crescent. These people were probably squeezed out of their homelands by growing populations and insufficient access to arable land. Some of the most fertile regions of the Near East are located at the foothills of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains, to the north and northeast of Mesopotamia. This region receives much more rainfall than the dry Mesopotamian plains. ~ Archaeological evidence indicates that the first settlers of Mesopotamia came from the north and migrated south along the rivers. The latest settlements are to be found in Sumeria. Among the earliest of these southern settlements has been found at the site of Eridu, Iraq, which was founded approximately 7,000 years ago.

Uruk

~ The autonomous villages of the 'Ubaid Period were transformed in the subsequent Uruk Period (4000 - 3100 BCE). Some of these villages became small urban centers, often called city-states. The earliest of the Mesopotamian city-states is the Sumerian site of Uruk, Iraq, although early urban areas also developed at sites like Eridu, Ur, and Lagash. Uruk Period city-states share a number of important characteristics that demonstrate the development of highly complex societies. Keeping in mind our theoretical discussion from class, however, note the areas in which Uruk Period cities were highly complex and the areas in which they were less complex. ~ Uruk Period cities are distinctive because they had large populations compressed into a relatively small area. It is estimated that Uruk had a population of 10,000 by 3500 BCE, making it the world's first city and one of the largest human settlements in human history up to that time. At the core of these urban areas were ceremonial and administrative precincts that contained temples, workshops, storage facilities, and spaces that may have been used for governance.

Ziggurat

~ The most important Sumerian city-states had at least one very large, solid temple known as a ziggurat. These buildings were made of mud-brick, did not contain tombs or other passageways inside of them, and had a very small temple structure at their summit.

Resources of Mesopotamia

~ While it has historically been known as the "garden of the Near East," Mesopotamia is actually a very resource-poor environment. The soils on the river floodplain are the region's greatest asset. The sediments carried by the rivers is mineral-rich because the headwaters are found in the volcanic Taurus Mountains of southeastern Anatolia. No mineral resources are to be found on Mesopotamia's river floodplains themselves. ~ The aridity of Mesopotamia has an impact on the vegetation of the region. There are very few trees, meaning that wood is a scarce and valuable commodity. Wood was profoundly important for early farmers because the major Near Eastern domesticates cannot be eaten without having been cooked first. Mesopotamia's lack of wood meant that other sources of fuel had to be used. The most valuable of these was animal dung.

Geography of Mesopotamia

~Mesopotamia is literally "the land between the rivers: the flat, dry, fertile plain between and along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The map below shows both rivers as well as some of the most important archaeological sites in the region. The headwaters of both rivers are in modern-day Turkey, also known as Anatolia, and these northern areas are also considered to be part of Mesopotamia. ~ Today, this region is comprised of the nations of Iraq, a tiny sliver of Iran, parts of Syria, and southeastern Turkey. The Zagros Mountains of Iran form the eastern border of Mesopotamia and the Syrian Desert forms the western border.