UNIT 8. MESOPOTAMIA

WHAT AM I GOING TO LEARN?
1. Early writings. 
2. Mesopotamia: natural environment, historical evolution, economy, politics, society, religion, art

WHAT DO I HAVE TO STUDY?
●Unit from your book.
● English handouts and worksheets.
● Spanish and English vocabulary (use your glossary book and vocabulary organizer)
●Activities from your book. 
● The outline you made.

How and where did cities appear? Why did people start writing:

Writing appeared in Mesopotamia over 5,000 years ago. When people lived in villages, the population group was smaller and it was easier to memorise their names, who herds belonged to, the size and amount of the crops, etc. But when cities grew, it became necessary to control and keep the datawhich interested the king and his government: taxes, trade transactions, contracts, wills, etc.

Cuneiform writing Summer 3.200 BC (Summer “ Sumeria)
Soon other affairs and events began to be recorded in writing. This way the first holy books, science books and literary works appeared.For historians the invention of writing was so important that it is from its appearance that they establish the beginning of History

The first civilizations:

It was about 5000 years ago that the first civilizations apperared along the banks of large rivers. That is why they are called river civilizations. In Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China they emerged along rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia the River Nile, in Egypt; the Indus River in India; and the Yellow and Blue rivers, in China

Lifestyle and the way society was structured in the river civilizations were completely different from the ones before. If we compare them, we can observe a great change.

The main characteristics of river civilizations were:
Their strong political power. The king kept control of everything, from politics to religion. He passed laws to rule his country. The king was also in charge of the army which he created to protect his possessions.and many times the king had religious functions. There were also civil servants who helped the king to manage his possessions.
 Society was very hierarchical. The population was divided into two very different groups: few of them were privileged people and the majority were subjugated people. Most of the lands and riches belonged to the first ones, the privileged people.

Also, they were in charge of the main public offices.

Their great artistic development. Through art kings magnified their power so they encouraged all kinds of art

SOCIETY
The first civilizations:

From the year 3000 BC , cities grew enormously and their population consisted of thousands of people. Life in these cities became more complex and it was necessary to make a division of work. Each person was dedicated to a specific job and got all his other needs at the market. People lived in a different quarters of the city depending on how rich they were and what their job was.

Cities were not self-sufficient , not all the necessitites could be obtained there and people had to buy some food, raw materials and luxury products in far away regions. That is why trade had a great importance. The river civilizations did not have coins so they used barter, which means interchanging products.

Mesopotamian society:
Privileged groups were a minority who had all the rights and possessed most of the wealth.
The aristocracy consisted of the king, his family and the nobility. They owned a great part of the land and were in charge of the highest positions in the army and government.
The priests, who lived in the temples, led the religious rituals. They possessed part of the land and craft workshops and co-operated with the government.
The scribes stood out among the civil servants. They came from noble families and had great power. They were assigned other tasks such as being couriers, managers, cup-bearers, etc.
The rest of the population was divided into either free people who had rights, or slaves who had not rights and were treated as objects.
Some of these other free people were:
Peasants, who rented the lands that surrounded the city. These lands belonged to the king or the temple. To keep them the peasants had to give the temple or the king part of the harvest they obtained. They usually cultivated barley, wheat, beans, chickpeas, cucumbers, etc. with rudimentary ploughs.
Craftsmen, who worked in workshops. There were different craftsmen according to their specific work: weavers, carpenters, goldsmiths, perfumers, etc.
Women were the property of men. They did not always work and when they worked, their pay was half of what an adult man earned.

FROM CITIES TO EMPIRES
During the Metal Age, small cities were governed by kings. Later, the kings unified territories and cities which were nearby in order to extend their possessions and to get greater power. Some other times, they made war to enlarge their territories. This way kings became very powerful and succeeded in forming large empires.
As kings expanded their territories, they needed to create a state structure that assured their dominance and power. To do this, they designated governors and created bodies of civil servants. The governors held administrative and military functions in the farthest provinces, and the civil servants, who could write, read and count, were in charge of collecting taxes. In different places, civil servants were called different names; for example, mandarins in China, and scribes in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
The relations between the inhabitants became more complicated and to regulate them the first codes of law were created. One example is the code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia. The need for other legal documents also increased, such as contracts, receipts, judgements, wills, etc.

MESOPOTAMIAN
The Mesopotamian civilization developed between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. That is where it got its name since Mesopotamia means between rivers. It was located in an arid zone, but thanks to the irrigation canals which they built there was an important economic development in the area. It also became a very important region for trade between Asia Minor, the Mediterranean area and Syria.
Mesopotamia was historically divided into two regions inhabited by two different peoples: The Assyrians who lived in northern Mesopotamia or Assyria and the Akkadians and Sumerians who lived in southern Mesopotamia or Akkad.Throughout Mesopotamian history, there was an alternation of power between these peoples:
In the third millenium BC the Sumerians dominated the Mesopotamian Empire. They organised themselves into independent cities.
Around the year 2330 BC, the Sumerian cities were conquered by King Sargon I and the Akkadian Empire was founded. Around the year 2200 BC the Akkadian Empire was defeated and a long period of division started.
Around the year 1800 BC, the city of Babylon achieved hegemony and founded a lasting empire.
The last great dominance corresponded to the Assyrian Empire, which lasted until the 6th century BC, when Mesopotamia was conquered by the Persians.

MESOPOTAMIAN ART
In Mesopotamia, architecture and sculpture were of high quality. • In architecture: the great Mesopotamian buildings were decorated with coloured clay strips and beautiful reliefs and frescos. For construction they used brick and adobe. Mesopotamians invented the arch and the vault. They built splendid palaces, such as that of Khorsabad; monumental gates, such as the Ishtar Gate; and great temples, such as that of Marduk, in Babylon.
For sculpture, they used stone. We can find two different styles: while Sumerians and Akkadians built statues of their kings and gods, Assyrians made great figures of bulls with human heads, and expressive reliefs with hunting and war scenes.

VOCABULARY UNIT 8
1. Invention- a device or process that did not exist before 
• 2. Civilization- a large group of people with a highly organized society 
• 3. Trader- someone whose business is buying and selling goods 
• 4. Slave- a person who is owned by someone else
5. Merchant- a person who buys and sells goods 
• 6. Irrigation- the use of streams, ditches, canals, and other means to water crops in place of rainfall 
• 7. Cuneiform- wedge-shaped writing developed in Sumer 
• 8. Government – the system by which a country or state is governed
• 9. City-state- a city and surrounding land that make up an independent state, with its own ruler, army, and laws 
• 10. Trade- the exchange of money, goods, and services 
• 11. Law- a rule to regulate the way people act 
• 12. Class- a group to which certain people in society belong
13. Religion- belief in and worship of a god or gods 
• 14. Temple- a building used for religious practices 
• 15. Priest- person authorized to perform the sacred rights of a religion 
• 16. Astronomy- the study of the sun, moon, planets, and stars
17. Geography- the location and physical features of an area 
• 18. Arch- a curved structure that supports the weight of materials above it 
• 19. Column- a slender upright structure that supports part of a building 
• 20. Map- a flat drawing or chart of part of the earth’s surface