A Cradle of Urban Life

1. A Cradle of Urban Life The Development of Cities in Ancient Mesopotamia

2. Neolithic City at Çatal Höyük in Anatolia, 9000-6500 BCE

3. Çatal Höyük • Settlement probably founded around 9000 BCE; At its peak around 6500 BCE • Image of Bulls indicate domesticated animals • Evidence of agriculture/domestic/industrial ovens • Only images of women goddesses • Some evidence of women as priestesses and governors

4. When Women Ruled

5. Precursor to Mesopotamia? • The Ubaidians – A Syrian Civilization Around 4500-4000 BCE with Regional Government and at Least One Walled City • Large Ovens in a Few Dwellings – cooking on an institutional scale • Agriculture/shallow canals • Ballistae evidence of advanced warfare for its time • Numerous Stamp Seals = Official Documents for Government or Accounting

6. Tell Hamoukar

7. Origins of the Sumerians • Only theories on where they came from – not native to the region. • Central Asia East of Mesopotamia • Qatar in the Persian Gulf • Mountainous Region Northwest of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley

8. ?

9. Sumerian Mythology:Or the Importance of a Good Hooker • Gilgamesh and his Search for Immortality • King of Uruk (Later a God) • Enkidu and the Hooker • Civilizing Role of Sex • Condemned to Death for Hurling Beef • Utnapishtam and the Flood

10. Agriculture and Rise of Cities • Why Live on a Plain Where Temperatures Reach 120°? • The Flood Pain of the Tigris-Euphrates • Construction of Canals for Agriculture • The Aggregation of Artisans in cities and the Institution of Social Hierarchy • Metal-Working • Copper, Jewelry and the Discovery of Bronze • The Warrior Class and Bronze Weaponry

11. Sumerian City States • Ur • Uruk • Endu • Ligash • Kish Ziggurat at Ur

12. The Ziggurat at Uruk

13. The Cemetery at Ur

15. The Deities of the Sumerians • Enlil – God of Storms, Father of Gods • Nammu – Goddess of the Primeval Sea • An – God of the Heavens (up to 2500 BCE) • Ki – Goddess of the Earth • Utu – Sun God, God of Justice • Enki – Lord of Water and Wisdom • Innana – Goddess of Love and War, Goddess of the Moon and Earth • Ereshkigal - Goddess of Darkness, Gloom, and Death, sister of Inanna • Ninhursag – Goddess of the Earth, Goddess of Life

16. Similarities to Hebrew Scriptures • Genesis Creation Story: God Creates the World in Six Days and Rests; Enkidu spends six days with a hooker and becomes the first wise man – assumingly he might have rested on the seventh! • The story of Enten and Emesh, brothers who served as farmer gods. They quarreled violently to assume the sole claim of farmer god similar to the Cain and Able story • Ziusudra (Utnapishtam) and the Flood • Utnapishtam collected animals, artisans for boat to survive the great flood and restart civilization/ flood brought on by sins of the populace • The Conflict Between Enki and Ki • Enki condemns Ki to death but changes her mind. Creates eight healing deities – one specifically to heal the rib. Perhaps a precursor to the story of Eve?

17. Cuneiform The Role of Scribes

18. Culture and Art

19. Sumerian Food

21. Washed Down With . . . One of the Primary Benefits of Agricultural Societies = Wheat, Barley and Malt

22. Life in Sumeria • Males headed the household • Men ruled the Kingdom/Cities • Slaves were taken in war and put to work as menial laborers and domestic servants • Women did hold religious positions as priestesses also wrote the first poetry • Religion changed but no one acknowledged it Sumerians did not believe in change • Sumerians had a concept of sin and personal gods – each household had a personal deity

23. Changes in Social Structure • Early on, Kings were elected, but later became hereditary rulers with claims to divinity supported by priesthood • Early farming was communal, but later competitive with credit system for planting season; those who failed became sharecroppers • Merchant / artisan economy with markets and workshops develops in cities • Women stripped of power by law; widows became property of husband’s brother and they had no power in legal system • Professional Warrior Caste Developed

24. Dissent • History’s first recorded tax revolt in Lagash resulted in the overthrow of the King and his replacement by one who lowered taxes and cracked down on crime • One written fragment recovered revealed the author thought that he was a "thoroughbred steed" but drawing a cart carrying "reeds and stubble." • Another fragment complains of the stupidity of wars of conquest on how they only subject the population to wars of reprisal

25. Gudea, Reformer King of Lagash • Praise of Gudea • 26   I had debts remitted and "washed all hands." • For seven days no grain was ground. • The slave-woman was allowed to be equal to her mistress, • the slave was allowed to walk side by side with his master. • In my city the one unclean to someone • was permitted to sleep outside. • 27   I paid attention to the justice ordained by Nanse and Ningirsu; • I did not expose the orphan to the wealthy person • nor did I expose the widow to the influential one. • In a house having no male child • I let the daughter become its heir.

26. The Fall of Sumeria • 2340 BCE, The Sumerians, with the exception of Ur, \ are conquered by King Sargon of Akkad who establishes the first dynasty of Babylon

27. Akkadia, Assyria and Babylon

28. Rise of Civilizations Timeline

29. America in BabylonIn the Spring of 2003 American Troops Arrive in the Ancient City of Babylon on Their Way to Baghdad

30. When they got there, the Ministry of Oil was put under tight guard; the National Museum was not.

31. Our Official Response? • "The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over," he complained. "It's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase and you see it twenty times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases?" • After pausing for laughter, Rumsfeld delivered the punch line: "Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?“ • 170,000 Items were taken from the National Museum before US Troops were ordered to the site.

32. A Short-lived Empire: Akkadia2340-2112 BCE

33. Sargon and Sons Sargon Sargon II Sargon III Naram-Sin Shar-kali-Sharri Naram-sin Assaults the Mountain

34. 2112 BCE, Akkadia: Dusted? Evidence of Global Ash Fall, 300 Year Drought and Dust Storms found in Persian Gulf, Colorado, and Peru

35. The Ecocatastrophe Cascade Argument Drought and Dust Storms Bring Down Akkadia; Refugee Influx Brings Down Ur?

36. Empires Are Like a Bad Penny (Or the Jean Benet Ramsey Story) . . .They Just Keep Coming Back • Third Ur Dynasty Lasts – maybe – to 1880 BCE • Much Weakened From Pinnacle Years of Sumeria • Elamites sack Ur in 2000+/- • Amorites destroy last vestiges around 1900 BCE • Abraham Leaves Haran in Northern Mesopotamia, 1926 BCE • Hammurabi Becomes King of Babylon, 1792 BCE

37. The Code of Hammurabi • First Recorded Legal Codex • Excerpt: • 203 •    If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina. 204 •    If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money. 205 •    If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off. 206 •    If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians. 207 •    If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money. 208 •    If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina. 209 •    If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss. 210 •    If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death. 211 •    If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money. 212 •    If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina. 213 •    If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money. 214 •    If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina. 215 •    If a physician make a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he open a tumor (over the eye) with an operating knife, and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money. 216 •    If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels. 217 •    If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.

38. Assyrian Interlude Ashurnasirpal II

39. Peak of the Assyrian Empire, 858-627 BCE

40. Assyrian Contributions • Merchant Capitalism (a prototype anyway) • New Uses of Cavalry in War • Extensive Record-Keeping • Astronomy • Expanding Legal Codes/Horribly Painful Means of Execution

41. Alas, Babylon!: The Occasional Empire 2400-536 BCE with many breaks in Between

42. Creation Story and Neo-Babylon • Eneumalish: Marduk and Tiamat • Nebuchadrezzar II • Intersection with Biblical History

43. Architectural Renaissance

44. Ishtar Gate and Tower of Babel

45. The Tower’s Height? • Height of the tower • The height of the tower is largely a matter of speculation, but since the tower symbolically can be considered a precursor to man's desire to build tall structures throughout history, its height is a significant aspect of its mythos. The historic Tower commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar in about 560 BC in the form of an eight level ziggurat is believed by historians to have been about 100 meters (328 feet) in height. • The biblical Tower of Babel however would have been built about 2000 years earlier. The narrative in the book of Genesis does not mention how tall the tower was, and thus it has not been much of a subject of debate among fundamentalist Christians. There are however at least two extra-canonical sources that mention the tower's height. • The Book of Jubilees mentions the tower's height as being 5433 cubits and 2 palms (8,150 feet, 2,484 meters high). This would be approximately four times taller than the world's tallest structures of today and in all of human history. Such a claim would be considered as mythical to most scholars since builders in such ancient times would be considered incapable of building a structure nearly 2.5 kilometers tall. • The other extra-canonical source is found in the Third Apocalypse of Baruch; it mentions that the 'tower of strife' reached a height of 463 cubits (694 feet and 6 inches, 212 meters high). This would be taller than any other structure built in the ancient world such as the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza, Egypt and taller than any structure built in human history until the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. A tower of such a height in the ancient world would have been so incredible as to warrant its reputation and mention in the Bible and other historical texts.

46. Enter Persia: The Fall of Babylon • Cyrus the Great

47. The Persian EmpireAchaemenid Dynasty (648–330 BC)

48. Persians and Cultural Diversity • ASSYRIANS PRESENTING GIFTS • BABYLONIANS GIVING GIFTS • INDIANS WITH GOLD DUST • IONIANS PRESENTING FABRICS AND YARN • SCYTHIANS PRESENTING ARMLETS AND HORSE

49. Extending the Empire • Persopolis • Xerxes • Darius

50. Naxos and The Ionian Revolt • 502-494 BCE • Aristagoras