3) Mesopotamia Flashcards
Mesopotamia Meaning
Meso - Between
Potomoi - Rivers
Mesopotamia Rivers
Tigris
Euphrates
What was the older of Mesopotamia’s two economic systems?
Proto-socialism
Famers gave crops to public storehouses
Workers received uniform wages in grain
Themes of “The Epic of Gilgamesh”
City v Country - City wins - Wild Man is civilized, becomes friend and brother to King
Death
Largest City in Early Mesopotamia
Uruk
Uruk characteristics
Walls
Canals
Temples
Ziggurats
Mesopotamian religion
Polytheistic
Moody gods
Why did Mesopotamian gods flood the earth?
Humans were being too noisy and making it hard to sleep
What were the Mesopotamian rivers like?
Violent
Unpredictable
Difficult to navigate
Difficult to work with (used slave labor to irrigate)
Who was in charge in the older of Mesopotamia’s political system’s?
Priests; they communicated with difficult gods
Mesopotamia: Transition from Temples to Palaces
1,000 years
Power moves from Gods to people
Military leaders and rich landowners marry high priests
Mesopotamian writing system
Cuneiform
Mostly used to record business transactions: wheat and goats
What is important about writing? (Mesopotamia)
1) Increased social stratification (literate+illiterate)
2) Recorded history
Mesopotamia: Necessary Trade
Traded for most things but crops (metal, stone, wood, etc)
Mesopotamia: Trading implies what?
Territorial Kingdoms
When did the Mesopotamian City-State period end?
2000 BCE
Why did the Mesopotamian City-State period end?
shift in rivers
drought
easy conquering for nomadic peoples (Amorites) and neighboring cities (Elamites)
What was the newer of Mesopotamia’s two economic systems?
Taxation
People produced as much as they want, and paid taxes to chiefs (eventually kings)
Who was in charge in the newer of Mesopotamia’s political systems?
Chiefs and Kings, who passed power to their sons
Hammurabi
Law Code: presumption of innocence + retributive justice
What was the Assyrian Empire known for?
Brutality
Deport + relocate people following conquest
Mutilated potential rebels
Meritocratic military
Who was the God of Assyrian Religion?
Ashur
maintains the world through the King of Assyria
What was the driving force behind the God of Assyrian religion?
Conquest
If conquering continues, the world continues
If conquering ends, the world ends
Why did Assyria collapse?
Assyria extended its empire beyond its roads, making control difficult
Lost capital of Nineveh and major city of Harran in 600s BCE (to Neo-Babylonians and Medes)
Lost battle, and world continued; Assyrian religion proved false
What names was Hammurabi referred to by?
“Father” and “Shepherd”
Abrahamic concepts
What was the Mesopotamian afterlife like?
Dark, gloomy cavern beneath the ground
