Mesopotamian Literature
Earliest Civilization: the Fertile Crescent
 earliest of all civilizations as people formed permanent settlements
 Mesopotamia is a Greek word that means “between the rivers”,
specifically, the area between the Tigris River and Euphrates River
(present day Iraq)
 Lasted for approximately 3000 years
 Its peoples were the first to irrigate fields, devised a system of
writing, developed mathematics, invented the wheel and learned
to work with meta
Geographic Conditions
Little rainfall
Hot and dry climate
Windstorms leaving muddy river valleys in
winter
Catastrophic flooding of the rivers in spring
Arid soil containing little minerals
No stone or timber resources
History of Mesopotamia
 Over the centuries, many different people lived in this area
creating a collection of independent states
 Sumer-Southern part (3500-2000 BCE)
 Akkad-Northern part (2340 – 2180 BCE)
 Babylonia- these two regions were unified (1830-1500 BCE and
650-500 BCE)
 Assyria-Assyrian Empire (1100 -612 BCE)
Religion
 Position of King was enhanced and supported by religion
 Kingship believed to be created by gods and the king’s
power was divinely ordained
 Belief that gods lived on the distant mountain tops
 Each God had control of certain things and each city was
ruled by a different God
 Kings and priests acted as interpreters as they told the
people what the god wanted themtodo (ie. by examining
the liver or lungs of a slain sheep
Religion
 Gods were worshipped at huge temples called
ziggurats
 Polytheistic religion consisting of over 3600 Gods
and Demigods
Prominent Mesopotamian Gods
 Enlil (supreme god & god of air)
 Ishtar (goddess of fert ility & life)
 An ( god ofheaven)
 Enki ( god of water & underworld)
 Shamash (god of sun and giver of law)
Ziggurats
 Large temples dedicated to the God of the city
 Made of layer upon layer of mud bricks in the shape of a
pyramid in many tiers (due to constant flooding and from
belief that gods resided on mountaintops)
 Temple on top served as the god’s home and was
beautifully decorated
 Inside was a room for offerings of food and goods
 Temples evolved to ziggurats- a stack of 1 - 7 platforms
decreasing in size from bottom to top
 Famous ziggurat was Tower of Babel (over 100m above
ground and 91m base)
Sumerians
 social, economic and intellectual basis
 Irrigated fields and produced 3 main crops (barley, dates and
sesame seeds)
 built canals, dikes, dams and drainage systems
 develop cuneiform writing
 invented the wheel
 Abundance of food led to steady increase of population (farm,
towns, cities)
 first city of the world
Sumerians
 Developed a trade system withbartering: mainly barley but also
wool and cloth for stone, metals, timber, copper, pearls and ivory
 Individuals could only rent land from priests (who controlled land
on behalf of gods); most of profits of trade went totemple
 However, the Sumerians were not successful in uniting lower
Akkadians
 Leader: Sargon the Great
 Sargon unified lower Mesopotamia (after conquering Sumerians in
2331 BCE)
 Established capital at Akkad
 Spread Mesopotamian culture
 However, short-lived dynasty as Akkadians were conquered by
the invading barbarians by 2200 BCE
Babylonians
 (6th Amorite king) who conquered Akkad and Assyria (north and
south)
 He build new walls to protect the city and new canals and dikes
to improve crops
 Economy based on agriculture and wool / cloth
 Individuals could own land around cities
 Artisans and merchants could keep most profits and even formed
guilds / associations
 Grain used as the medium of exchange > emergence of
measurement of currency: shekel= 180 grains of barley;mina= 60
shekels
 Mina was eventually represented by metals which was one of first
uses of money (but it was still based on grain)
 Hammurabi’s Legacy: law code
Babylonian
Babylonians
1830 BCE
reunited
Mesopotamia
in
Central location dominated trade and
securedcontrol
YET AGAIN, Mesopotamia was not unified
for long…
Code of Hammurabi
 To enforce his rule, Hammurabi collected all the laws of Babylon in
a code that would apply everywhere in the land
 Most extensive law code from the ancient world (c. 1800 BCE)
 Code of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar placed in the public
hall for all to see Hammurabi Stone depicts
 Hammurabi as receiving his authority from god Shamash
 Set of divinely inspired laws; as well as societal laws
 Punishments were designed to fit the crimes as people must be
responsible for own actions
 Hammurabi Code was an origin to the concept of “eye for an
eye…” ie. If a son struck his father, the son’s hand would be cut off
 Consequences for crimes depended on rank in society (ie. only
fines for nobility)
Assyrians
 10th century BCE, Assyria emerged as dominant force in the North
 City of Assur- became important trading and political centre
 After Hammurabi’s death, Babylon fell apart and kings of Assur
controlled more of surrounding area and came to dominate
 Made conquered lands pay taxes (food, animals, metals or
timber)
 Rule by fear as kings were first to have a permanent army made
up of professional soldiers (estimated 200 000 men)
 Made superior weapons of bronze and iron
 Iron changed lifestyles in Mesopotamia in weapons and in daily
life ie. replaced wooden wheels and applied to horse drawn
chariots
Assyrians
 Assyrian reunited Mesopotamia and established the first true
empire
 However, states began to revolt and ONCE AGAIN, Assyrian
Empire collapsed by late 7th century BCE
 By 539 BCE, Mesopotamia part of the vast Persian Empire
(led by Cyrus the Great)
 Persian Empire dominated for 800 years until Alexander the
Great
Development of Writing
Writing
 Greatest contribution of Mesopotamia to western civilization was
the invention of writing
 Allowed the transmission of knowledge, the codificationof laws,
records to facilitate trade / farming
 Sumerians wrote on wet clay tablets with the point of a reed >
then dried in the sun to make atablet
 Scribes wereonly ones whocouldread and writeand served as
priests, record keepersand accountants
 As society evolved, the first form of writing was developed called
CUNEIFORM (meaning “wedge shaped”), dating to 3500BCE
 Cuneiform spread to Persia and Egypt and became the vehicle
for the growth and spread of civilization and the exchange of
ideas amongcultures
Gilgamesh
 Gilgamesh is an ancient story or epic written
Mesopotamia more than 4000 thousand years ago
in
 Gilgamesh is the first known work of great literature and
epic poem
 Epic mentions a great flood
 Gilgamesh parallels the Nippur Tablet , a six- columned
tablet telling the story of the creation of humans and
animals, the ci ties and their rulers, and the great flood
Analysis:Gilgamesh
 Gilgamesh and the Nippur tablet both parallel
the story of Noah and the Ark (great f lood) in the
Old Testament of the Jewish and Christian holy
books
 Modern Science argues an increase in the sea
levels about 6, 000 years ago (end of ice age)
 The melting ice drained to the oceans causing
the sea level to rise more than ten feet in one
century
Royal Tombs of Ur
 From 1922 to 1934, excavation of the ancient Sumerian city
of Ur
 City famed in Bible as the home of patriarch Abraham
 Discoveries such as extravagant jewelry of gold, cups of
gold and silver, bowls of alabaster, and extraordinary
objects of art and culture
 Opened the world's eyes to the full glory of ancient
Sumerian culture
Great Death Pit
 Mass grave containing the bodies of 6 guards
and 68 servants
 Grave was a great funeral procession
 Drank poison, choosingto accompany the kings
and queens in the afterlife
Interesting Facts!
 Mesopotamia, specifically Babylon used a mathematical system
based on sixty as all their numbers were expressed as parts of or
multiples of sixty
 Some parts of the ‘base-sixty’ system still remain today: 360
degrees in a circle, 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in
1hour
 Devised a calendar base on cycles of the moon (number of days
between the appearance of two new moons was set as a month;
12 cycles made up a year
Top 10
Ancient Mesopotamian Goddesses
Ereshkigal or Irkalla, the Goddess
of the Underworld
 In Sumerian mythology, Ereshkigal or Irkalla was considered the
queen of the land of the dead. Her name Irkalla is the equivalent
of Hades in Greek mythology. Both Irkalla and Hades are the
names for the territory of the underworld and its gods. In literature,
she is known as Ninkigal which means “Lady of the Great Earth.”
She was the only woman who made laws or passed judgments in
the kingdom of the dead. Nergal was her consort who ruled Irkalla
alongside her. Ereshkigal’s main temple was situated in Kutha. In
the ancient poem Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld, she is
given the designation of Inanna’s elder sister.
Nanshe, the Goddess of Social
Justice and Prophecy
 Nanshe was the daughter of Ninhursag, the mother
goddess, and Enki, the god of water, knowledge, mischief,
crafts and creation. She had multiple functions such as
fertility, fishing, wildlife, social justice, and prophecy, and
had a close association with water just like her father. Enki
was assigned the task of giving responsibilities to every god
and Nanshe was assigned to rule over the Persian Gulf. Her
temple was situated at Sirara near Nina. As goddess of
social justice and balance, Nanshe provided help to
widows, acted as a parent to orphans, saved people from
troubled regions, and provided advice to those in debt. As
goddess of prophecy, she determined the future by
oneiromancy, the process of interpreting dreams. Even her
priests were granted the gift of prophecy after performing
certain rituals that involved death and resurrection.
Ishtar or Inanna, the Goddess
of Love and Procreation
 The goddess of beauty, sex, love, and fertility, Ishtar, was the East
Semitic version of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess; the Northwest
Semitic goddess was called Astarte; and the Armenian goddess
was called Astghik. She was a prominent goddess in 3500 BC until
the spread of Christianity from the first to the fifth centuries. Her
symbols were the eight-pointed star and a lion. She was closely
related to Venus in the Babylonian pantheon.
 She is said to be the daughter of the god of the sky, Anu. She was
worshiped by the people of Upper Mesopotamia in the Assyrian
cities of Ashur, Arbela, and Nineveh. The people of Uruk were also
great devotees of Ishtar.
Tiamat, the Goddess of Salt
Sea and Mother of Several
Deities
Tiamat is the primordial Babylonian goddess of the salt
sea who mated with the god of fresh water, Abzu, to
produce younger gods. Texts show that the goddess
had two parts: the Tiamat mythos and Chaoskampf
Tiamat. The first part represents the image of a sacred
goddess and the union of marriage between fresh and
salt water, and in the second form she has monstrous
associations for she is the symbol of primordial chaos.
She is often represented by dragons and sea serpents.
Ninkasi, the Goddess of Beer
 The daughter of Uruk and Inanna, Ninkasi was
born to be one of the healers of Enki’s eight
wounds. Being the goddess of alcohol, she was
born out of fresh sparkling water and was said to
brew alcohol daily. Part of the Sumerian
pantheon, she was known as the goddess who
could satisfy the heart’s desires, and because of
her involvement in it, the art of brewing in Sumer
was protected and sanctioned by Ninkasi and
two other goddesses.
Shala, the Goddess of Grain
and Compassion
 Shala is a Sumerian goddess and a mountain on Venus, the
Shala Mons, has been named after her. Agriculture and
compassion are co-related when it comes to Sumerian
mythology as a bountiful harvest shows the compassion of
the gods. Shala is said to be the wife of Dagon, the god of
fertility, and consort to Hadad, the storm god. Centuries old
depictions show her carrying a double-headed mace and
sometimes a lion-headed scimitar. Her associations with
Virgo have been talked about by many scribes and this
association has resulted in the present-day constellation of
Virgo.
Geshtinanna, the Goddess of
Dream Interpretation, Fertility,
and Agriculture
 The Sumerian goddess Geshtinanna is the wife of
Ningisida and sister of Dumuzid. Her parents are
Ninhursag and Enki. She tries to save her brother
from galla demons, and when they take him to
Kur, she mourns his death deeply. In order to bring
him back, she agrees to take his place in Kur for
half a year so that he can return to heaven and
to Inanna. Sumerians say that while she was in
Kur, the earth became barren giving rise to the
season of summer.
Ninhursag, the Mother
Goddess of Mountains
 She is the oldest of all the goddesses in the Mesopotamian
pantheon. Ninhursag is also named as the mother of men and
gods and is called different things in different myths. She is known
for the creation of both mortal and divine entities. In Sumer, she
was originally known as Damgalnuna and Damkina who was a
nurturing mother and had associations with fertility. Sul-pa-e, who
had a role in the underworld, was a minor god and her husband.
With him, she had three children: Lisin, Lil, and Asgi. Later on, she
was depicted as the consort of Enki, the god of wisdom.
 Her name means “the Lady of the Mountains” and comes from
Lugale, a poem in which the god of war, Ninurta, defeats the
demon Asag and builds a mountain from the corpses of his stone
army. He dedicated this mountain to Ninmah, his mother, who
later came to be known as Ninhursag.
 She has been called various names such as Ninmakh, Mama,
Makh, Aruru, and Mamma. She is often represented by the Greek
symbol Omega, with a knife. The Omega can be taken as the
uterus, the knife being used to cut the umbilical cord. This
symbolizes her role as a mother.
Kishar, the Earth Goddess
 Kishar is the daughter of Lahamu and Lahmu, the
first children of Abzu and Tiamat, and mother to
Anu. She is the goddess of the earth and the wife,
sister, and counterpart to Anshar, god of the sky.
Her name actually means “whole earth.” She
appears in the opening lines of the creation myth,
Enuma Elish, but then suddenly disappears. She is
often seen in first millennium BC texts where she is
equated to the goddess Antu.
Ninlil, the Goddess of Wind
 Called Mulliltu in Assyria, Ninlil is the wife of Enlil. Evidence
suggests that she is either the daughter of Nunbarsegunu
and Haia or Nammu and Anu. Another source says that she
is the daughter of Antu and Anu. She used to live in Dilmun
where she was impregnated by Enlil as he lay beside her by
the water. She gave birth to the moon god, Nanna or Suen.
For making her pregnant, Enlil was taken to the underworld
with Ninlil. He later impregnated her again while she was
disguised as a gatekeeper, leading to the birth of the god
of death, Nergal. She became the goddess of wind and
Enlil the storm god only after her death.