Name ____________________________ Pre-AP World History
Period ___________
Ziggurat
The symbolism of the mountain in world mythology was
of such crucial importance to the concept of cosmic
order that the ancient Mesopotamians tried to replicate
the mountain by building pyramidal mud brick towers
called ziggurats. Those towers were constructed in most
major cities between 2200 and 550 B.C. and most likely
served as the observatories from which the Babylonians
calculated the movements of the celestial bodies and
developed astronomical methods unrivaled even by
scientists of the Victorian Age. To a large extent, the
vision of the earth and the sky determined early
perceptions of the universe. The Mesopotamians felt
the need to build ziggurats high enough to afford them
a panoramic view of the world, and the Maya tried to
achieve something similar with their pyramids and
temple towers. Those early people replicated the world
mountain and thus, they believed, simulated the power
of the peaks.
The ziggurats of the ancient world also served a purpose
that was loftier than mortal sky watching. Like the world
mountain itself, ziggurats provided paths for mortals to
reach the sky realm and for gods to descend to earth.
Sumerian sky watchers saw the universe as a mountain
that rose from the sea and extended into the sky, so the
ziggurats they built had their base in the underworld
and steep external stairways climbing toward Heaven
and to the temples of the gods, built on the summits.
The most famous ziggurat was the Tower of Babel,
which accommodated on its summit a temple to
Marduk to honor him for his role in creation. Other
ziggurats had temples to other gods, including the
structures at Nippur, with its temple to Enlil, the god of
air, and the best-preserved example of a ziggurat at Ur,
with its temple to Nanna, the moon god.
"ziggurat." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 19 Sept. 2009. <http://www.ancienthistory.abc-clio.com>.
Why did ancient Mesopotamians build ziggurats?
Cuneiform
One of the world's oldest known writing systems,
cuneiform made it possible for the ancient cultures of
Mesopotamia to keep track of their expanding empires
via a literate bureaucracy. The invention of a symbolic
writing system also allowed the people of the region to
record their spiritual, social, and political values, as well
as literature and history.
Created by the Sumerians during the fourth millennium
B.C., cuneiform writing was a revolutionary invention
that changed human history dramatically. The term
"cuneiform" is a Latin title that means "wedge shaped,"
referring to the manner in which cuneiform was
created. Sumerian scribes began to write their earliest
versions of cuneiform as pictographs, similar to
Egyptian or Mesoamerican hieroglyphs in concept.
Within a thousand years, cuneiform had become a more
abstract, syllabic system of writing, and it was the
method of execution that gave it the name by which it is
called today. Cuneiform became a language of many
thousands of abstract characters that were linear lines
pressed into clay tablets by wedge-like styli made from
reeds. In its earliest years, cuneiform was written from
top to bottom in vertical columns, but by the time it
became more symbolic and less pictographic, it was
read horizontally, from left to right.
There were many reasons why cuneiform was
necessary, but one of the most important was the need
for keeping track of such financial records as tax records
and trade and commerce receipts. The earliest
cuneiform texts merely count quantities in fragment
sentences. By the time cuneiform had developed into a
syllabic character set, scribes wrote complete sentences
that expressed mental concepts as well as numeric
quantities. Thus, cuneiform shifted from a bookkeeping
method to a full-fledged literary system capable of
recording the laws, literature, and personal writings of
entire societies.
Some of the most important documents in ancient
history were written in cuneiform, and their significance
reflects the impact literacy has on societies in general.
Written histories, laws, and religious texts work to fix
cultural values and standards in ways that oral
traditions do not. Mesopotamian governments
benefited greatly from cuneiform by publishing their
laws in the language. By presenting the public with
written law codes, leaders were able to expect their
citizens to actually abide by the rules; citizens could not
claim ignorance of the laws. As a result, laws were
codified using cuneiform throughout the region.
Cuneiform also made it possible for Mesopotamian
cultures to record their myths, legends, and religious
values. Theologians wrote histories and genealogies of
the gods, compendiums for reading omens, and
guidebooks for temple worship. Epic poems were also
created, detailing the lives of the gods and events of
supernatural phenomena. One of the most important
literary works is the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian
tale that tells of a heroic figure who sets out to face the
gods. Those texts served not only to educate and
entertain, but to disseminate religious faith. Because of
the fixed nature of texts, they also worked to solidify
beliefs that may have been more malleable had they
only passed through oral traditions.
Finally, one of the most important innovations of
cuneiform writing was that it allowed individuals to
write letters and other ego-documents that historians
can use for a glimpse into their inner lives. There are
hundreds of thousands of such documents that have
been discovered so far. Taken together with the
bureaucratic, legal, and religious texts of the
Mesopotamians, they give historians a deeper
understanding of the readers and writers of cuneiform,
far more complete than many other ancient societies
that existed without literary documents.
As one of the oldest forms of writing known to
humanity, cuneiform had an immeasurable impact on
societies in Mesopotamia. Utilized in one form or
another from the fourth millennium B.C. until the first
century A.D., cuneiform gave written expression to
millions of people in many different societies and
empires. By streamlining written expression from
pictographs to abstract syllabic codes, the creators of
cuneiform made it possible for Mesopotamian peoples
to keep effective business records, maintain massive
government bureaucracies, codify their legal systems,
and express their artistic and religious ideas. It also
allowed people to correspond with loved ones in letters
or even to write grocery lists. In doing so, it fixed many
aspects of Mesopotamian culture that may have been
more fluid if existing only within the confines of oral
tradition.
"cuneiform." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 19 Sept. 2009. <http://www.ancienthistory.abcclio.com>.
What is cuneiform?
Why was a written language necessary?
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