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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?
Pre-AP World I
12. Summarize key aspects of Sumerian civilization.
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Unit: River Valleys
Ziggurats and Cuneiform
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.
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Unit: River Valleys
Ziggurats and Cuneiform
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.abc-clio.com>.
What is cuneiform?
Why was a written language necessary?
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