Chapter 3
Early Empires in the Near East
What is an Empire?
• A large political unit or state, usually under a
single leader, that controls many peoples or
territories.
Egypt, Sumer, Akkad
GUIDING QUESTION: What were the contributions
of Sargon and the Akkadians?
• One of the earliest empires in Mesopotamia
was established by the exceedingly energetic
and ambitious king, Sargon of Akkad (23342279 BC).
• A popular legend about Sargon held that he
was abandoned as an infant and found in a
reed basket by a gardener, who raised him as
his son.
• Sargon defeated Lugalzagesi of Uruk, who had
united many Sumerian city-states under his
rule.
• Using Lugalzagesi’s territories as his base,
Sargon extended his reach as far as the Zagros
mountains of western Iran, into northern Syria,
into parts of central Anatolia (modern day
Turkey).
• Sargon’s dynasty ruled for roughly 150 years,
and cemented the rise of semitic speaking
Akkadians in Mesopotamia.
Semitic: language family of largely Middle Eastern Origin.
Babylonia and Assyria
The Two Empires of
Mesopotamia
After the Sumerians and Akkadians were
defeated, Mesopotamia had two main
empires: Babylonia and Assyria.
Babylon - “Gate of God”
• As we recall from
earlier, the Sumerians
were conquered by the
Babylonians. The king of
Babylon was
Hammurabi.
• Hammurabi united the
cities of Sumer and then
expanded his empire all
the way to Asia Minor
A Crossroads of Trade
Babylon’s location made it a good place for trade. Groups of
travelers, called caravans, traveled back and forth from the
Sumerian cities in the south to the city of Akkad in the north.
Along the way, they always stopped in Babylon to trade.
Babylon had special
markets, called bazaars,
that people could go to
buy cotton cloth from
India. They could also
buy spices from Egypt
there. Babylon became
rich due to trade.
Hammurabi’s Code
•Hammurabi was the king who Law number 195 states: If a
united most of Mesopotamia
son strike his father, his
and conquered the Sumerians. hands shall be hewn off.
There are many, many more
• He developed a “code” of
laws like this in
laws. The laws were written
Hammurabi’s Code.
in Akkadian script and
numbered from 1 to 282. Law
number 196 states: If a man
put out the eye of another
man, his eye shall be put out.
A statue of
• Some people summarize
Hammurabi’s code by saying
“an eye for an eye.”
Hammurabi
Areas of Law that Hammurabi’s Code Covered:
Economic Law: trade, business dealings, contracts,
“consumer protection”
Family Law: marriage, divorce, inheritance
Criminal Law: manslaughter, assault, theft
Civil Law: slavery, debt
Hammurabi’s Laws
•If someone cuts down a tree on someone else's land, he will pay for it.
•If someone is careless when watering his fields, and he floods
someone else's by accident, he will pay for the grain he has ruined.
•If the son has done some great evil to his father, his father must
forgive him the first time. But if he has done something evil twice, his
father can throw him out.
•If a thief steals a cow, a sheep, a donkey, a pig, or a goat, he will pay
ten times what it is worth. If he doesn't have any money to pay with,
he will be put to death.
Hammurabi’s Laws continued
•An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If a man puts out the eye of
another man, put his own eye out. If he knocks out another man's
tooth, knock out his own tooth. If he breaks another man's bone, break
his own bone.
•If a doctor operates a patient and the patient dies, the doctor's hand
will be cut off.
•If a builder builds a house, and that house collapses and kills the
owner's son, the builder's son will be put to death.
•If a robber is caught breaking a hole into the house so that he can get
in and steal, he will be put to death in front of that hole.
•If a son strike his own father, his hands shall be cut off.
On the left is a stela, which has all 282 of
Hammurabi’s laws engraved on it. This stela is
located in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
The Hammurabi stela was discovered in 1909, in
Susa, Elam, which is now Khuzestan. Khuzestan is a
province of southern Iran.
Susa
•Social Class in Hammurabi’s Code?
•Equal punishment existed only when the two sides were of equal
social rank.
•The punishment would be less if the victim was a woman or a slave.
•One law said, "if a man strikes a free-born woman so that she loses
her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss."
•Another says, "if a man has caught either a male or female runaway
slave in the open field and has brought him back to his owner, the
owner of the slave shall give him two shekels of silver."
Although retaliation was a fundamental principle of Hammurabi’s
code, some of the laws were more subtle. Reflect on these two
situations described in the code:
#134: A man has been taken prisoner in war. There is no food in
the house, so is wife has gone to live with another man.
#148: A man’s wife becomes ill, and he wants to take a second
wife.
ACTIVITY: Write a brief description on how you would rule in each
situation. Then we will compare your verdicts with the actual rulings
in Hammurabi’s Code.
#134: A man has been taken prisoner in war. There is no food in
the house, so is wife has gone to live with another man.
VERDICT: The woman is guiltless.
#148: A man’s wife becomes ill, and he wants to take a second wife.
VERDICT: The man may marry the second wife, but must
support the first wife for as long as she lives.
Case #1
Itzhak, in a fit of rage, threw a cooking pot at his
father. The pot struck Itzhak’s father in the head,
and a shard of pottery put out his father’s eye.
VERDICT: cut off hand AND put out his eye
Case #2
Ashok, who had fallen on bad times, took a pig
from the home of his brother and killed it to feed
his family. Ashok did not know that the pig was
property of the local temple, and that his brother
was tending it while the priest was meeting with
the king.
VERDICT: Ashok would be required to pay 30x the
pig’s value. however since he probably couldn’t
afford the cost, he would be put to death.
Case #3
Sinnaveh’s house collapsed on night, with the
result that Sinneveh, a commoner, had both legs
broken. Gildas, the builder, is brought to trial.
VERDICT: Both of Gildas’s legs would be broken
Case #4
One night, Taras came across a young girl being
set upon by thieves. He rescued her and brought
her intohis home until she recovered. The next
day, the crier announced that a slave-girl of
Shawas, a wealthy merchant, has run away. Taras
did not make the connection between the
announcement and the girl he had helped. Shawas
found the girl in Taras’ house and had Taras
arrested.
VERDICT: Taras would be put to death for
harbouring a slave
Discussion Questions
What was an underlying principle of the Code of Hammurabi?
The principle of retaliation and punishment in kind for wrongs.
Example: Injuries punished with similar injuries, also known as "an
eye for an "eye."
Is this a principle that underlies our laws today?
No, the idea of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is not carried
out literally in our justice system today.
Advocates of nonviolent protest are opposed to this idea. Mohandas
Gandhi once said: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world
blind."
Explain the meaning of the following statement:
"Empires are often easy to create, but they can be
difficult to maintain."
It might be easy for a strong power to conquer
neighboring peoples and create an empire, whereas
enforcing laws, collecting taxes, maintaining the loyalty of
citizens, and so on might be difficult.
Babylonia under Hammurabi
•Hammurabi conquered many of the neighboring cities, and he
kept expanding his empire.
• Hammurabi would often go to war against his allies as well.
Babylonia under Hammurabi
•When the city of Elam attacked Larsa, Hammurabi helped Larsa
defend themselves. Once Elam was conquered, Hammurabi turned
right around and conquered Larsa!
•Each time that Babylon would conquer another city, Hammurabi
would take the city’s chariots, weapons, tools, and all their riches.
Trading helped Babylon get rich, and so did conquest.
Babylonia is Conquered
Though Hammurabi formed a large and rich empire, the people that
ruled after him could not keep it together. The empire kept getting
smaller and smaller until eventually it was destroyed.
The Assyrians Rise to Power
•Assyria was a small
kingdom of walled
cities that was located
north of Babylon.
•Their city was located
in open land that was
easily attacked, and
they had to constantly
defend themselves
against invaders.
•Therefore, they
became skilled
warriors.
The Assyrians Rise to Power
At around 1365 B.C., the Assyrians decided that the best
defense they had was to attack other countries first, before
they could attack them.
By 650 B.C., Assyria had conquered a large empire. King
Sargon II was a successful and ruthless Assyrian ruler.
The Assyrian War Machine
The Assyrians were geniuses
at waging war.
They invented the battering
ram, which they used to
pound down city walls.
They used catapults to throw
rocks at enemies, and the
protected their archers
(people who use a bow and
arrows) with helmets and
armor.
Assyrian Learning
The capital of the Assyrian
Empire was a city called
Nineveh.
Nineveh became a great
city of learning. It had a
famous library that held
thousands of clay tablets
with writings from Sumer
and Babylon.
These records tell us a lot
about life in Mesopotamia.
Assyria Overthrown
The people that the
Assyrians conquered were
constantly rebelling against
Assyrian rule.
Most of the time, the
Assyrians crushed the
people who tried to fight
them.
However, in 612 B.C., two
groups joined together to
smash the Assyrian empire.
These groups were the
Medes and the Chaldeans.
The New Babylonian Empire
The Chaldeans
created a new empire,
centered at Babylon
after they defeated the
Assyrians in 612 BC.
The greatest king of
Babylon was
Nebuchadnezzar II.
He rebuilt Babylon
and put massive walls
around the city to
protect it. He also
built a great palace
with hanging gardens.
A New Center for Learning
Under the Chaldeans, the
New Babylonian empire
became a center of
learning and science.
Chaldean astronomers
charted stars and
measured the correct
length of the year.
Chaldean farmers raised
bees for their honey.
Many people came to
Babylon to share ideas
and discoveries.
This clay tablet shows the world that was known
to the Babylonians
The Fall of the 2nd Babylonian Empire
The second
Babylonian empire
came under attack
and was defeated
by the Persians,
who were led by
Cyrus, in 539 BC.
Though the
Chaldeans were
defeated, the city
of Babylon was
spared from
destruction.