The first civilization can serve as a model for other early civilizations like
Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilization, Shang Dynasty, Olmec, Chavin, and
Aegean Civilizations.
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Cities as administrative centers
Political system based on control of territory
(rather than kinship)
Specialized, non-food-producing activities
Status distinctions based largely on wealth
Monumental building
System of record keeping
Long-distance trade
Major advances in science & arts
 Developed in
floodplains of
great rivers
 Developed
technology to
protect
themselves
against forces
of nature
 Created
religious
structures to
manipulate
the
environment
Alluvial plain between Tigris & Euphrates Rivers
 Cons
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Little rainfall
Rivers flood at wrong time for grain
agricultures
 Rivers change course unpredictably
 No significant wood, stone, or metal resources
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Pros
Warm climate
Good soil
Cattle-pulled plows + planter to cultivate barley
by 4000BCE
 Irrigation canals began 3000BCE
 Natural resources
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Date palms
Vegetables
Reeds
Fish
Fallow land for herds to graze
 Sumerians
 Present as early as 5000BCE
 Supplanted by Semitic-speaking peoples by
2000BCE
 Preserved many aspects of Sumerian culture
 Villages & cities linked
together in system of
mutual interdependence
 Cities depended on villages
to produce food
 Cities provided villages with military protection,
markets, and craftsmen’s goods
 City + agricultural hinterland = city-state
 Sometimes fought with each other for resources
(Water & land)
 Traded with one another
 Mobilize human resources to build & maintain
irrigation systems
 Little is known of Mesopotamian political institutions
 Do know about temples & palaces!
 Temples
 Landowners
 Priests controlled considerable wealth
 Religious power predates secular power of palaces
 Palaces
 Secular leadership began in third millennium BCE
when “big men” emerged as secular leaders
 Lugal ruled from their palaces
 Tended to take over religious control of institutions
 Example – Epic of Gilgamesh demonstrates secular
rule
 Powerful  absorb other city-states
 Create larger terriotiral states
 Akkadian State
 Sargon of Akkad
 2350BCE
 Third Dynasty of Ur
 2112-2004BCE
 Needed resources to grow
 Obtained through expansion & trade
 Merchants employed at temples or palaces; later
private merchants emerged
 Barter or trade for fixed weights of precious metals or
grain
 Stratified society
 Kings & priests
controlled much of
wealth
 3 classes
 Free landowning class
 Dependent farmers &
artisans
 Slaves
 Not essential to the
economy
 Most were prisoners of
war
 Agriculture declined the status of women
 Men did value-producing work of plowing &
irrigation
 Before agriculture, all shared in obtaining food
 Had rights
 Own property
 Control dowry
 Engage in trade
 Rise of urban merchant class put greater
emphasis on male privilege & also declined
women’s status
 Mixture of Sumerian religion & later Semitic beliefs
and deities
 Deities
 Anthropomorphic
 Each city had tutelary gods
 Representations of the environment
 Turbulent rivers  vengeful, fear-evoking gods
 Humans were servants of gods
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Priesthood served gods
Temples contained religious & other buildings
Ziggurat most visible
Little known of beliefs & practices of common people
 Evidence of popular belief in magic & use of magic
to influence gods
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Definition – any specialized knowledge that is used to transform the natural environment &
society
Examples
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Cuneiform evolved from pictures to represent sounds of words or parts of words
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Hundreds of signs
Monopoly of the scribes
Military technology
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Irrigation systems
Nonmaterial knowledge – religious lore, ceremony, writing systems
Boats, barges, donkey use for transportation
Bronze metallurgy
Brick-making
Engineering
Paid, full-time soldiers
Horses
Horse-drawn chariot
Bow & arrow
Siege machinery
Base-60 number system
Advances in astronomy