The Fertile Crescent

The FC was in present day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria & Iraq

Mesopotamia - land between two rivers

– Tigris – Euphrates

• Present Day Iraq• Settled 5000 BC• Flat plain

• Need protection from flooding rivers & from invaders– built dams & channels – irrigation

Sumerian Civilization (3000 BC)

• City State – an independent state consisting of the city & the farms around it

• (12) within Sumer valley

• common culture, language, religion

Religion• Polytheistic – believed in many gods• each City State has a temple – Ziggurat

Deities

• unpredictable & selfish

• bring famine, disease, flood, destruction

• priests & priestesses ask for blessings

• ceremonies to appease gods• An – god of seasons• Enlil – wind and agriculture• Underworld – no light or air

The Story on Enmesh and Enten

• Summer Myth in which Enlil, son of the Sumerian supreme God chooses the gifts of Enten (creator of animals over Enmesh creator of villages)

• Importance of Neolithic

Government

• Kings are also priests, responsible for pleasing the deity.

• This makes the government a Theocracy – or government controlled by religious leaders

Sumerian inventions (develop around the need to trade)

– wheel– arch – sturdier buildings– potter’s wheel– sundial– # system (based on 60)– lunar calendar– 1st bronze – Cuneiform – writing

• symbols for ideas & objects

• hard to learn scribe class studies at eddubas

• business, history, literature

Empires of Mesopotamia & Hammurabi’s Code

Sargon of Akkad– 2350 BC

• conquered all c-s of Sumer

• 1st Empire – many peoples & previously independent states under one ruler

Hammurabi of Babylon

• When- 1792- approx. 1750 B.C.E.

• Problem – many different laws & customs throughout the land and acts of vengeance were common

• Solution- Created a codified law system based on class rank. Harsh punishments

Pillar of Law

Hammurabi’s Code:“to make justice appear in the land”• 1st “Codified” Law

(organized law code)

• 1st Written law – engraved on stones throughout the empire

• Uniform – all cs had to abide by it

Questions

• What categories does it deal with?

• Is there equality under Hammurabi’s law?

• Does it “make justice appear in the land?”

• How do Hammurabi’s laws compare with ours in terms of the 1. types of laws, 2. types of punishments, 3. goal of the law?