WRITING AND CITY LIFE

• Mesopotamian civilisation is known for its prosperity, city life, its voluminous and rich literature and its mathematics and astronomy
• Mesopotamia's writing system and literature spread to the eastern Mediterranean, northern Syria, and Turkey after 2000 BCE
• Sumer and Akkad


  The land, mainly the urbanised south, was called this in the beginning of recorded history
• Babylonia


  The term used for the southern region after 2000 BCE, when Babylon became an important city
• Assyria


  The region became known as this from about 1100 BCE, when the Assyrians established their kingdom in the north
• Sumerian


  The first known language of the land, gradually replaced by Akkadian around 2400 BCE
• Akkadian


  Language that flourished till about Alexander's time (336-323 BCE), with some regional changes occurring
• Aramaic


  Language similar to Hebrew, became widely spoken after 1000 BCE, still spoken in parts of Iraq
• Archaeology in Mesopotamia began in the 1840s, with excavations continuing for decades at some sites
• Mesopotamia was important to Europeans because of references to it in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible
• According to the Bible, the Flood was meant to destroy all life on earth


  God chose a man, Noah, to ensure that life could continue after the Flood
• There was a strikingly similar story in the Mesopotamian tradition


  The principal character was called Ziusudra or Utnapishtim
• By the 1960s, it was understood that the stories of the Old Testament were not literally true, but may have been ways of expressing memories about important changes in history
• Establishing the literal truth of Biblical narratives receded into the background, much of what is discussed is based on later studies
• In the north-east of Iraq lie green, undulating plains, gradually rising to tree-covered mountain ranges with clear streams and wild flowers, with enough rainfall to grow crops
• In the north, there is a stretch of upland called a steppe, where animal herding offers people a better livelihood than agriculture
• The south is a desert, and this is where the first cities and writing emerged
• The rivers Euphrates and Tigris, which rise in the northern mountains, carry loads of silt (fine mud) that is deposited when they flood or when their water is let out onto the fields
• Mesopotamian sheep and goats that grazed on the steppe, the north-eastern plains and the mountain slopes produced meat, milk and wool in abundance
• The earliest cities in Mesopotamia date back to the bronze age, c.3000 BCE
• Bronze


  An alloy of copper and tin, necessary for tools, weapons, and other items
• Cities and towns


  • Not just places with large populations, but where an economy develops in spheres other than food production
  • There is continuous interaction and division of labour among city people
• Organised trade and storage is needed in cities, as fuel, metal, various stones, wood, etc. come from many different places for city manufacturers
• The Warka Head is a world-famous piece of sculpture, admired for the delicate modelling, and was modelled in a hard stone that would have been imported from a distance
• Most parts of southern Mesopotamia lacked stones for tools, seals and jewels, wood for carts and boats, and metal for tools, vessels or ornaments
• The ancient Mesopotamians could have traded their abundant textiles and agricultural produce for wood, copper, tin, silver, gold, shell and various stones from Turkey and Iran, or across the Gulf
• Efficient transport, especially over water, was important for urban development in Mesopotamia
• Writing


  Verbal communication represented in visible signs
• The first Mesopotamian tablets, written around 3200 BCE, contained picture-like signs and numbers about goods brought into or distributed from the temples of Uruk
• Cuneiform


  The script used in Mesopotamia, derived from the Latin words cuneus, meaning 'wedge' and forma, meaning 'shape'
• By 2600 BCE or so, the letters became cuneiform, and the language was Sumerian
• Cuneiform writing


  Represented syllables, not single consonants or vowels, so the signs a scribe had to learn ran into hundreds
• Very few Mesopotamians could read and write, as there were hundreds of complex signs to learn
• Letters and mythical poems were often read out, as writing reflected the mode of speaking
• The Sumerian epic poem about Enmerkar and the first trade of Sumer shows the connection between city life, trade and writing
• his sons
• let the ears of (even) the herdsman be opened to the
• The connection between city life, trade and writing is brought out in a long Sumerian epic poem about Enmerkar, one of the earliest rulers of Uruk
• In Mesopotamian tradition, Uruk was the city par excellence, often known simply as The City
• Enmerkar is associated with the organisation of the first trade of Sumer: in the early days, the epic says, 'trade was not known'