Mesopotamia, in general, and Sumer, in particular, gave the world some of the most enduring cultural aspects, and the legacy continues
The word civilisation is etymologically connected to city — it presupposes urban transition. It is believed that the first ancient civilisation emerged in the Middle East in an area called ‘Fertile Crescent’ (JH Breasted in 1916) fed by waterways of Euphrates, Tigris and Nile rivers.
The Mesopotamian (meso – middle, potamos – river) civilisation is the most ancient civilisation recorded in the human history. The Fertile Crescent region of Mesopotamia is referred to as ‘Cradle of Civilisation’ – location where civilisation has developed independently. This civilisation, formed on the banks of Tigris and Euphrates rivers, today’s Iraq and Kuwait, began to form around the time of the Neolithic Revolution – Agricultural Revolution, beginning of the present geological epoch, the Holocene.
The history of Mesopotamia can be looked in:
• Neolithic Age – the Stone Age (10,000-7000 BCE): There is archaeological confirmation of crude settlements during this time with a shift from hunter-gatherer culture to an agrarian one. As per scholar Stephen Bertman, during this era, stone tools and weapons became more sophisticated. The economy was primarily based on food production through farming and animal rearing.
• Chalcolithic Period – Copper Age (5900-3200 BCE): This era includes the Ubaid period, named after Tell al Ubaid, the location in Iraq where a large number of artefacts are found, and the first temples and unwalled villages were developed. These villages then gave rise to urbanisation during the Uruk period (4100-2900 BCE). This period saw the invention of wheel (3500 BCE) and writing (3000 BCE) by Sumerians, first war of the world recorded between Sumer and Elam (2700 BCE), use of personal seals, and cylindrical-seals to denote ownership of property.
• Bronze Age (3000-1100 BCE): The rise of city-state laid the foundation of economic and political stability. The Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great was the first multinational realm in the world. The expansion of Assyrian kingdoms and the rise of Babylonian dynasty created an atmosphere conducive to trade. Hammurabi, the King of Babylon, ruled for four decades, was sacked and looted by Hittites and led to the rise of the Kassite Dynasty. Most Mesopotamian States were either destroyed or weakened following the Bronze Age collapse (1250-1150 BCE).
Mesopotamia was a collection of various cultures whose real bonds were their script, their gods and their attitude towards women. The Sumerian civilisation first took form in Southern Mesopotamia around 4000 BCE — the first urban civilisation in the region. Mesopotamians are noted for first written scripts around 3000 BCE; wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay tablets – the Cuneiform Script – deciphered by scholar George Smith in 1872 CE. Cuneiform is also the script that one of the world’s first great works of literature, ‘The Epic Of Gilgamesh’, was written in.
The incredible important invention of the wheel is also credited to the Sumerians, the earliest wheel dates to 3500 BCE. Sumerians built ship, their religion was polytheistic – worshipped multiple gods – many of which were anthropomorphic. Temples of gods were constructed atop massive Ziggurats – raised area, broad at bottom, pyramid-shaped buildings, had two to seven tiers and each ascending tier smaller than the one under it.
The Sumerians had a significant cultural interchange with a group in Northern Mesopotamians known as Akkadians. The Akkadian language is related to modern languages of Hebrew and Arabic. Around 2334 BCE, Sargon of Akkad came to power and established the world’s first dynastic empire and ruled over both Akkadian and Sumerian.
Babylon was a minor city-state in central Mesopotamia. Hammurabi established a centralised bureaucracy with taxation. He conquered the whole of Southern Mesopotamia and gave the name Babylon to the region. One of the most important works of Babylon was the compilation of a code of laws, around 1754 BCE, called the code of Hammurabi. This was improved upon earlier written laws of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria. Hammurabi’s code is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The code was written on stone stale-slabs and clay tablets, consisting of 282 laws.
The developments/inventions credited to the Mesopotamians include, but are by no means limited to, agriculture, irrigation, domestication of animals, common tools, sophisticated weaponry and warfare, the chariot, religious rites, the sailboats and legal codes. Orientalist Samuel Noah Kramer in fact has listed 39 firsts, from Mesopotamia in his book ‘History begins at Sumer’, in human civilisation that originated in Sumer. To cite a few examples – the historian, the farmer’s almanac, the moral ideals, the proverbs and sayings, the library catalogue, man’s golden age, the literary portrait, the aquarium etc.
With the development of wheel and sail, Mesopotamian trade became easier for the transportation of goods. Heavy bulk goods could travel by Ox cart or be loaded onto riverboats. Most long-distance trade was carried by caravans using donkeys as animals. Trade goods comprising textiles, pottery, leather goods, jewellery, ivory carvings, grains, dates, etc, were exported. They established trade all up and down the Tigris and Euphrates into Anatolia – Turkey, over Zagros mountains – Iran and Afghanistan. Sea routes went through the Persian Gulf across the Arabian Sea to Indus Valley – Northern India and Pakistan.
Mesopotamians were polytheistic as they worshipped several gods. In Sumerian religion, the most powerful and important deities were the seven gods – An (heaven), Enlil (air), Enki (sea), Ki (earth), Nanna (moon), Utu (sun) and Inanna (goddess of love and war). Religion was central to Mesopotamians as they believed the divine affected every aspect of human life.
Looking at Vedic-Ancient Mesopotamian Interconnections — synchronisation has been done by Stephen Hillyer Levitt et al. To cite an example: in general, in both the Vedic and 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian traditions, aspect of nature are deified. In both, the deification proceeded from the deification of natural forces significant in the culture to the anthropomorphic deification of these. In both, the chief god – Indra in the Vedic and Enlil in Sumerian traditions, is the god of air and storm, which has been attributed in both traditions by western scholars to the importance of rain and storm.
Mesopotamia was important to Europeans because of the references to it in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible. For instance, the ‘Book Of Genesis’ refers to ‘Shimar’ – meaning Sumer, as a land of brick-built cities. The legacy of Mesopotamia endures today through many of the most basic aspects of modern life, such as urbanisation, the wheel, wind power, 60-second minute and 60-minute hour.
Helen Chapin Metz writes, the Sumerians believed that each of the gods was represented by a number. The number 60 is sacred to the god An. Mesopotamia generally, and Sumer specifically, gave the world some of the most enduring cultural aspects, even though the cities and great palaces have long gone, that legacy continued in the modern era.
(The author is a retired IFS officer)
Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today on Telegram everyday. Click the link to subscribe.
Click to follow Telangana Today Facebook page and Twitter .