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Time of transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. This allowed populations to grow in an area and villages to form. Pottery is developed to store food and animals begin to be domesticated. This is the beginning of elitism and the pursuit of knowledge, art, etc.
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Evidence has been found of local trading routes already existing during this time.
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Some of these were large cities with large and diverse populations. Ex. Jericho and Catalhoyuk
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Cultures throughout Asia and Europe learn to use copper for weapons and tools.
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"Land Between Two Rivers"
The region located between the Tigris and Euphrates River.
Harsh environment with sandy soils, violent and unpredictable rivers, and temperatures above 110 degrees. -
Lived in the earliest city of Mesopotamia, al-Ubaid. This city is in what we now call Iraq. The Ubaid people were able to develop irrigation systems for farming, sophisticated canals, dikes and levees to protect from flooding.
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Long distance trading routes linked settlements. This allowed ideas and information to travel also.
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Prosperous and highly organized community. This city was a center of religious importance and housed around 40,000 inhabitants. City was surrounded by a massive brick wall.
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Copper, as a raw element, was brought into Uruk to develop tools and weapons.
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Consisted of 12 independent cities and states who shared common language, beliefs, and customs. However this commonality did not create peace between them. Wars arose over land, water, and to elevate their particular god over other cities god. Lack of unity made them vonerable to invaders.
Much of the cities production went to temple where priest redistributed all goods. The temple played a central role in their society.
View of gods changed over time from forces of natural world to Kinglike. -
In 4000 BCE the people of Sumer were already primarily for inventory purposes. Pictograms were first used to depict real things but later were used to represent a particular idea. In 3100 BCE developed a special tool for writing made out of a reed. This writing style is called cuneiform. This made it difficult to draw pictures and symbols became the new form of writing. Eventually reading and writing was a skill only accessible to small amount of people.
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It is believed that this temple was dedicated to the sky god "An", or to all of the god's of this region. Stood around 40 feet tall over flatland region.
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Sumerians begin to use two and four wheeled chariots and carts pulled by donkeys. Horses would later be used. This helped increase productivity and gave them a military advantage over armies on foot.
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Time where bronze was produced and considered the strongest metal.
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New type of military leadership that took power away from priest. Lugal's (war leader) established Family dynasties by warfare. They exploited a cities wealth for their own glory. Gilgamesh was a popular lugal who had an Epic (series of stories) written about him.
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A series of stories about King Gilgamesh, known to Sumerians as "The One Who Looked into the Depths". The moral of the story was that nothing can shield man from the forces of nature and death.
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War leader of Akkad who created the first known Empire by conquest of the Sumerians and all of Mesopotamia. Exercised unprecedented power for 56 years before dying. Timeline is estimated.
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Akkadians were the people of central Mesopotamia. They regarded Sumerians as uncivilized except for the King. By 2350 BCE Sargon the Akkadian conquered all the cities of Sumer and all of Mesopotamia. His economic influence stretched from Ethiopia to India. Akkad, the capital of the Empire, was known as the most splendid city in the world. Sargon was able to unite Akkad and Sumerian gods and appoint a family member as High Priest or Priestess over temples. This lessened Sumerian conflicts
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Successor and grandson to Sargon. Extended Akkadian conquest and consolidated trade. This stimulated growth in cities throughout the kingdom and binded them closely together.
