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Late chalcolithic/Early bronze age Characteristics:
- the rise of complex society
- urbanization
- mass production
- monumental architecture People:
- 'the man in the net skirt' -
The warka vase: stratified society
Beveled rim bowls: mass production, rations
Cylinder seals: ownership, transactions
The eanna precient: Riemchen building, Stone-cone temple
The Anu ziggurat area: The white temple (not a real ziggurat)
Tokens, bullae, and numerical tablets: Writing! -
ealier part of the 4th mill.
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latter part of the 4th mill.
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LC/EBA:
Characteristics:
- a middle period
Finds:
- some tablets with writing
- jars with polychrome painting -
Cuneiform goes from 'curvy' to wedges
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EBA:
Characteristics:
- city-states
- households, and trade
- conflicts, competition, alliances
- more genre in texts (literature)
- language = sumerian
- Fara, Girsu, and Ebla are the main textual sources
People:
- Pu'abi: Queen of Ur, rad burial
- Mesalim: King of Kish, Mediator in the border conflict?
- Lugalzagezi: king of Umma, conquers Ur, Uruk and Lagash. Is defeated by Sargon in 2350
- Uru-inimgina: King of Lagash. interesting reforms. Defeated by Lugalzagezi -
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The Ebla Archive - found in situ at palace G
Stele of vultures - Umma/lagash border conflict
Royal cemetery of Ur - human sacrifices, EDIIIa -
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2500-2350 BCE
conflict about a field
mainly Lagash point of view -
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EBA:
Characteristics:
- territorial state 'first empire'
- politically unstaple, military might
- deification of kings
- centralised admin
- standardised weights and mesurements
- language = akkadian
People:
- Sargon 'Sharru-kin': conquers Akkad and Sumer. first king.
- Enheduanna: daughter of Sargon. High pristess of Sin in Ur. First known Author in world history.
- Naram-sin: grandson of Sargon. deifies himself. 'king of the four quaters of teh universe' -
Naram-sin's victry stele: deification, Mountain people are conquered
Bassetki inscription: Naram-sin made patron deity
Votive disc of Enheduanna:
manishtushu's obelisk and stele: -
With Dilmun, Margan, and Melukha
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against Naram-sin (2254-2218 BCE)
Mentioned on the bassetki inscription -
Return to City-states of the ED period.
The Gutian period 2250-2150 BCE
- Gutian mountain tribes. slightly exaggerated by Ur III propaganda
Gudea of Lagash 2150-2120 BCE
- gudea cylinders - longest sumerian text - Lots of temples, 'sumerian' ruler -
EBA
Characteristics:
- Bureaucracy
- ziggurats
- Bala-tax
- administrative reforms
- lawcodes
- yearnames
- Language = sumerian People:
- Ur-nammu
- Shulgi
- Amar-sin
- Shu-sin
- Ibbi-sin -
Almost 120,000 tablets
The Ziggurat of Ur (Ur-Nammu)
Ur-Nammu stele -
MBA
Characteristics:
- city-states in conflict with other city-states (southern mesopotamia)
- irrigation problems? People:
- Ishbi-erra: first king of Isin (2017-1985) general under ibbi-sin, then takes the power.
- Rim-sin: last king of Larsa (1822-1763) centralises the south, the longest reign in mesopotamia -
MBA
Characteristics:
- trade!
- private family enterprises
- literate merchants and wives
- Anatolia is a bit of a mess (like southern mesopotamia)
- debt-slavery and cancellations -
ca. 20,000 Akkadian private letters
Karum Kanesh -
Abi-sare, (1905-1895) king of Larsa openly attask Isin and tries to diverge canals to cut Isin off from the water surply.
not an exact date! -
MBA
Characteristics:
- centralised northern Mesopotamia
- shortlived territorial state
- borders Yamkhad and Eshnunna states People:
- Shamshi-adad (1808-1776)
- Yasmah-addu and Ishme-dagan: sons of Shamshi-adad, loses practically the whole thing except assur and Ekallatum
- Zimri-lim: kicks Yasmah-addu out of mari after Shamshi-adad dies. -
the Mari archives:
- ca. 20,000 texts and over 1000 letters
- main source of political history of the time
- preserved cause Hammurabi sacked the shit out of the palace of Zimri-Lim -
Shamshi-adad conquers Mari in 1795 BCE from Sumu-yaman. installs his son Yasmar-addu as local ruler. his older son gets Ekallatum, while he himself stays in Shubal-enlil.
Royal letters seem to indicate that Yasmah-addu was bad at governing - hilarious letter to his father -
and centralises the south
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MBA
Characteristics:
- territorial state
- mix of war and diplomacy
- math and science 'pythagorean theorem'
- increasing secular power
- privatisation of economy and debt-slavery
- amorite people:
- Hammurabi: king of Babylon (1792-1750) defeats Elam, Larsa, Eshnunna and Mari in 5 years. after his death, his successors quickly lost larger parts of the kingdom
- Mursili I of Hatti sacks babylon, ending the period, and is murdered when he goes home to Hattusha -
And everything else
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The tiny period where most of the old babylonian school tablets are from.
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very little textual evidence for about 100 years
migration to the north?
new peoples in the south - kassites? -
LBA
Characteristics:
- big states and big trade
- international correspondence
- chariotbased war
- internal struggles
- habiru refugees People:
- Tushratta of Mittani
- Kadashman-enlil I of Babylon
- Burnaburiash II of Babylon
- Kurigalsu II of Babylon
- Untash-napirisha of Elam
- Assur-uballit I of Assur
- Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assur
- Supiluliuma I of Hatti
- Hattusili III of Hatti
- Amenhotep III of Egypt
- Akhenaten of Egypt
- Ramses II of Egypt
- Nebuchadnesar of Isin -
Amarna letters: 382. mostly egyptian vassal states to the farao
Tukulti-ninurta's cult pedestal and capital
Uluburun shipwreck
Kudurru-stones
Dur Kurigalzu ziggurat
Al Untash-napirisha ziggurat
Nuzi pottery
Idrimi of Alalakh statue
Texts
Hattusha and Yazilikaya in Anatolia -
between egypt and hatti
both claim they win in their propaganda, but egypt seems to have lost territorry in the levant after this so...
Ramses II and Muwatalli II -
between Egypt and Hatti
Very famous, copy in the FN
Ramses II and Hattusili III -
Part of the greater bronze age collapse, that seems to put the eastern mediterranean to its knees.
Later Nebuchadnezzar I of Isin (1125-1104) raids Susa and takes back the statue of Marduk -
after the bronze age collapse everyone needs a break to get back on their feet.
Alphabetic scripts start to become a thing
We enter the iron age as well -
IA
Characteristics:
- first real empire after todays standards
- expansionist: war and terror
- scholars, divination and astrology
- 3 phases: territorial 930-750; imperial 750-612; total collapse 612-600 BCE
- cultural mosaic in the levant people:
- Shalmaneser III
- Assurnasirpal II
- Esarhaddon
- Assurbanipal
- Sargon II
- Sennacherib -
Kalhu/Nimrud: First capital. separate citadel and arsenal. pretty reliefs and gold finds in the tombs.
Shalmaneser's black obelisk and throne base.
The Balawat gates
Dur-Sharrukin/Khorsabad: second capital. built by Sargon II. reliefs
Nineveh: third capital. reliefs, library
Assur: religious capital
Essarhaddon's stele: conquering of Egypt -
On the battlefield and his corpse is not recovered for burial - very unlucky/bad, so they move the capital away from Dur-Sharrukin
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Sennacherib lays siege to Jerusalem and destroys Lachish on that years campaign against Judea
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Sennacheric's oldest son Assur-nadin-shumi is taken to Elam and probably killed, so He makes his youngest his heir
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Sennacherib raids Babylon, in retaliation for his murdered son.
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Esarhaddon campaigns in upper Egypt and takes Memphis
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in 667, 664-63 BCE Assurbanipal conquers his way down to thebes in Egypt
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Assurbanipal fights the Elamites, and wins the battle. The reliefs from Nineveh are very detailed of what the Assyrian then do to the Elamite king's corpse.
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IA
Characteristics:
- Building activity
- deportations
- interest in the past
- socio-economics and law
- infrastructure
- conflicts with the levant
- chaldeans
- Language = aramaic
People:
- Nabopolassar
- Nebuchadnezzar II
- Nabonidus
The Egibi family -
The E-temen-an-ki of babylon: the ziggurat + biblical tower of babel
The Ishtar gate: now in Berlin
Plenty of texts
Babylon
Taima Oasis -
Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, invades Assyria
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by the alliance of Babylon and the Medes
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very thourough
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three deportations of the people from Jerusalem, making Nebuchadnezzar II the most famous of these king (the bible does not like him!)
first deportation in 598-97
2nd in 587-86
3rd in 582 -
Nabonidus is exiled for 10 years in an oasis in Saudi-Arabia
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Cyrus the great conquers Babylon
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IA
Characteristics:
- different languages - old persian
- bad reputation cause of Orientalism
- satrapies: provinces People:
- Cyrus II
- Cambyses
- Darius I
- Xerxes
- Darius III -
The Cyrus Cylinder: royal inscription commemorating Cyrus' conquest of Babylon. paints nabonidus in a negative light and cyrus in a positive light - allowed the jewish people to return fromt their exile. Religious freedom, human rights?
Pasargadae: Cyrus' capital
Tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae:
Behistun inscription: multilingual, helped with the decipherment of cuneiform
Persepolis: columns
Tombs of Darius and Xerxes -
Cambyses conquers Egypt and then stays there instead of returning to persia
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Darius invades Greece on a campaign, and they don't like it.
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Xerxes invades Greece and they still don't like it. The persian empire doesn't really expand west after that.
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Darius III vs. Alexander the pretty alright