or suffering at will. Everywhere there were hostile gods and demons that the people feared. Natural disasters or human actions such as wars were caused by the gods. The people used various means of divination to try and determine what fate the gods might have in store for them as individuals or for the city. Sacrifices, prayers, and magic were employed to appease the gods and ward off the demons. The belief that the will of the gods was revealed in the position of the planets and stars led the Mesopotamians to the study of astronomy and astrology.
People could not look forward to death for relief from uncertainty, anxiety, and fear. The netherworld was understood to be a dark existence governed by a hierarchy of gods. It was not some sort of heaven or hell, a place to which the dead went according to how they lived their lives. Life after death offered only a gloomy existence, a fate that could not be avoided.
Despite their gloomy view of life, the Mesopotamians greatly influenced the history of civilization and continue to influence life today. The number 60, sacred to the sky god An (or Anu), became the basic unit of mathematical calculation and lives on in our division of time into the 60‐second minute, the 60‐minute hour, and the degrees of a circle. When we add urbanization, the wheel, chariots, and four‐wheeled wagons, writing and the first literature, mathematics, and the science of astronomy, and agriculture and animal husbandry to the list, we must acknowledge civilization's debt to the people of ancient Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamia sat at the crossroads of trade, migration, and invasions of conquering armies, all of which spread its culture. Kingdoms and empires rose and fell as power shifted between rival city‐states2 and conquering armies. The appearance of a new technology such as smelting bronze or iron, or the appearance of a new weapon like the first metal arrowheads, the composite bow, body armor, or the war chariot enabled the possessor of the new technology to enjoy its historical moment until the next conqueror appeared armed with some new military technology.
The era of warring city‐states ended when Lugalzaggisi, king of Umma, united all of Sumer during his reign, c. 2375–2350 BC. He ruled for only 25 years. In c. 2334 BC, Lugalzaggisi's army was defeated in battle by Sargon (reigned 2334–2279 BC), leader of the Akkadians, a Semitic‐speaking people in Mesopotamia north of Sumer. Sargon founded the first multi‐national empire. It stretched from the Persian Gulf to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Sargon appointed his daughter, Enheduanna, High Priestess in the temple of the moon god Nanna in the Sumerian city‐state of Ur. Enheduanna is the first author and poet known by name in history. She left behind a collection of literary works that include poetry, devotionals, and hymns to Nanna. A collection of her temple hymns known as the “Sumerian Temple Hymns” is considered by some scholars to be the first attempt at a systematic theology.
Sargon's empire ended about 2100 BC. Of the empires that followed, two require mention. First is the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III) that lasted from c. 2112 BC to c. 2004 BC. The significance of this brief empire lies in the appearance of one of the oldest known law codes, the Code of Ur‐Nammu, king of Ur during the mid‐twenty‐first century BC. It is not the first written law code. That honor may belong to Urukagina (sometimes spelled Uruinimgina or Irikagina), who ruled the city‐state of Lagash in the first half of the twenty‐fourth century BC. Though no copy of his law code has been found, its content can be deduced from references to it in other sources from the period.
The Code of Ur‐Nammu (r. 2047–2030 BC) consists of 57 laws inscribed on clay tablets. The laws are stated in a simple form: If this is the crime, then this is the punishment. It differs from the later Code of Hammurabi in that it prescribes monetary compensation for crimes that cause physical harm, except in cases of murder, robbery, adultery, and rape, which were capital offenses.
The first two fragments of the Code of Ur‐Nammu were found at Nippur in Sumer and translated in 1952. They contained the prologue and five of the laws. Additional tablets were found at Ur and translated in 1965. Something of a social class structure in society at the time can be deduced from the code. All of the people below the king were divided into two classes, free and slave.
Figure 1.2 The Ishtar Gate, entrance to the inner city of ancient Babylon, was constructed by King Nebuchadnezzar II c. 575 BC.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collections.
Better known is the Code of Hammurabi issued in 1754 BC, during the Old Babylonian Empire. The Code of Hammurabi was found at Susa in 1901 by Jean‐Vincent Scheil (1858–1940), a French Dominican scholar. Scheil translated and published the code in 1902. The code consists of 282 laws found on 12 tablets. Unlike the Code of Ur‐Nammu, Hammurabi's law code follows the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” the law of retaliation, or Lex Talionis. Punishment varied according to whether the injured party was a nobleman or a commoner.
If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of the ‘gentleman’ class, they shall destroy his eye. If he has broken a gentleman's bone, they shall break his bone. If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner or broken a bone of a commoner, he shall pay one mina of silver. If he has destroyed the eye of a gentleman's slave, he shall pay half the slave's price.
(From The Code of Hammurabi, 2019)
Around 1600 BC, the Babylonian Empire collapsed when invaded from the north by the Hittites and from the east by the Kassites. The Hittites plundered and then left, but the Kassites remained and ruled Mesopotamia for the next five centuries.
The Hittites were a powerful empire in Anatolia between c. 1700 BC and c. 1200 BC. They spoke an Indo‐European3 language and entered Anatolia as part of a widespread migration of Indo‐European people. The Hittites were the first to work iron, although they did not use it for weapons. The fall of the Hittite Empire was a part of the general, catastrophic collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations at the end of the thirteenth century bc. The collapse was brought about by invasions (or migrations) of Indo‐Europeans from the north, and repeated attacks from the sea by a mysterious people known as the “Sea People.”
Egypt
About the time that cities and writing were appearing in Mesopotamia, civilization was emerging at the southern end of the Fertile Crescent along the Nile River. Ancient Egypt occupied 450 miles (724 km) of the Nile River valley from the first cataract4 to the Mediterranean Sea. The regular flooding of the Nile created a narrow band of cultivatable land that varied from 5 to 25 miles wide. It was possible to produce two crops per year. It was there, in that narrow band of fertile soil, the “Black Land,” that civilization developed. Beyond it on both sides were the vast barren oceans of desert sand, the “Red Land.”
Not only did the Nile make agriculture – and with it, civilized life – possible, it was easily navigated, thus providing a measure of unity between Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt. Relative isolation benefitted ancient Egypt. Invading armies had to either go down the Nile River, where they would be easy targets for defending forces, or cross the Sinai Peninsula, a wide desert. From the beginning of Egypt's history in c. 3100 BC, until it became a part of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, the sight of invading armies was rare. Thus, the Egyptians experienced a sense of regularity, permanence, and security unknown to the people of Mesopotamia.
