Early Mesopotamian Culture Contributed to the Foundation of Western civilization Essay

I t would be very unenviable to argue against the importance of early Mesopotamian culture. The title Mesopotamia refers to the land which lies between devil rivers the Tigres on the east and the Euphrates on the west. The latter is referred to in the Bible in Genesis 2 v14 as flowing out of the Garden of Eden, so it seems that the Biblical writers seem to nonplus felt that this area was where humanity began. The ruins of a city, Ur of the Chaldeans, can still be seen at Tell Mugheir which lies 140 miles second of ancient Babylon and 150 miles to the northwest of the Persian Gulf in new-fashi aced Iraq.The main part of the ruins c all oer some 150 acres and were open over many a(prenominal) a(prenominal) years, beginning with the major jibes of J. E. Taylor in 1854. Chaldean civilzation The Chaldeans were a Semitic mountain, i. e they spoke one of the Semitic languages and were Caucasians and by customs duty they were from descended from Shem, son of Noah. Their civilizat ion was mainly on the banks of the Euphrates, where the land was more strong and capable of producing rich crops. Animals such as sheep and goats were in addition domesticated.The Chaldean cities had many of the attributes that we recognize in new-fashioned cities at a period when nearly mess of the world were still hunter ga in that locationrs. Eridu, which is a few miles to the south southwest of Ur, was another religious center, with a mud brick stepped temple to the Chaldean theology of the sea and of wisdom. Archeologists have even prepare the remains of burnt tip left as offerings. It too was rediscovered in the19th century. It seems that the temples were originally built on platforms at ground level, but gradually higher and higher levels were built on the earlier foundations.According to records Eridu was at one time in truth on the coast and silt deposits seem to date it somewhere in the 7th millennium B. C. E. , although the earliest settlers in the area arrived about 9,000 B. C. E. gibe to The History Guide, Lecture 2. The cities seem to have been a response by early settlers in order to organise such things as irrigation, handle and the needs of a larger population. Because of the need to record trading corpse tokens came into use, different shapes re takeing different commodities.As is often the case the city grew up on the banks of the river, it being their source of water and of organised parcel out. They used dams and weirs to concord the water supply, just as a recent people ability do. Wooden ploughs were used to break up the soil onward pose crops such as barley, turnips and onions. They withal grew some(prenominal) apples and grapes and may surface have been the first people to discover the means of ma index both beer and wine, probably by accident at first. J. E. Taylor open a stepped temple bundle or ziggurat which climbed in three levels to a height of 70 feet and was kn own as the Mountain of Heaven.70 feet may not labored impressive to us, but this would have been the merely large building in the plain and visible for miles around. Buried at the four corners of the ziggurat were cuneal tablets telling of the name of the city and its founder and who had carried out repairs to the temple over the years. So we see that this was a city that was organised enough for its citizens to piece of grow together over a prolonged period on this massive construction project. In the temple area were found records revealing that the people paid tithes and that the temple also benefited from trade with other people.Leonard Woolleys excavation of 1924, as recorded in the Thompson Chain Bible archeological supplement, scalawag 364, revealed some 4 square miles of the city outside this sacred area. Woolley uncovered some 1800 graves including 16 that he designated as Royal. The cemeteries revealed capacious tombs where many retainers had died in order to accompany their king or sprite to the subseque ntly life. So these people were capable of abstract thought and spiritual depth. The people thought that their kings were descended from the gods that they worshipped.Sometimes kings called Shepherds because of their responsibilities to care for the needs of the people. These were large suite as big as10 metres long with walls of both stone and mud brick. in that location were quays for shipping, commercial buildings, houses of two stories with fire places and sanitary systems. Houses, temples and palaces were decorated with pictures, often depicting victories. There were chapels for worship and a school building where tablets revealed that reading, writing, including grammar, basic maths and history were taught. This was almost certainly solitary(prenominal) for the sons of the elite.Most boys would have lettered a trade from their fathers, while girls helped with what were considered more womanly tasks such as grinding corn and weaving. Flax was grown to make linen, quite a heterogeneous process. Men wore skirts, but women wore clothes that covered them from shoulders to ankles. Women wore their hair long, usually plait and most men were clean shaven, even in this time before metal blades. It was a patriarchal ordination, but amazingly women had rights that they have only in comparatively recent years attained again in many societies i. e.the right to end an unsatisfactory marriage and the right to own property in their own right. This city used writing to move records from such beginnings would later emerge literature of all kinds, poetry, stories, plays, even current advertispill the beans, all of which began when someone discovered that they could make permanent marks that could be later read by themselves and others. They had mathematics in their case only arithmetic, but this is where all branches of mathematics begin. They were able to trade with other people, both to get rid of surplus goods in a profitable way, and also to obtain what t hey could not produce themselves e.g. the lapis lazuli found in the august tombs which may well have come all the way from Afghanistan, although there are small deposits elsewhere in the world. They wrote music and songs. Some songs were pen for religious reasons, but many were written to describe significant events in the community.. Songs were used by people at every level of society to amuse , but also to educate and were sung to children who passed them on to their children. In this way, just as we teach children nursery rhymes today or sing patriotic songs , songs and ideas were passed on through many generations and were finally recorded in wriitng.These songs provided a means of passing on through the years important information about historical events. Even today they reveal practically about this civilization to modern scholars. Later in their history the people of this area founded the Babylonian empire which stretched from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. They w ould become neat astronomers, able to study the planets and stars with great accuracy. Mesopotamia cities served as capitals of the Assyrian, Mitanni, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Parthian, Sassanid and Abbasid empires.Naturally such a large and complicatedcivilization had to have laws in order to control conduct. It was a Mesopotanian king Hammurabi, in about 1780 BC, who set out what is one of the earliest know sets of laws. He made over 200 laws for Mesopotamia, now know as the Code of Hammurabi. In Genesis 11 we have the description of Abram victorious Sarai for his wife, so they understood concepts of family and commitment. According to Dr Gerard Falk Abram was a Hebrew, the name meaning one who crossed over, i. e.one who forded the river in order to look for the land to which he believed God had sent him. Abram, later Abraham, is of course acknowledged as the father of both Judaism, and so Christianity and Islam. So these civilizations and their religions, with the idea of monotheism and family and moral values also were born in Mesopotamia. Later in the history of the area the mixed city states would come to blows over such things as water supplies and rights to land. These were argued over for many years, just as such things occur today, before lastly erupting into war in about 3200BC.Conclusion So we see that many things that we consider to be civilized and which are of importance in modern western civilization such as organised city life, trade with other lands, the beginnings of literature and science, agriculture, social interaction, property rights and marriage as well as abstract concepts such as an afterlife and spirituality were present long ago. Alongside these were things we might not be so authorize of, yet which are present in modern western societies, such as disputes with neighbouring states, divorce and even war.The Chaldeans kept records, had a legal system, educated their young people both academically and practically and were abl e to work together to reach common goals. These are all things that we, as modern people still do and still value even after 9,000 years. Bibliography Thompson Chain Bible, King James Version, 1964, London Eyre and Spottiswood. Electronic sources Ancient Mesopotamia found at http//www. shrewsbury-ma. gov/schools/Central/Curriculum/ELEMENTARY/SOCIALSTUDIES/Mesopotamia/ancient_mesopotamia. htmclothing and retrieved on fifteenth November 2007 ERIDU found at http//www. experiencefestival.com/a/Eridu/id/105202 retrieved fifteenth November 2007 FALK, G. Chaldea found at http//www. jbuff. com/c041603. htm retrieved fifteenth November 2007 LAPIS LAZULI found a t http//www. gemstone. org/gem-by-gem/english/lapis. html retrieved fifteenth November 2007 Mesoptamia, The British Museum found at http//www. mesopotamia. co. uk/menu. html and retrieved 15th November 2007 SEMITIC description found at http//www. webster-dictionary. net/definition/Semitic retrieved 15th November 2007 THE archives GU IDE, LECTURE 2 found at http//www. historyguide. org/ancient/lecture2b. html retrieved 15th November 2007