How ancient Mesopotamia became the cradle of human civilization

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Although human civilization has developed in many places around the world, its first shoots emerged many thousands of years ago in the Middle East. The first cities, the first written language, the first technologies - all this comes from the most ancient powerful state called Mesopotamia. The majestic temples of Mesopotamia, their subtle art, scientific knowledge and social structure amaze with their perfection. How in an ancient society a process was born that changed human life on our entire planet, further in the review.

It is very difficult to study a culture that has not left behind any written sources. It's like asking a dumb, illiterate person about something. Everything that can be achieved in this way will be reduced to violent gestures and not very clear attempts to portray the questioned. On the contrary, when a civilization has such a powerful tool as writing, it leaves its descendants as a legacy of truly precious knowledge.

It was precisely such a developed civilization that ancient Mesopotamia possessed. This state was created by the mysterious people of the Sumerians. A number of eminent scientists believe that in the entire history of mankind there has been no more significant coup.

How it all began

The name Mesopotamia comes from an ancient Greek word meaning "land between rivers." This is a reference to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, dual sources of water for a region that lies mostly within the borders of present-day Iraq, but also includes parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran.

The presence of these rivers is largely due to why Mesopotamia eventually developed such a complex society and developed such innovations as writing, thoughtful architecture and government bureaucracy. Regular floods in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys have made the land around them particularly fertile and ideal for growing a variety of crops. And this is a huge and diverse market for food production. This made Mesopotamia the best place for the Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, which began almost 12,000 years ago.

Due to the fact that people grew plants and tamed animals, they could stay in one place and form permanent residences. Eventually, these small settlements evolved into early cities, where many of the characteristics of civilization developed, such as population concentration, monumental architecture, communications, division of labor, and various social and economic classes.

But the emergence and evolution of civilization in Mesopotamia was also influenced by other factors, in particular climate and environmental changes, which forced the inhabitants of the region to become more organized to cope with it.

How nature nurtured a great civilization

According to Herve Reculo, assistant professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago and an expert on the history of ancient Mesopotamia, civilization has evolved in different ways throughout the region. As he explains, urban societies developed independently in Lower Mesopotamia, an area in what is now southern Iraq where the early Sumerian civilization was located, and Upper Mesopotamia, which includes northern Iraq and parts of present-day western Syria.

One of the factors that helped civilization develop in both places was the climate of Mesopotamia. The fact is that 6000-7000 years ago it was more humid than in this part of the Middle East today.

“The earliest cities of southern Mesopotamia developed on the outskirts of a vast swamp, which provided an abundance of natural resources for construction (reeds) and food (game and fish). Water was readily available for small-scale irrigation. Everything was easy to organize and did not require supervision by large government agencies,”writes Reculo. In addition, he notes, the swamps provided a link to the sea routes in the Persian Gulf, which allowed people living in the south to eventually develop trade with other, more distant states.

In Upper Mesopotamia, experts say rainfall was fairly stable so farmers did not have to water their crops a lot. They also had access to mountains and forests where they could hunt game and cut trees for firewood. In these areas, it was possible to mine materials such as obsidian. This type of stone could be used in jewelry or for making cutting tools.

According to the British Museum, the primary crops of the early Mesopotamian farmers were barley and wheat. But they also created gardens in the shade of date palms. There they raised a wide variety of crops, including beans, peas, lentils, cucumbers, leeks, lettuce, and garlic. Also the Mesopotamians grew fruits such as grapes, apples, melons and figs. They milked sheep, goats and cows to make butter and slaughtered them for meat.

Ultimately, the agricultural revolution in Mesopotamia led to what experts call the next big step in progress - the urban revolution. About 5000-6000 years ago, villages in Sumeria began to turn into cities. One of the earliest and most famous of these was Uruk, a walled village with a population of 40,000 to 50,000. Others included Eridu, Bad Tibira, Sippar, and Shuruppak.

The Sumerians may have developed the earliest writing system. They also account for art, architecture and a complex system of state regulation of agriculture, trade and religious activities. Sumer has become just a hotbed of innovation in general, as this people took inventions developed by other ancient peoples, from pottery to textile weaving, and figured out how to create them on an industrial scale.

Meanwhile, Upper Mesopotamia has developed its own urban areas, such as Tepe Gavra, where researchers have discovered brick temples with intricate grooves and pilasters, and other evidence of an incredibly complex culture.

How environmental change led to the rapid development of Mesopotamian civilization

Climate change could have played a large role in the development of the Mesopotamian civilization. Around 4000 BC, the climate gradually became drier and the rivers more unpredictable. The swamp retreated from Lower Mesopotamia, leaving behind settlements now surrounded by lands that need to be irrigated, requiring additional work and possibly more coordination.

As they had to work harder and more orderly to survive, the Mesopotamians gradually developed a more complex system of government. As historians explain, the bureaucratic apparatus, which first appeared to manage goods and people, increasingly became an instrument of royal power. She was looking for her justification in the support of the gods and in the fact that she was always able to achieve her goals.

All of this eventually led to the development of a social structure in which elites either coerced workers or obtained their labor, providing food and wages.

“In a sense, the famous Sumerian agrarian system, its city-states and the associated control over land, resources and people, were in part the result of people adapting to more unfavorable conditions, because the riches of the swamps became more difficult to access.” says Reculo.

In Upper Mesopotamia, by contrast, people coped with a drier climate by moving in the opposite direction socially. In this area, there has been a transition to a less complex social organization based on villages and their little solidarity.

Ultimately, empires such as Akkad and Babylonia emerged in Mesopotamia, with their capital, Babylon, becoming one of the largest and most developed empires of the Ancient World. Read more about this in our article. how King Hammurabi turned Babylon into the most powerful state of the Ancient World.