Mesopotamy

The Mésopotamie (of the Greek Μεσοποταμία / Mesopotamía , of μεσο / meso “medium, enters” and ποταμός / potamós , “river”: indicate the country “between two rivers”) is an area of the the Middle East located between the Tigre and the Euphrate. It corresponds for its greater part to the current Iraq. It includes/understands in north (north-eastern of current Syria and the north of Iraq) an area of plates, which is a zone of rain cultures, and in the south, an area of plains where one practices an agriculture which rests exclusively on the irrigation.

The direction of the word Mésopotamie evolved/moved with the wire of time. With the traditional direction of the Greeks and Romans, Mésopotamie indicates the part of north called also Djézireh since the Arab conquest (towards 634), for the wetland and irrigated one finds the word Sawâd in the texts of Arab origin. At Arrien, which writes a Anabase of Alexandre Large the, one finds for the first time the term of Mésopotamie . The term comes from an expression which exists in the local languages, and which one finds in Akkadien in the form of Birīt Nārim " Interval of the fleuve" (of birīt , “interval” and nārim , “river”) or Māt Birītim “Country of the interval” (of māt , “Country” and birītim , “interval”). In Araméen, there exists in the form of Beyn Nahrīm " between the fleuves" (of beyn “enters” and nahrein “river”), expression which indicates in all the cases, the high part of the Euphrate.

Currently, the term “Mésopotamie” is generally used in reference to the ancient history of this area, for civilization having occupied this space until the last centuries before the Christian era.

Geography

Chronology

Prehistory

Protohistoire

History

Ethnic composition

At the 3rd millenium, Low Mésopotamie is divided between two ethnos groups: the Sumériens, speaking a language without known relationship, and a Semitic population that one calls by convenience the Akkadien S (although this term is used only starting from the reign of Sargon d' Akkad, at the end of the century), speaking a Semitic language, the Akkadien. If the latter are attached well to the other populations which one knows for the old Middle East, in majority Semites, the origin of Sumériens escapes to us, just as the time for which it is necessary to date their disappearance (end from the 3rd millenium? beginning of 2nd?). One also supposed the existence of people which would have populated Low Mésopotamie before Sumériens and the Semites (named " populate X" by S. NR. Kramer) because several toponyms of this area are explained neither by the sumérien, nor by the akkadien.

The end of thousand-year-old IIIe sees the appearance on stage of two important ethnicities: the Amorrites, of the Semites, and the Hourrites, speaking a language without current relationship. The first establish in the Middle East a whole of dynasties which last during first half of the 2nd millenium, and are based in the Semitic population already present in Mésopotamie, while the seconds are especially present in north mésopotamien and in Syria.

Other groups of populations without identified relationship (because they are badly known) come from the areas of the Zagros: the Gutis, the Lullubis, and the Kassites. Subaréens, living in north, are perhaps of Hourrites. They are for the majority of the nomads, and not very important numerically.

At the end of the 2nd millenium, new Semitic people take again the way borrowed earlier by Amorrites: the Araméens. They are established in all Mésopotamie, and end up becoming a major component about it. Their language is essential in the area during the thousand-year-old 1st.

The thousand-year-old 1st sees also the incursion of Indo-European populations: the Mèdes and the Perses, which remain however confined with the Iranian Plate, even if the seconds take the political control of the area after 539, and then the Greek who take the area into 331, and end up establishing Colonies there. Later it is another Iranian people, the Parthes, which are established in Mésopotamie. but the population of this area remains as a Semitic majority.

Political organization

City-state with the empire

Mésopotamie saw the result of the creative process of the State, in the current of the 4th millenium with the development of the first microphone-states (city-states) in its southernmost part. The existence of a " was sometimes imagined; primitive Democracy " , or of a " Oligarchy " , or of a mode directed by a " king-prêtre". At all events, as of the appearance of sources which enable us to analyze the system of political organization of the states mésopotamiens, one is in the presence of a monarchical system , directed by a sovereign, in Sumérien EN, ENSÍ, and LUGAL. The first two terms returning to the religious field, they leave possible the existence of a " king-prêtre" in certain states. The last indicates a " clearly; roi" , šarrum in Akkadien.

After the time of the city-states, the first territorial state or empire is worked out by Sargon d' Akkad towards the end of the century. Consequently, Mésopotamie is directed in several kingdoms, before the caesura between the Assyrie with north and Babylon in the south is not established in second half of the 2nd millenium. In the first part of the thousand-year-old 1st are elaborate the first true empires with very large scales, néo-Assyrian (911-609), néo-Babylonian (624-539), before the installation of the empire Perse of the Achéménides, which marks the end of Mésopotamie as a political center of the the Middle East before several centuries.

The ideology of the capacity

Whatever the dimension of the kingdoms, the ideology of the capacity remains based on the same principles. The true sovereign of the country is his divinity guardian, who grants the royalty to a person who is worthy of him, which is never but its terrestrial representative, charged to ensure the maintenance of the temples of the country and also of great territorial conquests. These gods are the guardian divinities of the city-states of the 3rd millenium, then the large god Enlil with the advent of the states claiming to dominate the countries of Sumer and Akkad, and finally the divinities with the character more " national" for the kingdoms and empires starting from the end of thousand-year-old IIe: Assur in Assyrie and Marduk in Babylon.

The history over the long life was regarded as cyclic. That is well marked by texts like the royal Liste sumérienne, whose chronology is a succession of dynasty in turn reigning, their advent and their fall being due to the will of the gods. Each crisis period is regarded as the punishment inflicted by the gods with impious sovereigns, while prosperity and military success are on the contrary the demonstration of the divine favor.

The king and the State

The states mésopotamiens are thus organized around the royal figure. This one directs the administration, the army, justice, and it is charged to ensure the good progress of the worship returned the gods, undertakes great work. It is surrounded by " ministres" helping in its tasks, and directing an administration managing its grounds, taking away of the taxes, local justice. This system becomes more and more complex with the development of vaster political entities.

Diplomatic relations

Mésopotamie remained during most of its history divided between several states, which had to maintain the diplomatic relations between them, and also were in contact with kingdoms external with the Country of the two-rivers. The diplomatic practices are varied: correspondence between course, the concluding of agreements, marriages interdynastic, exchanges of present. This system is noticed as of the end of the 3rd millenium, but one sees it better in the 2nd millenium (in particular thanks to the files of Mari and with the Lettres of Amarna).

Letters

Writing

Scribes

Libraries

The wedge-shaped shelves were stored in places envisaged for this purpose in the buildings where they were written. Sometimes even of the rooms were reserved for the files. The shelves could be placed in baskets, trunks, or of course of the racks. A system of grading could be developed, but he very often escapes to us. One could make classifications of administrative files, but also of erudite literary production, as in the case of alleged the Bibliothèque of Assurbanipal, found with Ninive.

Written production

Religion

Gods

Men and gods

All the Anthropogonie S mésopotamiennes explain why the gods created the human ones so as to make their servants of them, in charge of their maintenance. In a concrete way, this maintenance passes by the worship which is returned to the gods in what is regarded as their residence, the temple.

The pious men are in theory assured the divine benevolence in their connection. On the other hand, whoever would offend the gods is placed under the threat of a divine punishment: disease, disgrace, economic difficulties, etc

Temples

The temples are regarded as being the terrestrial residences of their principal divinity, and often of their entourage (parèdre, children, divine personnel). They bear the same name besides as the human residences (E in sumérien, bītu (m) in akkadien). They were also often flanked of a tower on floors (Ziggurat), monument emblematic of civilization mésopotamienne, passed to the posterity thanks to the biblical account of the Tower of Babel.

The temples consist of a concealed , sheltering a divine statue, terrestrial representation which guarantees the presence of this one in this place, and which must constantly be maintained. The temples were prohibited to the people. Its loss, in particular after a military defeat and a bag of the temple, is regarded as a great misfortune.

Because they must ensure the very expensive maintenance of the gods (and their personnel), the temples are equipped out of grounds, and also sometimes in workshops, business transactions go up. They are economic agents of foreground.

Clergy

The personnel officiating in the temples is placed near this one, in dependences. The personnel is divided between the members charged with his administration, and that which deals with the ritual part. There exist various specializations, according to the task which one has to achieve at the time of the ritual ones.

The priests are often well-read men, and they follow sometimes long studies. They are the principal agents of the knowledge mésopotamiens, and it is them which will ensure the survival of this culture until the beginnings of our era.

Certain categories of priests exert apart from the temples: they are the soothsayers, the exorcists and the astrologers. They are useful in particular in the royal palace, the sovereign needing their assistance since the royal function is also a religious function (the king itself being sometimes regarded as a priest).

There existed also a female clergy. Some of them lived cloîtrées in a residence, and could not leave there, even if they had sometimes the possibility of carrying out their own businesses (by land acquisitions in particular).

Sciences

Mathematics

Astronomy

The separation which one carries out between Astronomie and Astrologie is unknown Old mésopotamiens, as for much of other people before the modern time. Astronomical knowledge of Mésopotamiens reached very an high level during the thousand-year-old 1st, time during which the astronomers " Chaldéens" were famous until in Greece.

Mésopotamiens had developed the principle of the division of the vault of heaven between twelve signs of the Zodiaque, which are appreciably the same ones as ours. Same manner, they had already named many constellations. They knew five planets: Mercury ( Sihtu ), Venus ( Delebat ), Mars ( Salbanatu ), Jupiter ( Neberu ) and Saturn ( Kayamanu ).

With the thousand-year-old 1st, the priests Babylonian astronomers had compiled long lists of statements of astral phenomena. While interpreting them, they had managed from there to establish éphémérides for all the observable stars, and almost managed from there to predict eclipse S, of which they had located the cyclic aspect.

Medicine

For Mésopotamiens, the disease was a curse sent by the gods. Those, Masters of all the men had been dissatisfied by the behavior of some of them, which they punished while sending of the " démons" who made them sick, or they took care them-even of the task.

To cure a patient, one could resort to different practices: Exorcism, or empirical Medicine. Technical long lists inform us about these practice. They are appeared as sentences with a Protase presenting the state of the patient, and a Apodose saying the diagnosis, with sometimes after the treatment being lavished. They relate to various fields, since the Gynécologie until psychiatric cases , while passing by the Ophtalmologie. One also lays out of a long list of receipts of pharmacological products .

Right

The right mésopotamien is above all known the public cultivated by the famous Code of Hammurabi. This one, with the other texts coming from Mésopotamie and which are related for him (like the Code of Ur-Nammu, oldest of the found kind, or the Assyrian Lois), represent only one small portion of the sources informing us on the right in this area. They are collections of sentences besides having vocation to be used as kinds of legal treaties, more than of legal codes to the modern direction of the term.

The major part of our sources written on the right mésopotamien are the very many legal acts found in the various sites of the area of the two-rivers, to which can be added those found elsewhere in the Middle East, since Suse until Alalakh and Ougarit. They are acts of loans (principal contract, more running, and whose the other contracts are inspired, at least for their form), of purchases/sales/leases of real goods, of animals or slaves, marriage contracts or adoption, of stamping, deeds of partnership (commercial especially), and also of account-returned lawsuit. Found on a geographical big space, and a very great period (since until second half of II), they present varied situations, and many legal aspects to us. Thus, each place develops at a given period a type of recurring form for the drafting of a precise legal document. One can nevertheless belong to the similarities between the various attested periods, testifying to same funds legal.

Beyond the legal aspect, these documents are a mine of information which enable us to foresee, like few of other wedge-shaped documents, the daily life of Old the mésopotamiens. One can thanks to these texts analyze the social institutions, reports/ratios, husbandries, artisanal or commercial, etc

Art

Among the principal artistic fields attested in Mésopotamie, one can raise:

the Glyptique: the study of the reasons represented on the Seal X, then the Sceaux-cylindres (starting from the Period of Uruk) reveals us the mental universe of old Mésopotamiens.

the Sculpture: among the works carried out in sculpture in the round, the statues of the period of Gudea of Lagash (22e century) are among most remarkable; thereafter, the sculptors mésopotamiens preferred the low-reliefs, of which most famous are those of the néo-Assyrian palates.

the Painting: it is attested rather little, because few paintings were preserved; the most beautiful frescos mésopotamiennes were found with Mari) (18th century), Til-Barsip (8th century) and a little in the néo-Assyrian capitals (Assur, Kalhu, Ninive) (IXe-VIIe centuries); their style is very close to that of the low-reliefs.

the Goldsmithery: relatively little jewels of great quality was updated, more the good examples were exhumed royal tombs Ur; if not, one little to have an idea of their form by the representation of jewels related by men to low-reliefs.

the Music: the music occupied an important place, both for the entertainment the worship; the instruments used were: the Quadrant, of the percussion S (drum S, tambourine S), the Oud, of the Flute S, etc

Structure

The raw brick

The primary product used to construct buildings in Mésopotamie is the Argile. One made use of it to carry out believed bricks, by mixing it with vegetable matters. For this purpose, one developed brick moulds. Exceptionally, one cooked bricks in furnaces, which made them extremely solid, whereas clay believed was exhausted. The cooked brick buildings often were used as careers once given up besides.

Town planning

Residences

One can distinguish three types of residences: those of the common peoples, those of the leaders (palates), and those of the gods (temples). They bore the same name: É in Sumérien, bītu (m) in Akkadien. They functioned besides according to the same principle, since they were generally organized around a central space, and were contained on themselves (and nonopen towards outside).

The traditional residences could have a stage. They vary according to financial means of their owner, and the size of the household. One often took the practice to bury deaths of the family under the residences where they had lived. The majority had a central space (covered or not), others consisted of a succession of rooms.

The palates in the beginning were built like houses, in vaster, with sometimes there too a stage. They end up taking more space, and to have a more complex space. Their plan is nevertheless very variable from one place to another. The zones are generally differentiated: residential space (with a harem), room of reception, stores, administrative rooms, etc

The temples are traditionally regarded as having three principal parts: a hall, an anteroom, then the " saint of the saints' sheltering the statue of the principal divinity. These buildings in fact are organized according to the same principle as a normal residence, namely around a central space, opening sometimes on stores and administrative buildings, or many libraries. The most important temples had great dependences, because of their economic richness and of the numerical importance of their personnel.

Economy

“Great organizations”

The economy of ancient Mésopotamie is framed by what one calls sometimes the “Great organizations” (following A. Leo Oppenheim). They are the royal palace and the temples as well as their dependences. Indeed, in addition to their political office and economic, those have an important economic capacity, whose base is consisted a very important land inheritance often. In fact generally the palate has the most advantages. The king redistributes the grounds with the temples and his men while keeping most of those for his account. The grounds are allocated with a person against a load carried out by this one, to help it to remain (one speaks sometimes about “fields of subsistence”). It happens that these grounds, granted only temporarily, end up passing definitively in the family inheritance of the holder of the load. The temples often have a great economic importance, especially in the Babylonia of the beginning of the thousand-year-old 1st, when the royal capacity weakened and where they remained the only about stable organizations.

Concurrently to these Great organizations, most of the population lived small agricultural properties, or of a modest artisanal work which could be carried out on its own account. These people-there are not documented to us by the wedge-shaped files which one found, since they lived apart from the part of the company practitioner writes it. The people working for the Great organizations could also carry out businesses for their own account, in particular at the commercial level.

Agriculture

Craft industry

See also: Craft industry in Mésopotamie

The artisanal sector functions as that of agriculture above all within the framework of the great organizations. The craft industry apart from this sphere is not documented to us. There existed sometimes of large factories, in particular in the Textile, employing a great number of workers often under not very enviable conditions. But the craft industry with small scales was majority.

The majority of the artisanal fields are represented in Mésopotamie: Textile, Joinery, Metallurgy, Goldsmithery, Basket making, etc

Trade

The trade is often defines as an important activity for Mésopotamiens, considering the area where they lived was low in raw materials (stone, metal, wood of quality). In the facts, they are especially richest which benefitted from the trade with long distance.

The business enterprises at the beginning were carried out by merchants (sumérien DAM.GAR, akkadien tamkāru (m) ) engaged by a Great organization. Starting from the beginning of the 2nd millenium, one is well documented on commercial systems primarily " privés" , with Larsa, Sippar, and especially Assur, thanks to the files of the merchants of this city found with Kültepe in Cappadoce, us showing the existence of a very elaborate and fructeux trade.

On their side, Mésopotamiens exported especially manufactured goods, above all the textile, or they were done intermediate between two areas (by exchanging tin of Iran against Cuivre of Anatolia for example).

A trade also existed at the local level. It concerned before all the supply of the urban centres agricultural produce coming from the countryside.

Company

The company mésopotamienne is divided into two great groups: free men and not-free (slaves).

Free men

The first are a category where one can also distinguish two groups (less obvious to locate for the 3rd millenium). The first (the awīlu (m) of the Code of Hammurabi and the Assyrian Laws) is consisted the personnel working within the framework of the " Large organismes" , the palate and the temple, which has this fact of an important place in the company. The remainder of the company ( muškēnum in the Code of Hammurabi, aššurayu in the Assyrian Laws) lives in-outside this circle, within the framework of urban communities or rural. The social stratification is not done around an ideological design of the company distinguishing from the classes more prestigious than the others, they are financial means which appears to make the difference, and to have some it is necessary to work with the royal capacity or the temples. It is for that important to be in good terms with the royal capacity.

Slaves

The slaves (sumérien ÌR, akkadien (W) difficult (m) ) occupy the bottom of the social scale. They are regarded as objects, with the service of their Master. There are various ways of becoming slave: it is not a question itself slaves of birth, the majority are prisoners of war, and one also finds free men fallen in constraint because of unpaid debts (what can be only temporary).

Nomads

Part of the company appears by its lifestyle: the nomads, which occupy an important place during all the history mésopotamienne (Amorrites, Kassites, Sutéens, Gutis, Araméens, Chaldéens, etc). Those live within a tribal framework, organized around large grouping of tribes directed by a big boss. Division between free and not-free also exists within this part of the company.

There can be seminomads, part of their population being sedentary at certain times of the year to carry out work agricultural while the other is devoted to the pastoralism. The nomads constitute sometimes a danger to the sedentary companies, their rather precarious lifestyle making them more fragile with the hard blows (in particular climatic), which often pushes them to be done plundering in crisis period. So they are often described in term pejorative by the urban well-read men. They however live generally in symbiosis with the sedentary world: they are made pastors for the great organizations, sometimes are useful as seasonal workers, and they are often appreciated as soldiers.

The wandering populations very often finish by sédentariser and to adopt the lifestyle of the sedentaries, and their chiefs constitute sometimes kingdoms promised with a great prosperity, as Amorrites, Kassites and Araméens did it.

Sexual differentiation

Radiation

Because it was the first area of the old Middle East to being excavated well, Mésopotamie was regarded a long time as the " center" of this one, the remainder being relegated to the row of " périphérie". The discoveries of civilizations sumérienne, Babylonian and Assyrian appeared to abound in this direction. But one since updated of new centers which showed that the areas considered as marginal were very advanced as of one moved back time (in particular thanks to the files of Ebla and Mari in Syria, and today of Jiroft in Iran), and did not have large-thing to envy Mésopotamie contemporary. Impossibility of excavating on the ground Iraq IEN since the beginning of the years 1990 was not without effect on this change of prospect.

The resemblance between civilization mésopotamienne and its neighbors can be explained by the fact that they constitute a territory having shared a common destiny since the Neolithic period , phase which Mésopotamie is to have tested last. This explains why one finds everywhere in this area of Asia funds cultural commun run, political organizations and social similar in spite of his geographical disparity.

Nevertheless Mésopotamie, and in particular Low Mésopotamie exerted an undeniable influence on the old Middle East, like any other area. That begins with the Period from Uruk, which sees an expansion of the inhabitants of the future country of Sumer in the close areas. Culture worked out by Sumériens, then Akkadiens has a considerable radiation. Its written form, with its methods of training, its literature are taken again in Syria, Anatolia, with the Raising, in Iran and until Egypt with the time of Amarna, when the Akkadien is the language of the international relations.

Babylon, by taking again this heritage as from the 2nd millenium, obtains a prestige incomparable arts center. It is besides by its name, taken again by the Bible the traditional and Greek authors, that the memory of Mésopotamie will remain before its redécouverte after the excavations of the 19th century, marking the birth of the Assyriologie.

See too

the old Middle East
Sumer
Wedge-shaped Babylon
Assyrie
Iraq

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