Mesopotamia Architecture Ancient Civilization

1. Mesopotamia

3. Between the Rivers
Geography
Promotes
civilization

4. Geography???
• Farming began in southern Mesopotamia in
5500 BC
• Flat, swampy region
• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers often flooded
during the spring
• The floods left a very fertile mud, called silt –
this made the soil very rich

5. Geographic Challenges
• Little rain
• Water from
rainfall and
snowmelt
• Rivers overflow
without warning
• Rivers dry up

6. Methods of Controlling Water
• developed methods to control water (i.e.,
basins, canals, dikes)
• projects required organization!!!
• complex government formed

7. Sumer: The Cities of Sumer
• First civilization
• 3,000 BC
• mud brick buildings
• Temples in the center
• ziggurats rose to the sky
• Walls surrounded the city
• city-state - a political unit
with its own government

8. Sumer: Religion and Government
• polytheistic
• The gods
controlled
nature
• Each City-State
had their own
personal god
The City’s
Center
Enlil
Rain Storm

9. Sumerian priests
• Priests held high status
and governed the city-
states
• City-states battled for
dominance
• War chiefs began to
rule as kings
• Many of the city-
states’ kings formed
dynasties
• A dynasty is a series
of rulers from one
family

10. Sumerian Culture: Writing
• Cuneiform – Sumerian writing
• Wedge-shaped symbols on clay
tablets
• first used to keep business
accounts and other records
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Scribes created written
documents – this required years
of schooling, but allowed one to
move up in social class

11. Sumer: Scientific advancement
• The Wheel
• The Plow
• Used bronze to
make stronger
weapons
• Medical
knowledge, and
performed basic
surgeries

12. Sumer: The Arts
• Sumerian
architecture: arches,
ramps, and columns
• Sumerian Sculpture:
statues with large,
wide-open eyes, as
well as small objects
carved out of ivory
• cylinder seals

13. Empires in Mesopotamia
• Frequent warfare
weakened
Sumer’s city-
states.
• Each new
invader adapted
parts of Sumerian
culture into its
own society
Empires in Mesopotamia

14. Sargon’s Akkadian Empire
• 2330 BCE
• Sargon I – first to create a
permanent army
• Conquered all of Sumer and
northern Mesopotamia
• Akkad was the world’s first
empire

15. Continued…
• Used cuneiform as the main language for
religion and literature
• Kept the power of the priesthood
• Empire lasted for 140 years
• spread Sumerian culture
• Tribes from the east invaded and captured
Akkad

16. The Babylonian Empire
• The Amorites settled in Babylon on the Eurphrates,
near modern Baghdad, Iraq
• Hammurabi became king of Babylon in 1792 BCE
• He was a great warrior and UNITED all of
Mesopotamia in what is known as the Babylonian
Empire

17. Hammurabi
• Great administrator
• Managed buildings and projects
• Improved the tax collection system
• Increased trade
• Honored old Sumerian gods
• Allowed priests to retain their power
• Schools continued to teach the Sumerian language
and cuneiform writing

18. Hammurabi’s Code
• Code of laws
• 282 laws dealing with
everything from trade
and theft to injury and
murder

19. Decline of Babylon
• After Hammurabi’s death, Babylonian power
declined
• Less than 200 years later, the empire had
fallen