Mesopotamian Legacy: How the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians & Babylonians Changed The World

The Cradle of Civilization – Mesopotamia The term Mesopotamian is made up of the ancient term meso meaning between and the word patamos meaning river, literally translating to between the rivers. As in Egypt, China, and Pakistan, it was these rivers and the fertile valley which lay between them that allowed the civilization to progress first from Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies to an agricultural village community and finally through the urban revolution and into a city-dwelling culture. This transition from farm to city was perhaps one of the most significant changes in human history, surpassed only by that from hunter-gatherer to agricultural community coming before it. While this occurred across Eurasia and even in Mesoamerica and Peru around similar periods, what makes Mesopotamian particularly interesting is the fact that it happened there first. As such, despite the independent rise of cities in other areas, Mesopotamia represents the true origins of what we now call civilization. And it is this fact that makes it enormously significant to the narrative of human history. Mesopotamia is also interesting for other reasons. First, the creativity of the era, cuneiform writing, the wheel, and an enormous list of other creations over their extraordinarily long period of dominance in writing, construction, science, law, literature, and poetry, music, and the building of empires. They have given us an immense number of global firsts, the first schools, historians, lullabies, legal precedents, pharmacopoeias, aquariums, libraries, and library catalogs, the first almanacs, the first animal fables, and the first literary debates. From Mesopotamian culture, we inherited the love song, paid employment, moral idealism, tax reductions, bicameral governments, tales of apocalyptic floods and resurrections, and even the first cases of juvenile delinquency. They provided the entire framework for modern civilization. Without their contributions, we could have never reached the social, political, cultural, and technological heights of today. Another area of interest is the lack of any dominant ethnicity. Mesopotamian civilization, made up of several major empires, numerous cities, spread across an extended period of history, was not merely made up of a local dominant race, but of hundreds of different groups of people. Immigrants and outsiders were no less significant than the Semitic and non-Semitic locals, and many even rose to prominent positions of power or even kingship. The civilization grew and continued over thousands of years, while the ethnicity of those running and living within it was varied and changing. Lastly, there is the incredible longevity of the Mesopotamian civilization. From the invention of cuneiform around 3000 BCE, to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 539 BCE, the independent Mesopotamia lasted somewhere around 2500 years. If you take the beginning not from the invention of writing, but instead from the founding of Uruk around 4500 BCE, that number increases to 4000 years. For context, there were around 2500 years between the conquest of Cyrus and modern day. The independent Mesopotamian civilization ruled the area for upward of half of human history. During this time, empires rose and fell, certain cities or regions within Mesopotamia gained dominance or lost it, but the civilization itself stood strong. In fact, not only was the region independent for such a long period, but its culture was also preserved remarkably well. Languages, music, writing systems, scientific and religious traditions were maintained throughout the civilization for its duration, and while changes will have occurred with time, they remained recognizable and understandable from the beginning until the very end. Mesopotamia, while fascinating, is poorly represented in popular history, dwarfed by Rome or classical Greece or even Egypt. For a long time, the only way to understand Mesopotamian history, culture and mythology has been through dense academic or semi-academic sources. This is in part due to the huge time frame, the rise and fall of various empires and the lack of easily understood ancient sources. The inaccessibility of information about this remarkable civilization means that many people know little about it, and what they do know may be skewed in the direction of pseudo-history and alien overlord conspiracy theories, derived from very specific interpretations of ancient mythological sources. As such, it is essential to bring the knowledge and history of Mesopotamia into light, making it accessible to all, allowing everyone to benefit from the fascinating insight of the very first human civilization. The early cities of southern Mesopotamia first emerged in the with Irida, the city of the god Enki, being founded sometime around the year 5000 BCE, followed around 500 years later by the city of Gilgamesh, Uruk. While it is uncertain how the cities were founded, it is likely that the move from agricultural villages to city life evolved around the foundation of religion or belief. This is evident in the early city structure of Sumer, where rather than a monarchy, the first cities were instead defined by temple rule. It is suggested that the early cities of Mesopotamia were founded in locations of regular congregation. In the agricultural era of human history, there would have been times when migration to certain areas was beneficial or even necessary due to plentiful food or fertile ground. People would gather in such areas and, at some point, may have left a monument of sorts in a solid, permanent material, such as baked clay bricks, a sharp contrast to the typical temporary huts. This anchor for humanity would stand for generations and may have encouraged others to come and see it. Archaeological evidence suggests that within and beneath the immense temples of the Sumerian cities lay the foundations of progressively smaller structures. In a sense, the city radiated out from this central point, as did civilization itself. The rise of Irida was followed shortly by the rise of Uruk. According to Sumerian mythology, the god Enki ruled Irida, yet kept the meh, a difficult word to translate but meaning something similar to divine decrees for culture and the basis of civilization, hidden only for use by him and in his city. His daughter Inanna, another god, stole the meh from Enki and brought them to her own city of Uruk, thus spreading civilization to her people, sometimes referred to as the first true city. Uruk was the location of several huge advancements in human society. By far the most important invention of Uruk, however, was writing. Beginning with logographic symbols many years prior and being used to record simple bureaucratic and administrative notes, such as payments of grain, the first full writing system was in use by around the year 3200 BCE. It was around this time that, according to the traditional definition, civilization truly began. The invention of writing was of extreme importance to Uruk and Sumer as a whole. Not only did it make the recording of administrative notes much easier, but it also developed the sense of personal identity in the city, something that went on to have immense effects for the future of Sumer as a whole and contributed to the transition from temple rule to kingship. Archaeologists have uncovered numerous cylindrical seals, or kishin, from around this period, which were used for signing documents or for labeling personal property. Kishin represented an immense change in ideology of the people of Sumer, as it became a symbol of personal identity and branding. The importance of the individual was, before this point, overshadowed by that of the community. The prevalent use of the kishin, however, demonstrated the newfound importance of the individual within the collective community. It is this, in part, that would lead to a dramatic restructuring of Sumerian society as a whole.