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World history
Course: World history > Unit 1
Lesson 3: Ancient MesopotamiaAncient Mesopotamia
Why is Mesopotamia considered the "cradle of civilization"? Sal explains the history of the early empires on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is Mesopotamia in Greece? I looked it up but I don't know for sure.(10 votes)
- Mesopotamia is in modern day Iraq not Greece. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are located in Iraq; you can google it to see a map if you want. :D(62 votes)
- Why is Mesopotamia important(15 votes)
- Mesopotamia was important because it habited one of the first civilizations. There were many inventions made during that time, such as writing and the wheel. There was also culture there, with shrines, temples and ziggurats. Because there was food surpluses, trading, crafting, and different levels of jobs took place. There was a social hierarchy, which we still have today.(22 votes)
- At aroundSal mentions the finding of cuneiforms. Has any of these been deciphered yet, and if so what do most of them say. Later on at around 3:30Sal brings up the "famous code of Hammurabi", has this also been deciphered, and if so, what is it a code for? 7:00(8 votes)
- Cuneiform writing has been deciphered.
The entire code of Hammurabi has been translated into English and you can find it on Google.(15 votes)
- How could scientist find out where the first civilizations started.(8 votes)
- Good question, Kendall! It's very hard to study pre-historical human societies, so scientists make their best guesses using the evidence they have. Archaeologists have studied fossils and have used tools like carbon dating to determine age. Check out our tutorial on early human societies for more information: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/history-beginnings/origin-humans-early-societies/v/history-and-prehistory.(6 votes)
- i wonder if the cities are still standing.(5 votes)
- The bricks were made of mud. Even with the dryness of the area, whatever is ancient melted long ago. Such remains of ancient cities as may be found are either ruins or modern reconstructions.(5 votes)
- What does Mesopotamia mean in greek(2 votes)
- It means "between rivers". That makes sense because the Mesopotamian civilization was indeed located between two rivers namely the Euphrates and the Tigris.(8 votes)
- Are there any known civilizations that had existed before ancient Mesopotamia? If so, what was the difference in their lifestyle compared to the ancient Mesopotamians?(3 votes)
- No, civilization first arose in ancient Mesopotamia. There are no signs of a true civilization before that.(4 votes)
- Why were Rivers more effective than the oceans or Seas in agriculture.? Like why didn't you see Black Sea or Lake Superior civilization or something like that. Since almost all major cities are by a river or ocean so both are obviously effective.(3 votes)
- A Black Sea culture would require salt-water based agriculture.
A Lake Superior culture might require warmer weather (it's cold up there). Note that the great cultures emerged in wqrmer climes.
If there was a Lake Superior culture (which I'm not denying), European invaders may well have destroyed it. Compare and ask whether there was a Lake Baikal Culture in Siberia.(4 votes)
- At, Sal mentions Sumerians. I´ve heard of Samaritans. Are they the same thing? 2:00(2 votes)
- Decidedly not. The Samaritans were another group in the fertile crescent area at that time, but they weren't related to the Sumerians. The Samaritans were a religious group, and they had a religion similar to Judaism. Sumerians were the people that lived in the collection of city-states in the civilization of Sumer.(5 votes)
- When I was in college they told us that humans had been on Earth for about 100,000 years and agriculture for 10,000. Now I believe they are saying humans have been around for perhaps millions of years but it is unknown because so little is left of hunter gatherer groups. What's the latest scoop?(2 votes)
- Early hominids - Homo habilis (skillful man) Lived in Africa about 2.7 Million years ago. They used stone tools. Homo Erectus lived about 1.8 Million years ago and did migrate from Africa to almost all of the Eastern Hemisphere. Homo Sapiens (modern human) came onto the scene about 200,000 years ago based on the fossil record. Something to keep in mind is that as more and more research is done, the 'facts' evolve. Here is a link to a great article talking about Homo Erectus and the evolution of modern man. http://www.livescience.com/41048-facts-about-homo-erectus.html Current thinking is that agriculture happened in many areas about the same time. The Harappan civilization in the Indus River valley area is another early example of agriculture, architecture and they too had a trade network established with Mesopotamia.(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] In other videos, we talk about how 10 to 15,000 years ago. You have the emergence of agriculture primarily around river valleys, and it's no surprise that agriculture first came about around river valleys because the rivers would flood, making the soil around them fertile. They would provide fresh water for crops and for the people who
would live near them. Later on, the rivers could be useful for transporting things like crops, and so it's not surprising that our first significant
civilizations also emerged where the first agriculture emerged. And our first civilizations we'll see in ancient Egypt along the Nile. We will see it in the Indus
Valley along the Indus River. We'll see it in China along
the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, and we'll also see it in Mesopotamia along the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers. And what we're gonna focus on in this video in particular is Mesopotamia. Now, the word Mesopotamia
literally come from meso, between, and potamos. I'm probably not pronouncing
it right, rivers. So it's the area between
rivers is literally what Mesopotamia is referring to. And it's primarily modern day Iraq. Now the reason why this is
particularly interesting and it's called the
cradle of civilization, is not only is it one of or perhaps the first place that
agriculture developed, it was at the crossroads of
many other early civilizations. Notice it's right in between the Indus Valley civilization here, and then the ancient Egyptians, and other civilizations that
were emerging in the area. And so it's not surprising that this was a geography that had
significant developments in terms of technology,
in terms of architecture, in terms of religion, in terms of writing. And the first civilization we believe that emerged in Mesopotamia
are the Sumerians. Sumerians. And Sumeria and Sumerians,
it's most associated with this region right over
here of, let me circle it, this region right over here
of southern Mesopotamia. And we currently think
that this civilization started to emerge around 4000 BCE. You can see it on this
timeline here in orange, and they developed things
as basic as the wheel. The first wheel that was ever discovered was 3500 BCE in Sumeria. They're famous for their
architectural structures. This is a picture here of a ziggurat, which was at the center of many of these Sumerian and as we'll
see Mesopotamian cities. This would require an incredible
amount of labor to produce, and at the top of these they
had temples to their Gods and their Gods, they had
a polytheistic religion, and their Gods took human form. Also amongst the Sumerians
is where we think one of the first written
languages developed. It wasn't the first. You also have the Egyptian hieroglyphics and written language emerged amongst the Harappans and the
Indus Valley civilization and amongst the Chinese, but it was one of the first languages. This right over here is an
example of a cuneiform tablet. This is a cuneiform tablet
written in the script. Cuneiform developed by
these ancient Sumerians. Now, when you talk about Mesopotamia, you'll talk about Sumerians, but we'll also talk about other
civilizations that emerge. In particular, let me write them all down. You have the Sumerians. You'll also hear
something called Akkadian, and as we'll see, Akkadian
is both a language and an empire that will emerge. In Mesopotamia over the
roughly 3,000 years BCE, the two primary languages are Akkadian, which is considered a Semitic language. It's related to modern Semitic languages, like Arabic and Hebrew, and the reason why
they're called Semitic is because they're spoken or
they're reported to be spoken by the descendants of
Shem, who was Noah's son, in the Hebrew bible. So, you have the language
Akkadian, which is Semitic, and then you have the other
language, which is Sumerian. And as we get into the
third millennium BCE, the Sumerians start to have a lot of interaction with Akkadian speaking people, and Akkadian speaking people
are initially associated primarily with northern Mesopotamia, and we believe the first
empire, true empire, perhaps the first empire in
the world emerged from Acadia, and it was called the Akkadian Empire. And if we scroll down over here, we can see how the Akkadian Empire spread. We believe that the town of Akkad, which the Akkadian Empire is named for, some place in this region right over here, and the first significant ruler who really spread that empire was Sargon, often referred to as Sargon the Great. And you can see, you can see that that would have been established around the middle of the 23rd, or
actually the 24th century BCE. So around 2350, you
have Sargon establishing what might be the first
Dynastic empire in the world, the Akkadian Empire, and he was able to take control of both northern and southern Mesopotamia, so even the Sumerians were under the control of the Akkadians. As we'll see over time, you have a lot of mixing
between the Akkadian language, the Sumerian language. Akkadian gets written
in the Cuneiform script, and starting at around this period, Sumerian starts to die
as a spoken language and Akkadian really becomes dominant. Now, the Akkadians rule for
a little over 100 years, and then you have several other empires. It can get confusing. The way I have structured this timeline is this top line right over
here is southern Mesopotamia and this bottom line right over
here is northern Mesopotamia so this orange shows you where
the Sumerians were reigning. Some people think that they might have been the first empire. This bottom line here, you
can see the Akkadian speakers, but they were fragmented until
you have Sargon the great establishing the Akkadian Empire. Now, you briefly then have a
short-term neo-Sumerian empire, but the next significant empire
that's often talked about when associated with Mesopotamia
is the Babylonian Empire. So Babylon, the Babylonian Empire was centered at Babylon, right over here, and it really became a significant empire under the ruler Hammurabi. And Hammurabi is perhaps most known, you can see how he was
able to spread the empire. The dark brown is what he had with this empire when he took rule, and the light brown is what
he was able to spread it to, so once again, both north and south, and he's perhaps most famous for his famous code of Hammurabi,
which is depicted here, and it wasn't the first written code, but it was one of the earliest, and you could view it as
almost a proto-constitution, and it was based on things
that the Sumerians had before, but they've even influenced
things like biblical laws, things that come down to
modern codes of law today. Now, after the Babylonians, the other significant empire
that would have control over significant portions of
Mesopotamia is the Assyrian Empire. And the Assyrian Empire
is named for their, I guess you could say their
home base, the town of Assur. You can see it in this map here, where we showed the Akkadian Empire. And both the Babylonians and the Assyrians were Akkadian speaking,
so at this point now, and as we get into the
later Assyrian period, we'll start to have Aramaic be
a more significant language, another Semitic language,
but as you can see here, the Assyrian Empire at its peak controlled much of the modern day Middle East. Now, the Assyrian Empire
would eventually collapse in the seventh century BCE, and it would be taken over
by the Neobabylonian Empire. I have a map of that right over here, which also controlled much
of the modern middle east. Probably the most famous ruler
of the Neobabylonian Empire was Nebuchadnezzar II from
the Hebrew bible famous for taking the early Jewish people captive, the famous Babylonian captivity, but eventually they would be overthrown, and they would be overthrown
in the sixth century BCE by the Persians and Cyrus the Great, and that'll actually be the end of the Babylonian captivity
according to biblical accounts. But the big picture is
that Mesopotamia is called the cradle of civilization
for a good reason. Not only do we have these technological and architectural advancements, their religion, their writing
has influenced civilization since, for the last
five, six, 7,000 years. Well, I'd say definitely
the last 5,000 years, and a lot of these ideas
that came out of Mesopotamia, like written codes of
law and the technologies and all the rest follow with us today.