Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia or “The land between the two rivers,” which is the Greek meaning, is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The rivers were so important to the people who lived along them that they were worshiped as gods. The population was then encouraged to grow by the abundant harvests along these rivers. The civilization of Mesopotamia set up cities and organized governments. Many people were put to work in a specialized labor just for them. A system of writing and counting was invented in order to keep records of property. An important part of this civilization was its building of large structures. Egypt also had a strong influence on this civilization since they were so geographically close to each other in the Middle East. This area is now located in present-day Iraq.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the world’s oldest civilization was called Sumer. This civilization began in Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C. Most of the Sumerians had the occupation of either farmer or city builder. Mesopotamia hardly had any rainfall since it was like a desert, so the Sumerians dug ditches and canals in order to control the spring floods of the Euphrates and Tigris. The land was also irrigated by the use of these methods. Sumerian city came to be known as an independent city-state because the land was so carved up from the building of new cities along the rivers.

Local gods were worshiped in every city-state and the Sumerians believed that those gods had the power to destroy their city through floods. In order to make the gods happy, a temple was built in the middle of each city. The temple soon became a ziggurat by 2000 B.C. This was the first monumental structure in Mesopotamia. The priests of the temple owned a large portion of the city’s territory. The king was elected to power and ruled over everything. The king held a lot of land like the temple priests and nobles did. Slaves and clients worked the lands of these nobles. Some commoners also owned land as well.

The Sumerians made a number of inventions that are still in use today. The first people to event writing were the Sumerians. They invented this sometime before 3000 B.C. Sumerian writing began as simple marks in order to represent clay tokens. To do this, they used a stylus or pointed stick to carve symbols on tablets or soft clay bricks. Many of the tablets were baked so that it would permanently stay in that form. This writing style was called cuneiform, meaning “wedge shaped,” because of the marks made by the stylus.

The Sumerians turned to clay for building since it was more abundant than stones. Sun-dried clay bricks were used to build their houses and temples. A major contribution to architecture from the Sumerians would be the invention of the arch. The plow was also invented by them and they were probably the first ones to develop wheeled vehicles. The Sumerians