Ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. The cities of Mesopotamia. Ancient Mesopotamia

"All will converge in Mesopotamia,
Here Eden is also the beginning
Here once a general speech
The Word of God sounded ... "

( Konstantin Mikhailov )

While the territory of ancient Europe wandered the wild nomads, in the East with might and main there were very interesting (sometimes inexplicable) events. About them is colorfully written in the Old Testament and in other historical sources. For example, such famous biblical stories as the Tower of Babel and the World Flood happened just on the territory of Mesopotamia.

Ancient Mesopotamia without any embellishment can be called the cradle of civilization. It was on this earth about the 4th century BC that the first Oriental civilization was born. Such states of Mesopotamia (Ancient Mesopotamia in Greek), as Sumer and Akkad, presented mankind with writing and amazing temple constructions. Let's go on a trip to this complete secrets of the earth!

Geographical position

What was the name of Mesopotamia? Mesopotamia. The second name of Mesopotamia is Mesopotamia. You can also hear the word Naharaim - this is also she, only in Hebrew.

Mesopotamia is a historical and geographical territory located between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Now on this earth are three states: Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The history of the civilization of ancient Mesopotamia developed precisely on this territory.

Located in the heart of the Middle East region is bounded from the west by the Arabian platform, from the east by the foothills of Zagros. In the south, Mesopotamia is washed by the waters of the Persian Gulf, and in the north there are picturesque Ararat mountains.

Mesopotamia is a flat plain stretching along two great rivers. In form it looks like an oval figure - such is the amazing Mesopotamia (the map confirms this).

Division of Mesopotamia into regions

Historians conditionally divide Mesopotamia into:

• The upper Mesopotamia is the northern part of the region. From ancient times (from the middle of the 1st millennium BC) was called "Assyria". Many years later, in this territory, modern Syria was formed with its capital in the beautiful city of Damascus.
• The Lower Mesopotamia is the southern part of Mesopotamia. Was heavily populated by people before our era. In turn, the Southern Mesopotamia is also divided into two separate regions. Namely to the northern and southern parts. The first (northern part) was originally called Ki-Uri, and then Akkad. The second (southern part) was called Sumer. Hence the beautiful and sonorous name of one of the first cradles of civilization was born - "Sumer and Akkad". A little later, this historic area began to be called Babylonia. It is noteworthy that it was there that the legendary tower, according to legend, reached its height to the sky.

On the territory of the Ancient Mesopotamia four ancient kingdoms existed at different times:

• Sumer;
• Akkad;
• Babylonia;
• Assyria.

Why did Mesopotamia become the cradle of civilization?

About 6 thousand years ago an amazing event happened on our planet: approximately at the same time two civilizations were born - Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia. The nature of civilization is both similar and unlike the first ancient state.

The similarity lies in the fact that both originated in territories with conditions favorable for human life. They do not resemble the fact that each of them is distinguished by a unique story (the first thing that comes to mind: in Egypt there were pharaohs, but in Mesopotamia - no).

The topic of the article, nevertheless, is the state of Mesopotamia. Therefore, we will not deviate from it.

Ancient Mesopotamia is a kind of oasis in the desert. On both sides the terrain is fenced with rivers. And from the north - mountains that protect the oasis from damp winds from Armenia.

Such favorable natural features made this land attractive to an ancient person. Surprisingly, they combine a comfortable climate with the opportunity to engage in agriculture. The soil is so fertile and rich in moisture that the grown fruits are juicy, and the legumes that have grown are delicious.

The first noticed this ancient Sumerians, who settled this territory about 6 thousand years ago. They have learned to masterfully grow various plants and left behind a rich history, the riddles of which are still solved by enthusiastic people.

A little conspiracy: the origin of the Sumerians

Modern history does not answer the question of where the Sumerians came from. There are many assumptions about this, but the scholarly community has not yet come to a common opinion. Why? Because the Sumerians stood out strongly against the background of the other tribes inhabiting the Mesopotamia.

One of the obvious differences is the language: it does not resemble any of the dialects spoken by residents of neighboring territories. That is, it has no similarity to the Indo-European language - the forerunner of most modern languages.

Also, the appearance of the inhabitants of the Ancient Sumer is not typical of the inhabitants of those places. The tablets depict people with flat ovals of faces, surprisingly large eyes, thin facial features and height above average.

Another point that historians draw attention to is the unusual culture of ancient civilization. One of the hypotheses is that the Sumerians are representatives of a highly developed civilization that flew from the Cosmos to our planet. This point of view is rather strange, but has the right to exist.

How it was in reality is not clear. But one thing is certain - the Sumerians gave a lot to our civilization. One of their undeniable achievements is the invention of writing.

Ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia

Different peoples inhabited the extensive territory of Mesopotamia. We will distinguish two main (the history of Mesopotamia without them would not be so saturated):

• Sumerians;
• Semites (to be more precise, Semitic tribes: Arabs, Armenians and Jews).

Starting from this, we will talk about the most interesting events and historical personalities.

In order to preserve the general outline of our narrative, we will begin a story about ancient civilizations from the Sumerian kingdom.

Sumer: a brief historical background

This was the first written civilization that arose in the southeast of Mesopotamia from the 4th to 3rd centuries BC. Now in this area is the modern state of Iraq (Ancient Mesopotamia, the map again helps us navigate).

The Sumerians are the only non-Semitic people on the territory of the Mesopotamia. This is confirmed by numerous linguistic and cultural studies. Official history says that the Sumerians came to the territory of Mesopotamia from some mountainous Asian country.

They began their journey through the Middle East from the east: they settled along the mouths of rivers and mastered the irrigation farm. The first town in which representatives of this ancient civilization stopped was Eredu. Then the Sumerians moved deeper into the plain: they did not subordinate the local population to themselves, but assimilated; Sometimes even adopted some cultural achievements of wild tribes.

The history of the Sumerians is a fascinating process of struggle between different groups of people under the leadership of this or that tsar. Its state flourished under the ruler Ummah Lugalzagesse.

The Babylonian historian Beros in his work divided the Sumerian history into two periods:

• Before the Flood (meaning the Great Flood and the story of Noah, described in the Old Testament);
• After the Flood.

Culture of Ancient Mesopotamia (Sumer)

The first Sumerian settlements were original - they were small towns surrounded by stone walls; Lived in them from 40 to 50 thousand people. An important city in the southeast of the country was Ur. The center of the Sumerian kingdom was recognized as the city of Nippur, located in the center of the country. Known large temple of Enlil God.

The Sumerians were a fairly well-developed civilization, let us enumerate what they reached in the heights.

• In agriculture. This is evidenced by the agricultural almanac that has come down to us. It describes in detail how to grow plants properly, when they need watering, how to properly plow the soil.
• In the craft. The Sumerians knew how to build houses and knew how to use a potter's wheel.
• In writing. It will be discussed in our next chapter.

The Legend of Writing

Most important inventions occur in a rather strange way, especially when it comes to ancient times. The emergence of writing is no exception.

The two ancient Sumerian rulers argued among themselves. This was expressed in the fact that they conceived riddles and exchanged them through their ambassadors. One ruler turned out to be very inventive and came up with such a complicated puzzle that his ambassador could not remember him. Then I had to invent writing.

The Sumerians wrote clay boards with cane sticks. In the beginning, the letters were represented in the form of signs and hieroglyphs, then in the form of connected syllables. This process was called cuneiform writing.

The culture of Ancient Mesopotamia is inconceivable without the Sumerian. Neighboring peoples borrowed the skill of writing from this civilization.

Babylonia (Babylonian kingdom)

There was a state at the beginning of the second millennium BC in the south of Mesopotamia. Having existed for about 15 centuries, left behind a rich history and interesting monuments of architecture.

The Semitic people of Amorite inhabited the territory of the Babylonian state. They adopted the earlier culture of the Sumerians, but they spoke already in the Akkadian language, which belongs to the Semitic group.

Ancient Babylon arose on the site of the earlier Sumerian city of Kadingir.

The key historical figure was the king Hammurabi. During his military campaigns, he subjugated many neighboring cities. Also wrote the work that has come down to us - "The laws of Mesopotamia (Hammurabi)".

We will tell in more detail about the rules of social life recorded by the wise king. The laws of Hammurabi are phrases written on a clay tablet regulating the rights and duties of the average Babylonian. Historians suggest that the presumption of innocence and the "eye for eye" principle were first formulated by Hammurabi.

Some principles the ruler invented himself, some - copied from earlier Sumerian sources.

Hammurabi's laws say that the ancient civilization was really developed, because people observed certain rules and already had an idea of what is good and what is bad.

The original work is in the Louvre, with an exact copy can be found in some kind of museum in Moscow.

The Tower of Babel

The cities of Mesopotamia are a topic for a separate work. We will stop at Babylon, the very place where the interesting events described in the Old Testament took place.

First, tell an interesting biblical story about the Tower of Babel, then - the point of view of the scientific community on this matter. The legend of the Tower of Babel is the story of the appearance of different languages on Earth. The first mention of it can be found in the book of Genesis: the event occurred after the World Flood.

In those times immemorial, humanity was a single people, therefore, all people spoke the same language. They moved to the south and came to the lower reaches of the Tigris and the Euphrates. There they decided to found a city (Babylon) and build a tower to the sky. The work was boiling with might and main ... But then God intervened in the process. He created different languages, so people stopped understanding each other. It is clear that very soon the construction of the tower was stopped. The final of the story was the resettlement of people to various corners of our planet.

What does the scientific community think about the Tower of Babel? Scientists suggest that the Tower of Babel was one of the ancient temples to observe the stars and conduct religious rituals. Such structures were called ziggurats. The highest temple (in height reached 91 meters) was in Babylon. His name sounded like Etemanne. The literal translation of the word - "The house where the heavens converge with the Earth".

The Assyrian Empire

The first mention of Assyria dates back to the 24th century BC. The state lasted two thousand years. And in the seventh century BC ceased to exist. The Assyrian Empire was recognized as the first in the history of mankind.

The state was located in the northern Mesopotamia (on the territory of modern Iraq). It was distinguished by militancy: many cities were subordinated and destroyed by Assyrian generals. They captured not only the territory of Mesopotamia, but also the territory of the Israeli kingdom and the island of Cyprus. There was an attempt to subjugate the ancient Egyptians, but it did not succeed - in 15 years the inhabitants of this country regained their independence.

To the captured population cruel measures were applied: the Assyrians obliged to pay a monthly tribute.

The major Assyrian cities were:

• Ashur;
• Kalah;
• Dur-Sharrukin (the Palace of Sargon).

Assyrian culture and religion

Here again one can trace the connection with the Sumerian culture. The Assyrians spoke in the northern dialect of the Akkadian language. The schools studied the literary works of the Sumerians and Babylonians; Some moral standards of ancient civilizations were adopted by the Assyrians. On palaces and temples, local architects portrayed a bold lion as a symbol of the military successes of the empire. Assyrian literature, again, is associated with the campaigns of local rulers: kings have always been described as brave and courageous people, and their opponents, on the contrary, are shown cowardly and petty (here you can see an obvious reception of state propaganda).

The Religion of the Mesopotamia

The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia are inherently associated with the local religion. Moreover, their inhabitants piously believed in gods and necessarily performed certain ceremonies. Speaking very broadly, it was polytheism (faith in different gods) that distinguished the Ancient Mesopotamia. To better understand the religion of Mesopotamia, you need to read the local epic. One of the most striking literary works of that time is the myth of Gilgamesh. A thoughtful reading of this book suggests that the hypothesis of the unearthly origin of the Sumerians is not groundless.

The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia gave us three main mythologies:

• Shumero-Akkadian.
• The Babylonian.
• Assyrian.

Let us consider in more detail each of them.

Shumero-Akkadian mythology

It included all the beliefs of the Sumerian-speaking population. Also here is the religion of Akkadians. The gods of Mesopotamia are uniform: each major city had its own pantheon and its temples. Still, you can find similarities.

We list the important gods for the Sumerians:

• An (Anu - Akkad.) - the god of the sky, responsible for the Cosmos and the stars. Was very revered by the ancient Sumerians. He was considered a passive ruler, that is, he did not interfere in people's lives.
• Enlil is the lord of the air, the second most important god for the Sumerians. Only, unlike Ana, he was an active deity. He was revered as responsible for fertility, yield and for a peaceful life.
• Ishtar (Inanna) is the key goddess for the Sumerian-Akkadian mythology. Information about it is very contradictory: on the one hand, it is the patroness of fertility and good relations between a man and a woman, and on the other - a fierce warrior. Such inconsistencies arise because of the large number of different sources that contain references to it.
• Umu (Sumerian pronunciation) or Shamash (Akkadian variant, speaking of the similarity of language with Hebrew, as "shemesh" means the sun).

Babylonian Mythology

The main ideas for their religion were adopted from the Sumerians. True, with significant complications.

The Babylonian religion was built on the belief of man in his impotence before the gods of the pantheon. It is clear that this ideology was based on fear and limited the development of the ancient man. A similar structure was built for the priests: they carried out various manipulations in the ziggurats (majestic high temples), including a complex ritual of sacrifice.

The following gods were revered in Babylonia:

• Tammuz - was the patron of agriculture, vegetation and fertility. There is a connection with a similar Sumerian cult of the resurrected and dying vegetation god.
• Adad is the patron of the storm and rain. Very powerful and evil deity.
• Shamash and Sin are the patrons of the heavenly bodies: the sun and the moon.

Assyrian mythology

The religion of the warlike Assyrians is very similar to the Babylonian religion. Most of the rituals, traditions and traditions came to the people of the Northern Mesopotamia from the Babylonians. The latter borrowed, as mentioned earlier, their religion from the Sumerians.

Important gods were:

• Ashur is the main god. The patron of the whole Assyrian kingdom, created not only all the other mythological heroes, but also himself.
• Ishtar is the goddess of war.
• Ramman - responsible for success in military battles, brought good luck to the Assyrians.

Considered the gods of Mesopotamia and the cults of ancient peoples - an exciting topic, rooted in very old times. The conclusion is that the main inventors of religion were the Sumerians, whose ideas were adopted by the rest of the people.

A rich cultural and historical heritage left us ancient people living in the Mesopotamia.

To study the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia is a pleasure, because they are connected with interesting and instructive myths. And all that concerns the Sumerians - this is generally one complete mystery, the answers to which have not yet been found. But historians and archaeologists continue to "dig the soil" in this direction. Anyone can join them and also study this very interesting and very ancient civilization.