Mesopotamia crash course world history 3. Nerdfighteria Wiki 2022-10-27
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Mesopotamia is a historical region located in the eastern Mediterranean, comprising much of modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and parts of Syria, Turkey, and Iran. It is known as the birthplace of civilization and was home to some of the world's earliest great empires.
Mesopotamia is often referred to as the "cradle of civilization" because it was here that some of the world's earliest great civilizations emerged. The ancient Mesopotamians made significant advances in agriculture, architecture, art, literature, and science, which laid the foundations for much of Western civilization.
One of the earliest civilizations to emerge in Mesopotamia was the Sumerian civilization, which flourished around 4000 BCE. The Sumerians were a highly advanced civilization, and they made significant contributions to the fields of agriculture, architecture, and art. They also developed a system of writing called cuneiform, which was used to record their laws, stories, and other important information.
The Sumerians were also known for their advanced system of government, which was organized into city-states. Each city-state was ruled by a king or queen, who was advised by a council of nobles. The Sumerians also developed a complex system of laws, which were used to regulate social and economic life in the city-states.
After the fall of the Sumerian civilization, Mesopotamia was conquered by the Akkadians, a Semitic people who established the world's first empire around 2334 BCE. The Akkadians were led by the great warrior-king Sargon the Great, who expanded the empire through military conquest. The Akkadian empire was short-lived, however, and it collapsed after only a few generations.
The next major civilization to emerge in Mesopotamia was the Babylonian civilization, which arose around 1800 BCE. The Babylonians were known for their sophisticated system of government and their impressive architectural achievements, including the construction of the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon. They also made significant contributions to the fields of mathematics and astronomy, and their system of mathematics, known as the Babylonian numerals, was the first to use a place-value system.
In addition to the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Babylonians, other important civilizations that flourished in Mesopotamia include the Assyrians, who established a powerful empire in the region around the 9th century BCE, and the Persians, who conquered the region in the 6th century BCE and established the Achaemenid Empire.
Throughout its long history, Mesopotamia has been home to a diverse array of cultures and civilizations, each of which has contributed to the rich cultural and intellectual heritage of the region. Today, the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia continue to fascinate historians and scholars, and their legacy can be seen in many aspects of modern life.
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So the priests were overtaken by kings, who soon declared themselves priests. More adjectives describing my college girlfriend. Well first, they extended their empire beyond their roads, making administration impossible, but more importantly, when your whole worldview is based on the idea that the apocalypse will come if you ever lose a battle, and then you lose one battle, the whole worldview just blows up. Even though territorial kingdoms like Babylon were more powerful than any cities that had come before, and even though Babylon was probably the world's most populous city during Hammurabi's rule, it wasn't actually that powerful. You see this explored a lot in some of our greatest art, like The Beverly Hillbillies, and Deliverance, and the showdown between Enkidu and Gilgamesh in the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was my best Blue Steel. They did this thanks to the most brutal, terrifying, and efficient army the world had ever seen.
So beginning around 911 BCE, the neo-Assyrian Empire grew from its hometowns of Ashur and Nineveh to include the whole of Mesopotamia, the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and even, by 680 BCE, Egypt. Uruk was a walled city with an extensive canal system and several monumental temples, called ziggurats. We talk a lot of smack about taxes but it turns out they're pretty important to create stable social orders. Gilgamesh is one of the oldest known works of literature, and I'm not going to spoil it for you, there's a link to the poem in the video info. And written language played an important role in widening the gap between classes. The Tigris and Euphrates are decent as rivers go, but Mesopotamia is no Indus Valley, with its on-schedule flooding and easy irrigation. Also, they were super mean, like they would deport hundreds of thousands of people to separate them from their history and their families and also moved skilled workers around where they were most needed.
I'm just a kid. So I mean, given that the region tends to yo-yo between devastating flood and horrible drought it follows that one would believe that the gods are kind of random and capricious, and that any priests who might be able to lead rituals that placate those gods would be very useful individuals. And one of the legacies of Mesopotamia is the enduring conflict between country and city. But the idea of 'empire' was just getting started. That eventually happened, and in 612 BCE, the city of Nineveh was finally conquered and the Neo-Assyrian empire had come to its end. Why do I like taxes? Hammurabi ruled the new kingdom of Babylon from 1792 BCE to 1750 BCE.
Two, once writing enters the picture, you have actual history instead of just a lot of guesswork and archaeology. Present John: Oh, younger version of myself, how I hate you. And keeping with the pattern, it was soon taken over the formerly nomadic Cassites. And there was your standard raping and pillaging and torture, all of which was done in the name of Ashur, the great God of the Neo-Assyrians, whose divine regent was the King. But if conquest ever stopped, the world would end and there would be rivers of blood and weeping and gnashing of teeth, you know how apocalypses go. Hammurabi's law code can be pretty insanely harsh, like if a builder builds a shoddy building, and then the owner's son dies in a collapse, the punishment for that is the execution of the builder's son! That is awe, and I apologize for having to water you down, but seriously, you're awesome.
You're watching Crash Course World History, and today we're going to talk about. The city-state period in Mesopotamia ended around 2000 BCE, probably because drought and a shift in the course of rivers led to pastoral nomads coming in and conquering the environmentally weakened cities, and then the nomads settled into cities of their own as nomads almost always will, unless. That was as close as I can get. . An open letter to the word 'awesome'. . And in the law code, Hammurabi tried to portray himself in two roles that should sound familiar: shepherd and father.
What did I do? Well let's take a look at one such city-state, Gilgamesh's hometown of Uruk, in the Thought Bubble. The responsibility for the well-being and success of the social order was shifting, from gods to people. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome. The priests of these temples initially had all the power because they were able to communicate directly with the gods, and that was a useful talent, because Mesopotamian gods were moody and frankly pretty mean. The biggest problem with empires is that, by definition, they're diverse and multi-ethnic, which makes them hard to unify. They are also difficult to navigate and flood unpredictably and violently.
Is there anyway we can get another globe in here? Hammurabi's main claim to fame is his famous law code, which established everything from like the wages of ox drivers to the fact that the punishment for taking an eye should be having an eye taken. Oh, I have to talk about other things, too? Green, were there really male models? Things were also different politically because the dudes that had been the tribal chiefs became like full blown kings who tried to extend their power outside of cities and also tried to pass on their power to their sons. But in another development we'll see again, these kings, who probably started out as military leaders or really rich landowners, took on a quasi-religious role. Mesopotamia gave us writing, specifically a form of writing called cuneiform, which was initially created not to like, woo lovers or whatever, but to record transactions, like how many bushels of wheat were exchanged for how many goats. Green, did you know you're referencing Mark Twain? You never find that in Mesopotamia.
But about 1000 years after the first temples, we find in cities like Uruk, a rival structure begins to show up: the palace. So how do we know that these kings were skoodilypooping with the lady priests? In which John presents Mesopotamia and the early civilizations that arose around the Fertile Crescent. Like most contemporary English speakers, in fact, I probably love you a little too much. Because they made a skoodilypooping tape and put it on the internet? Ashur, through the King, kept the world going, and as long as conquest continued, the world would not end. Topics covered include the birth of territorial kingdoms, empires, Neo-Assyrian torture tactics, sacred marriages, ancient labor practices, the world's first law code, and the great failed romance of John's undergrad years. You're knees-buckling, chest-tightening, fearful encounters with something radically other, something that we know could both crush and bless us.
