It developed in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and existed since the 4th millennium BC. until the middle of the 6th century. BC. Unlike the Egyptian culture, Mesopotamia was not homogeneous; it was formed in the process of repeated interpenetration of several ethnic groups and peoples and therefore was multilayer.
The main inhabitants of Mesopotamia were Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Chaldeans in the south: Assyrians, Hurrians and Arameans in the north. The cultures of Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria reached their greatest development and importance.
The emergence of the Sumerian ethnic group still remains a mystery. It is only known that in the 4th millennium BC. The southern part of Mesopotamia is inhabited by the Sumerians and lays the foundations for the entire subsequent civilization of this region. Like the Egyptian, this civilization was river. By the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. In the south of Mesopotamia, several city-states appear, the main ones being Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Jlapca, etc. They alternately play a leading role in the unification of the country.
The history of Sumer has seen several ups and downs. The XXIV-XXIII centuries deserve special mention. BC when the rise occurs Semitic city of Akkad, located north of Sumer. Under King Sargon the Ancient, Akkad managed to subjugate all of Sumer to its power. The Akkadian language replaces Sumerian and becomes the main language throughout Mesopotamia. Semitic art also has a great influence on the entire region. In general, the significance of the Akkadian period in the history of Sumer turned out to be so significant that some authors call the entire culture of this period Sumerian-Akkadian.
Sumerian culture
The basis of Sumer's economy was agriculture with a developed irrigation system. Hence it is clear why one of the main monuments of Sumerian literature was the “Agricultural Almanac”, containing instructions on farming - how to maintain soil fertility and avoid salinization. It was also important cattle breeding. metallurgy. Already at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians began making bronze tools, and at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. entered the Iron Age. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. A potter's wheel is used in the production of tableware. Other crafts are successfully developing - weaving, stone-cutting, and blacksmithing. Widespread trade and exchange took place both between the Sumerian cities and with other countries - Egypt, Iran. India, states of Asia Minor.
Special emphasis should be placed on the importance Sumerian writing. The cuneiform script invented by the Sumerians turned out to be the most successful and effective. Improved in the 2nd millennium BC. by the Phoenicians, it formed the basis of almost all modern alphabets.
System religious-mythological ideas and cults Sumer partly has something in common with Egypt. In particular, it also contains the myth of a dying and resurrecting god, which is the god Dumuzi. As in Egypt, the ruler of the city-state was declared a descendant of a god and perceived as an earthly god. At the same time, there were noticeable differences between the Sumerian and Egyptian systems. Thus, among the Sumerians, the funeral cult and belief in the afterlife did not acquire much importance. Equally, the Sumerian priests did not become a special stratum that played a huge role in public life. In general, the Sumerian system of religious beliefs seems less complex.
As a rule, each city-state had its own patron god. At the same time, there were gods who were revered throughout Mesopotamia. Behind them stood those forces of nature, the importance of which for agriculture was especially great - sky, earth and water. These were the sky god An, the earth god Enlil and the water god Enki. Some gods were associated with individual stars or constellations. It is noteworthy that in Sumerian writing the star pictogram meant the concept of “god”. The mother goddess, the patroness of agriculture, fertility and childbirth, was of great importance in the Sumerian religion. There were several such goddesses, one of them was the goddess Inanna. patroness of the city of Uruk. Some Sumerian myths - about the creation of the world, the global flood - had a strong influence on the mythology of other peoples, including Christians.
In Sumer the leading art was architecture. Unlike the Egyptians, the Sumerians did not know stone construction and all structures were created from raw brick. Due to the swampy terrain, buildings were erected on artificial platforms - embankments. From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians were the first to widely use arches and vaults in construction.
The first architectural monuments were two temples, White and Red, discovered in Uruk (late 4th millennium BC) and dedicated to the main deities of the city - the god Anu and the goddess Inanna. Both temples are rectangular in plan, with projections and niches, and decorated with relief images in the “Egyptian style.” Another significant monument is the small temple of the fertility goddess Ninhursag in Ur (XXVI century BC). It was built using the same architectural forms, but decorated not only with relief, but also with circular sculpture. In the niches of the walls there were copper figurines of walking bulls, and on the friezes there were high reliefs of lying bulls. At the entrance to the temple there are two wooden lion statues. All this made the temple festive and elegant.
In Sumer, a unique type of religious building developed - the ziggurag, which was a stepped tower, rectangular in plan. On the upper platform of the ziggurat there was usually a small temple - “the dwelling of God.” For thousands of years, the ziggurat played approximately the same role as the Egyptian pyramid, but unlike the latter it was not an afterlife temple. The most famous was the ziggurat (“temple-mountain”) in Ur (XXII-XXI centuries BC), which was part of a complex of two large temples and a palace and had three platforms: black, red and white. Only the lower, black platform has survived, but even in this form the ziggurat makes a grandiose impression.
Sculpture in Sumer received less development than architecture. As a rule, it had a cult, “dedicatory” character: the believer placed a figurine made to his order, usually small in size, in the temple, which seemed to pray for his fate. The person was depicted conventionally, schematically and abstractly. without observing proportions and without a portrait resemblance to the model, often in a praying pose. An example is a female figurine (26 cm) from Lagash, which has mainly common ethnic features.
During the Akkadian period, sculpture changed significantly: it became more realistic and acquired individual features. The most famous masterpiece of this period is the copper portrait head of Sargon the Ancient (XXIII century BC), which perfectly conveys the unique character traits of the king: courage, will, severity. This work, rare in its expressiveness, is almost no different from modern ones.
Sumerianism reached a high level literature. Besides the Agricultural Almanac mentioned above, the most significant literary monument was the Epic of Gilgamesh. This epic poem tells the story of a man who has seen everything, experienced everything, known everything, and who was close to unraveling the secret of immortality.
By the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Sumer gradually declines and is eventually conquered by Babylonia.
Babylonia
Its history falls into two periods: the Ancient, covering the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, and the New, falling in the middle of the 1st millennium BC.
Ancient Babylonia reached its highest rise under the king Hammurabi(1792-1750 BC). Two significant monuments remain from his time. The first one is Hammurabi's laws - became the most outstanding monument of ancient Eastern legal thought. The 282 articles of the code of law cover almost all aspects of the life of Babylonian society and constitute civil, criminal and administrative law. The second monument is a basalt pillar (2 m), which depicts King Hammurabi himself, sitting in front of the god of the sun and justice Shamash, and also depicts part of the text of the famous codex.
New Babylonia reached its highest peak under the king Nebuchadnezzar(605-562 BC). During his reign the famous "Hanging Gardens of Babylon", became one of the seven wonders of the world. They can be called a grandiose monument of love, since they were presented by the king to his beloved wife to ease her longing for the mountains and gardens of her homeland.
An equally famous monument is also Tower of Babel. It was the highest ziggurat in Mesopotamia (90 m), consisting of several towers stacked on top of each other, on the top of which was the sanctuary of Marduk, the main god of the Babylonians. Herodotus, who saw the tower, was shocked by its grandeur. She is mentioned in the Bible. When the Persians conquered Babylonia (6th century BC), they destroyed Babylon and all the monuments located in it.
The achievements of Babylonia deserve special mention. gastronomy And mathematics. Babylonian astrologers calculated with amazing accuracy the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth, compiled a solar calendar and a map of the starry sky. The names of the five planets and twelve constellations of the solar system are of Babylonian origin. Astrologers gave people astrology and horoscopes. The successes of mathematicians were even more impressive. They laid the foundations of arithmetic and geometry, developed a “positional system”, where the numerical value of a sign depends on its “position”, knew how to square and extract square roots, and created geometric formulas for measuring land plots.
Assyria
The third powerful power of Mesopotamia - Assyria - arose in the 3rd millennium BC, but reached its greatest prosperity in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. Assyria was poor in resources but rose to prominence due to its geographic location. She found herself at the crossroads of caravan routes, and trade made her rich and great. The capitals of Assyria were successively Ashur, Kalah and Nineveh. By the 13th century. BC. it became the most powerful empire in the entire Middle East.
In the artistic culture of Assyria - as in the entire Mesopotamia - the leading art was architecture. The most significant architectural monuments were the palace complex of King Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin and the palace of Ashur-banapal in Nineveh.
The Assyrian reliefs, decorating palace premises, the subjects of which were scenes from royal life: religious ceremonies, hunting, military events.
One of the best examples of Assyrian reliefs is considered to be the “Great Lion Hunt” from the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, where the scene depicting wounded, dying and killed lions is filled with deep drama, sharp dynamics and vivid expression.
In the 7th century BC. the last ruler of Assyria, Ashur-banapap, created a magnificent library, containing more than 25 thousand clay cuneiform tablets. The library became the largest in the entire Middle East. It contained documents that, to one degree or another, related to the entire Mesopotamia. Among them was the above-mentioned Epic of Gilgamesh.
Mesopotamia, like Egypt, became a real cradle of human culture and civilization. Sumerian cuneiform and Babylonian astronomy and mathematics - this is already enough to talk about the exceptional significance of the culture of Mesopotamia.
The name “interfluve” refers to the confluence of two rivers in the Middle East - the Tigris and Euphrates. Let's consider how people lived on this earth thousands of years ago.
Ancient Mesopotamia
Historians divide this region into Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. Upper is the northern part of the region, where the state of Assyria was formed relatively recently. People lived in the Lower (southern) Mesopotamia long before people appeared to the north. It was here that the first cities of mankind emerged - Sumer and Akkad.
On the territory of this region, about 7 thousand years ago, the first states were formed - the namesake of the first two cities. Later, other city-states emerged - Ur, Uruk, Eshnuna, Sippar and others.
Rice. 1. Map of Mesopotamia.
Hundreds of years later, the cities of Lower Mesopotamia will be united under the rule of the strengthened Babylon, which will become the capital of Babylonia. Assyria appears to the north.
The ancient civilization of Mesopotamia was formed in parallel with the Egyptian one, but it has certain differences. Mesopotamia is a unique center for the emergence of agriculture, because it was not only located along rivers, but was also protected from the north by a chain of mountains, which provided a mild climate.
Culture of ancient Mesopotamia
A striking representative of the cultural heritage of Mesopotamia is the Sumerian people. No one knows how they appeared in this region, and most importantly, they have nothing in common with the Semitic peoples who inhabited it. Their language was not similar to any of the neighboring dialects and was similar to Indo-European speech. Their appearance also differed from the Semitic - the Sumerians had oval faces and large eyes.
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The Sumerians describe in their legends that they were created by the gods in order to serve them. According to legend, the gods arrived from another planet on Earth, and the process of human creation is described by the Sumerians in sufficient detail and is considered as the fruit of an experiment.
Rice. 2. Sumerian cities.
One way or another, the art of the Sumerians gave impetus to the development of the culture of other civilizations. The Sumerians had their own alphabet, a unique cuneiform writing system, their own set of laws and many technical inventions that were ahead of their time.
The history of the Sumerians represents a struggle between groups of people, each led by a king. The Sumerian settlements were fenced with stone walls; the population of the city reached 50 thousand people.
The crowning glory of the Sumerian cultural heritage is the agricultural almanac, which tells how to properly grow plants and plow the soil. The Sumerians knew how to use a potter's wheel and knew how to build houses. They did not hide the fact that everything they know and know was taught to them by the gods.
Rice. 3. Cuneiform.
Babylonia and Assyria
The Babylonian kingdom arose at the beginning of the second millennium BC, with the city itself arose on the site of the earlier Sumerian city of Kadingir. They were a Semitic people of the Amorites who adopted the early culture of the Sumerians but retained their language.
An iconic figure in the history of Babylon is King Hammurabi. Not only was he able to subjugate many neighboring cities, but he is also famous for his enormous work - the set of “Laws of Hammurabi”. These were the first laws, carved on a clay tablet, regulating relationships in society. According to historians, the concept of “presumption of innocence” was also introduced by this king.
The first mentions of Assyria date back to the 24th century BC. and existed for 2 thousand years. The Assyrians were quite a warlike people. They subjugated the kingdom of Israel and Cyprus. Their attempt to subjugate the Egyptians was unsuccessful, since 15 years after the conquest, Egypt nevertheless gained independence.
The culture of Assyria, like the Babylonian one, had Sumerian in its foundation.
What have we learned?
Mesopotamia is the oldest region of human settlement. We know what peoples lived in this territory several thousand years ago, but we still don’t know where they came from there. These mysteries have yet to be answered.
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Civilization arose in the 51.5th century. back.
Civilization stopped in the 24th century. back.
Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia, is the country where the world’s oldest civilization arose, which existed for 25 centuries, from the creation of writing to the conquest of Babylon by the Persians in 539 BC.
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PThe first information Europeans have about Mesopotamia goes back to such classical authors of antiquity as the historian Herodotus (5th century BC) and the geographer Strabo (at the turn of AD). Later, the Bible contributed to interest in the location of the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel, and the most famous cities of Mesopotamia. In the Middle Ages, notes appeared on the journey of Benjamin of Tudela (12th century), containing a description of the location of ancient Nineveh on the banks of the Tigris opposite Mosul, which was flourishing in those days. In the 17th century The first attempts are being made to copy tablets with texts (as it later turned out, from Ur and Babylon) written in wedge-shaped characters, which later became known as cuneiform.
INUnlike other civilizations, Mesopotamia was an open state. Many trade routes passed through Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia was constantly expanding, involving new cities, while other civilizations were more closed. Here appeared: a potter's wheel, a wheel, bronze and iron metallurgy, a war chariot, and new forms of writing. Farmers settled Mesopotamia in the 8th millennium BC. Gradually they learned to drain wetlands.
ABOUTThe bottom community could not cope with such work, and there was a need to unite communities under the control of a single state. For the first time this happens in Mesopotamia (Tigris River, Euphrates River), Egypt (Nile River) at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Later, states emerged in India and China; these civilizations were called river civilizations.
DThe river area was rich in grain. Residents exchanged grain for missing items on the farm. Clay replaced stone and wood. People wrote on clay tablets. At the end of the 4th millennium BC, in the southern Mesopotamia, the state of Sumer arose.
INHistorically, all of Mesopotamia was inhabited by peoples who spoke the languages of the Semitic family. These languages were spoken by the Akkadians in the 3rd millennium BC, the Babylonians who succeeded them (two groups that originally lived in Lower Mesopotamia), as well as the Assyrians of Central Mesopotamia. All these three peoples are united according to the linguistic principle (which turned out to be the most acceptable) under the name “Akkadians”. The Akkadian element played an important role throughout the long history of Mesopotamia.
DAnother Semitic people who left a noticeable mark in this country were the Amorites, who gradually began to penetrate Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. They soon created several strong dynasties, among them the First Babylonian dynasty, whose most famous ruler was Hammurabi.
INend of the 2nd millennium BC Another Semitic people appeared, the Arameans, who for five centuries posed a constant threat to the western borders of Assyria. One branch of the Arameans, the Chaldeans, came to play such an important role in the south that Chaldea became synonymous with later Babylonia. Aramaic eventually spread as a common language throughout the ancient Near East, from Persia and Anatolia to Syria, Palestine and even Egypt. It was Aramaic that became the language of administration and trade.
AThe Ramaeans, like the Amorites, came to Mesopotamia through Syria, but they, in all likelihood, originated from Northern Arabia. It is also possible that this route was previously used by the Akkadians, the first known people of Mesopotamia. There were no Semites among the autochthonous population of the valley, which was established for Lower Mesopotamia, where the predecessors of the Akkadians were the Sumerians. Outside of Sumer, in Central Mesopotamia and further north, traces of other ethnic groups have been found.
The Sumerians represent in many respects one of the most significant and at the same time mysterious peoples in the history of mankind. They laid the foundation for the Mesopotamian civilization. The Sumerians left a major mark on the culture of Mesopotamia - in religion and literature, legislation and government, science and technology. The world owes the invention of writing to the Sumerians. By the end of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians lost their ethnic and political significance.
EThe Lamites lived in the southwest of Iran, their main city was Susa. From the time of the early Sumerians until the fall of Assyria, the Elamites occupied a prominent political and economic place in Mesopotamian history. The middle column of the trilingual inscription from Persia is written in their language.
TOAssites are the next important ethnic group, immigrants from Iran, the founders of the dynasty that replaced the First Babylonian dynasty. They lived in the south until the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC, but in the texts of the 3rd millennium BC. are not mentioned. Classical authors mention them under the name of the Cossaeans; at that time they already lived in Iran, from where they apparently once came to Babylonia.
INThe Hurrians played an important role in interregional relations. Mentions of their appearance in the north of Central Mesopotamia date back to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. they densely populated the area of modern Kirkuk (here information about them was found in the cities of Arrapha and Nuzi), the Middle Euphrates valley and the eastern part of Anatolia; Hurrian colonies arose in Syria and Palestine.
POriginally an ethnic group of Hurrians, they lived in the area of Lake Van next to the pre-Indo-European population of Armenia, related to the Hurrians, the Urartians. Perhaps the Hurrians are the main, and it is possible that the original ethnic element of pre-Semitic Assyria.
Dfurther to the west lived various Anatolian ethnic groups; some of them, such as the Hatti, were probably autochthonous populations, others, in particular the Luwians and Hittites, were remnants of the Indo-European migration wave.
INAbout the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia the importance of Babylon, where King Hammurabi reigned, increased.
WITH14th to 7th centuries BC Assyria strengthens in Mesopotamia.
WITHThe Neo-Babylonian state was established by ice in the Mesopotamia. In the 6th century BC, Babylon was conquered by the Persian kingdom.
INsecond half of the 4th millennium BC e. - the appearance of clear signs of civilization. Cities surrounded by walls, with a royal palace, temples of the gods, and craft districts. The emergence of writing.
XXVIII century BC e. - the city of Kish becomes the center of the Sumerian civilization.
XXVII century BC e. - Weakening of Kish, Ruler of the city of Uruk - Gilgamesh repels the threat from Kish and defeats his army. Kish is annexed to the domains of Uruk and Uruk becomes the center of the Sumerian civilization.
XXVI century BC e. - weakening of Uruk. The city of Ur became the leading center of Sumerian civilization for a century.
XXIV century BC e. - the city of Lagash reaches its highest political power under King Eannatum. Eannatum reorganizes the army, introduces a new combat formation. Relying on the reformed army, Eannatum subjugates most of Sumer to his power and undertakes a successful campaign against Elam, defeating a number of Elamite tribes. Needing large funds to carry out such a large-scale policy, Eannatum introduces taxes and duties on temple lands. After the death of Eannatum, popular unrest began, incited by the priesthood. As a result of these unrest, Uruinimgina comes to power.
23 18-2312 BC e. - reign of Uruinimgina. To restore deteriorated relations with the priesthood, Uruinimgina carries out a number of reforms. The state's takeover of temple lands is stopped, taxes and duties are reduced. Uruinimgina carried out a number of reforms of a liberal nature, which improved the situation not only of the priesthood, but also of the ordinary population. Uruinimgina entered the history of Mesopotamia as the first social reformer.
23 18 BC e. - The city of Umma, dependent on Lagash, declares war on him. The ruler of Umma Lugalzagesi defeated the army of Lagash, ravaged Lagash, and burned its palaces. For a short time, the city of Umma became the leader of a united Sumer, until it was defeated by the northern kingdom of Akkad, which gained dominance over all of Sumer.
XXIII century BC e. - unification of the Sumerian and Akkadian states by the Akkadian king Sargon I.
XXI century BC e. - invasion from the east and west of numerous tribes of Elamites and Amorites. The disappearance of the Sumerians as a people from the political arena (even the authors of biblical legends know nothing about its existence).
XIX-XVIII centuries BC e. - the rise of a new kingdom with its capital in Babylon, near present-day Baghdad, led by the kings of the Amorite dynasty. Hammurabi's unification of Mesopotamia and Syria.
XVI century BC e. - the emergence in the upper reaches of the Tigris of the Assyrian kingdom with the main cities of Assur and Nineveh - the capital of Nin and Semiramis.
7 43-735 BC e. - reign of Nabonassar. Beginning of regular astronomical observations.
7 29 BC e. - capture of Babylon by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III.
6 80-669 BC e. - reign of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon.
5 38 BC e. - Persian king Cyrus captures Babylon and Assyria.
33 6 BC e. - Alexander the Great conquers Mesopotamia. After his death, it becomes one of the regions of the Hellenistic Seleucid state.
II century BC e. - Babylon is already a dead city and lies in ruins.
I century BC e. - the last cuneiform tablets that have reached us.
INAvilonian-Assyrian culture, the culture of the peoples who inhabited in ancient times, in the 4th-1st millennium BC. e., Mesopotamia - the Tigris and Euphrates Mesopotamia (the territory of modern Iraq), - Sumerians and Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians, who created large states - Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria, is characterized by a relatively high level of science, literature and art, on the one hand, and the predominance of religious ideology - on the other.
Dthe most jealous culture of Mesopotamia is Sumerian-Akkadian (from the name of the two parts of the territory, northern and southern). The oldest city on our planet is considered to be Sumerian Ur, the heyday of which some scientists attribute to 3800-3700 BC. Not much younger is the ancient Sumerian Uruk, Shuruppak.
MNumerous sources testify to the high astronomical and mathematical achievements of the Sumerians, their construction art (it was the Sumerians who built the world's first step pyramid). They are the authors of the most ancient calendar, recipe book, and library catalogue.
ABOUTHowever, perhaps the most significant contribution of ancient Sumer to world culture is “The Tale of Gilgamesh” (“who saw everything”) - the oldest epic poem on earth. The hero of the poem, half-man, half-god, struggling with numerous dangers and enemies, defeating them, learns the meaning of life and the joy of being, learns (for the first time in the world!) the bitterness of losing a friend and the irrevocability of death.
ZWritten in cuneiform, which was the common writing system for the peoples of Mesopotamia who spoke different languages, the poem about Gilgamesh is a great monument to the culture of Ancient Babylon. The Babylonian (actually, Old Babylonian) kingdom united the north and south - the regions of Sumer and Akkad, becoming the heir to the culture of the ancient Sumerians.
GThe city of Babylon reached the pinnacle of greatness when King Hammurabi (reigned 1792-1750 BC) made it the capital of his kingdom. Hammurabi became famous as the author of the world's first set of laws (from which, for example, the expression “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” came to us). The history of the cultures of Mesopotamia provides an example of the opposite type of cultural process, namely: intense mutual influence, cultural inheritance, borrowing and continuity.
INThe Avlonians introduced a positional system of numbers and a precise system of measuring time into world culture; they were the first to divide an hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds, learned to measure the area of geometric figures, distinguish stars from planets, and dedicated each day of their “invented” seven-day week to a separate to the deity (traces of this tradition are preserved in the names of the days of the week in Romance languages).
ABOUTThe Babylonians also introduced astrology to their descendants, the science of the supposed connection of human destinies with the location of the heavenly bodies. All this is far from a complete listing of the heritage of Babylonian culture in our everyday life.
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Chapter 5. Ancient Mesopotamia: the emergence of the first states
The sociological model presented in the previous chapters cannot, of course, be considered universal. It is rather a kind of guidebook that allows one to understand the intricacy of those many roads that led humanity from early social structures to developed ones, from local groups and communities to the state, from egalitarianism to hierarchy. The reality of human history is diverse. But what is characteristic: with all its vast diversity - from the ancient Mesopotamia to modern Oceania, from the high cultures of India and China to the African peoples who have very recently embarked on the path of civilization - the general laws of evolution are approximately the same, and they are taken as a basis when presenting various materials from history countries and peoples of the East.
Here it is worth making one very significant reservation from the very beginning, the significance of which will become more and more obvious as you become more familiar with the material. The fact is that the structural forms, the typological similarity of which is taken as a basis, are only the skeleton of a particular society. Its specific appearance, and especially its living spirit, depend mainly on its civilizational and religious-cultural parameters. As for these latter, the most important thing should be said about them first of all: with all their dissimilarity and even sometimes very noticeable fundamental opposition to each other, they are all again close to each other in some way. This closeness, as well as their fundamental difference from the European ancient Christian tradition-civilization, is that they were born and were called upon to frame non-European structures that were different from the European one. In other words, the systems of ideas and institutions in all non-European traditions-civilizations, from the Far Eastern to the American pre-Columbian, differed very noticeably, but at the same time they strikingly converged on one main thing: they all served structures where private property relations were not the main ones and where, therefore, everything did not exist something that would contribute to their rapid and effective development, as was the case in Europe.
This does not mean that none of them initially contained elements that, under different circumstances, would have led to different results. On the contrary, this happened and even played a role (the Phenician phenomenon) in the formation of the ancient structure. But these elements died out over time, giving way to others, entirely focused on serving the command-administrative structure in one or another modification within the framework of a given non-European tradition-civilization. We can add to what has been said that the process of putting together a system of ideas and institutions within each tradition-civilization proceeded very slowly, especially at the early stage of development of states.
The first stones of the foundation of world urban civilization were laid in the ancient Middle East, in the valley of several great fertile rivers. Around the 8th–6th millennia BC. e. farmers of the Middle Eastern foothills, having already mastered the achievements of the Neolithic revolution and increasing in number with each generation, began to descend into the plains and actively populate the fertile river valleys, primarily the Tigris and Euphrates. The Mesopotamia and the banks of these rivers, collectively referred to as Mesopotamia, as well as neighboring areas (Zagros, Anatolia, Palestine) are now well studied by specialists. Settlements excavated by archaeologists (Jarmo, Hassuna, Tel Halaf, etc.) indicate that their inhabitants lived in adobe houses, sowed barley, wheat and flax, raised goats, sheep and cows, and were familiar with early forms of irrigation farming (draining swampy lands with the help of canals, construction of dams, etc.), they made various ceramic vessels (the earliest of them were not familiar with ceramics), stone products, and later even copper. As farmers moved south, where the soils fertilized by river floods were especially fertile, settlements became richer and larger. The Ubaid culture (end of the 5th millennium BC) is already represented by villages to the South, in the center of which large temple complexes were located on high earthen platforms, surrounded by city walls - a clear sign of early urbanization. Excavations of these settlements indicate a large population, developed crafts, including familiarity with the potter's wheel, metallurgy, weaving, the principles of architecture and monumental construction.
The Ubaid culture is considered to be proto-Sumerian. As is known, at the turn of the 5th–4th millennia BC. e. Sumerians appear on the territory of the Southern Mesopotamia, whose name and activities are associated with the emergence of the world's most ancient center of civilization and statehood. The riddle of the Sumerians has not yet been solved. Their own legends point to the south (the coastal areas of the Persian Gulf) as their ancestral home; experts see it either in the east or in the north. One thing is clear: the Sumerian language was significantly different from the group of Semitic languages common among most of the ancient inhabitants of the Middle Eastern zone. It seems that the Sumerian aliens, having appeared in the area inhabited by the inhabitants of the Ubaid culture, quickly and energetically borrowed all the achievements of their culture and, perhaps, played an important role as an external push in accelerating its progressive development - now on their, Sumerian, ethnic basis.
Proto-states of ancient Sumer
Early states of Mesopotamia
Babylonia
Laws of Hammurabi
Proto-states of ancient Sumer
From about the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. in the Southern Mesopotamia the first supra-communal political structures appeared in the form of city-states. An example of them is Uruk, whose culture and social structure can be familiarized both on the basis of archaeological data and on the basis of the most ancient monuments of Sumerian pictographic writing (economic reporting documents inscribed on clay tablets).
Sources indicate that the administration system in Uruk was closely connected with the cult of the sky god An, who apparently acted as the binding unity of the collective. The temple in honor of An was the social and economic center of Uruk, and the priests of the temple performed the functions of stewards headed by the high priest, the head of the proto-state. Archaeological layers dating back to the turn of the 4th–3rd millennia BC. e. (Uruk, Jemdet-Nasr), indicate that the early proto-states of Mesopotamia were familiar with a fairly complex irrigation system, which was maintained in working order by the efforts of the entire population, led by priests. The temple, built of baked brick, was not only the largest building and a monumental center, but at the same time a public warehouse and a barn, where all supplies, all the public property of the team were located, which already included a number of captive foreigners who were used to serve current needs temple. The temple was also a center for handicraft production, including bronze metallurgy.
Priest-administrators, artisans, guardians of temple property, scribes, servants and even slaves from among the captives - they all lived off the excess product of the community members, but at the same time each of them contributed their share to the total social labor and the product of the collective as a whole. The reciprocal exchange of products and activities, as well as the centralized redistribution of collective surplus product and labor (including the product of artisans, the labor of administrators and service personnel) underlay the normal existence of the early proto-states of Sumer. Actually, it was precisely for the strict accounting and regulation of increasingly complex norms and forms of relationships that detailed economic reporting was carried out, which gave rise to written documents, this important element of the emerging ancient center of world civilization.
The proto-states of ancient Mesopotamia developed quickly and energetically. The population grew and labor skills improved, the work culture was enriched, which resulted in an increase in the number of fields developed and provided with irrigation devices. The reserves of grain obtained from these fields increased sharply, and the excess of it, after satisfying the current needs of workers cut off from food production, was increasingly used as a kind of currency: special temple servants, tamkars, went on ships loaded with grain on long expeditions, including sea, with the purpose of exchanging grain for metals, stone, construction timber, etc., which are much needed in the mineral-poor areas of the Southern Mesopotamia. These expensive items of distant import were used both for production needs and in the sphere of gradually increasing prestigious consumption of the upper classes, including the construction of temples and houses -palaces, making jewelry, fine clothing.
As the proto-states grew, their internal structure also became more complex. If at first the temple was the center of the economy and an expanded community or a group of neighboring communities, each of which, through its representatives, took part in cultivating the temple’s land, the product from which was used for sacred (joint community rituals with abundant sacrifice) and insurance needs of the collective and for the maintenance of a small groups of people cut off from food production, now the situation has changed. Apparently, already from the second third of the 3rd millennium BC. e. in most proto-states (Uruk, Kish, Ur, Lagash, etc.), the population numbered in the tens of thousands, and the number of communal villages amounted to many dozens. In practice, this meant that the excess labor and product of the community members - even with a significant increase in the temple lands and temple economy - could no longer be realized with sufficient completeness and efficiency outside the community fields and settlements themselves, which could be tens of kilometers away from the temple. Therefore, there was a separation of the communal fields from the temple fields. The community members cultivated their lands and paid rent-tax, while they ceased to take part in the cultivation of the temple land, which, however, did not exclude their participation in public works, in the construction of canals, dams, temple or palace buildings, roads, etc. with providing them with food and issuing the necessary tools from temple barns and warehouses.
This is most clearly seen in the structure of the temple grounds of the temple of the goddess Bau (Baba) in Lagash in the 25th–24th centuries. BC e., when this proto-state conquered and subjugated a number of neighboring ones and several temple complexes were included in its composition - by the way, the Bau temple was not the only one in Lagash itself; The main thing there at that time was the temple of the god Ningirsu (Nin-Ngarsu, wife of Bau), whose high priest acted as the ensi ruler. Ordinary community members were practically not used to cultivate the land of the Bau Temple. The entire temple land was divided into three parts. The first still remained a temple; it was processed by temple personnel from among former foreigners and other persons outside the communities, and the harvest was intended for sacred needs, trade exchange, insurance and extraordinary distributions. The second, in the form of service allotments, was distributed to the workers and employees of the temple, including artisans, as payment for their work. Finally, the third part in the form of allotments was intended to be transferred to anyone who wanted and needed it as a lease with a very moderate rent (1/6 - 1/8 of the harvest).
The separation of the temple economy from the community economy and its transformation into a special sphere of the economy, into a state economy, played an important role in strengthening the economic and then political positions of the priestly administration led by ensi. Relying on this kind of economy, ensi increasingly moved away from the collective of community members, acquired in their eyes the sacred signs of a ruler marked by the patronage of the gods and, as the supreme connecting unity, became the head of a noticeably growing bureaucratic apparatus, turning out to be the highest and main subject of power-property and centralized redistribution. Initially an elective position, the position of ensi over time increasingly acquired a tendency to become hereditary, which became the norm after the unification of all of Sumer by Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century. BC e.
The period of Sumerian history before this unification is usually called the Early Dynastic. This was an era of fierce struggle between neighboring proto-states for political hegemony, and their rulers for strengthening and consolidating their power, expanding and spreading it at the expense of their neighbors. The army of each of these proto-states usually consisted of a small detachment of heavily armed warriors; The auxiliary force was primitive chariots on solid wheels, apparently drawn by onagers or donkeys and adapted for throwing darts.
At the beginning, in the XXVIII–XXVII centuries. BC e., success was on the side of Kish, whose rulers were the first to accept the title of lugal, thereby trying to emphasize their primacy among the others. Then Uruk rose, the name of whose ruler, Gilgamesh, later became legendary and was at the center of the Sumerian epic. Uruk under Gilgamesh subjugated, although still very fragilely, a number of neighbors - Lagash, Nippur, etc. In the 25th century. The supremacy and title of Lugal was achieved by the rulers of Ur, whose royal tombs, excavated by the English archaeologist L. Woolley, were filled with rich decorations, jewelry, carts and dozens of buried people, called to accompany the ruler to the next world. At the turn of the XXV–XXIV centuries. Lagash came to the forefront of Sumerian history.
First, its ruler Eanatum annexed a number of neighboring centers - Kish, Uruk, Larsu, etc., which led to the strengthening of his military and political power. Under Lugalanda, the policy of further centralization of power and associated abuses caused sharp discontent among the population. As a result of the uprising - perhaps the first recorded in history - Lugalanda was deposed, and Uruinimgina came to power, carrying out a series of reforms, the essence of which was the restoration of the violated norm, the abolition or reduction of taxes from the population, and an increase in payments to temple workers. Apparently, these forced reforms contributed to the weakening of the centralized administration of Lagash, which soon led to its conquest by the successful ruler of Umma Lugalzagesi, who created a united Sumerian state, although it did not last long.
Lecture 3. Ancient civilizations
Plan:
1. Civilization of Mesopotamia
2. Egyptian civilization
3. Indian civilization
4. Chinese civilization
Civilization of Mesopotamia
In the IV-II millennium BC. The first civilizations in human history appear in the territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Several centers of formation of ancient civilizations arose, four of which are associated with the basins of the large rivers Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, and Huanghe. The emergence of civilizational structures and the formation of the four-river civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China occurred independently of each other.
One of the most ancient civilizations in the world arose on the territory of Mesopotamia and the fertile lowlands between the Tigris and Euphrates. Already in the 4th millennium BC. irrigation began to develop here. In Mesopotamia there was clay and natural asphalt, in the north there were deposits of lead, tin, iron, copper, and in mountainous areas there was a lot of stone. In the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians discovered bronze. The date palm produced nutritious fruits, but low quality wood. Other fruit trees, figs, grapes grew here, along the banks of the rivers there were willows, reeds and reeds.
The foundations of civilization in Mesopotamia were laid by the Sumerians. By the end of the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerian and newcomer Semitic populations mixed, and the Akkadian language gradually replaced the Sumerian language. In the 4th millennium BC. large settlements turn into city-states. The city of Uruk, located on the Euphrates, played a major role in the development of Sumerian civilization. In the 4th millennium BC. it was the largest city in Mesopotamia.
The main occupation of the Sumerians was agriculture, based on a developed irrigation system. In urban centers, crafts were gaining strength, the specialization of which was rapidly developing. In all the cities of Sumer there were monumental temple complexes that had important social and economic significance. At the turn of the 4th - 3rd millennium BC. writing appears. Writing in Sumer first appeared as a pictogram. Then cuneiform, which contained about 800 characters, each of which depicted a word or syllable, became widespread.
The Sumerian civilization created early forms of statehood. In the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. In Sumer, several political centers emerged that competed with each other.
In 2312 BC. the ruler of Umma Lugalzagesi managed to unite all of Sumer for some time. This was followed by two attempts to create a united state of Two Rivers under Sargon of Akkad (2316-2361 BC) and during the III dynasty of Ur (about 2112-2003 BC).
By uniting Akkadi Sumer, Sargon strengthened state power. Sargon managed to create a unified irrigation system, which was regulated on a national scale. For the first time in world history, Sargon created a permanent professional army. The despotic-bureaucratic rule of Sargon created an entire army of officials, a new service nobility, the ranks of which were not replenished. A despotic form of government was established in Mesopotamia for thousands of years, determining the specifics of the civilization developing here.
Despotism became a special form of state power in all ancient eastern states. The essence of despotism was that the ruler at the head of the state had unlimited power. The stability of despotism was based on the belief in the divinity of the king. The despot exercised his power through an extensive administrative and bureaucratic system.
The Akkadian state, weakened by social contradictions, collapsed around 2200 BC. under the blows of the external enemy of the Kutians. The dominance of the Kutians was short-lived. They were replaced in 2112 BC. came power over the Mesopotamian city of Ur, its III dynasty, the most notable representative of which was Shulgi. The new state was called the “Kingdom of Sumer and Akkad.” The III dynasty of Ur fell under the blows of external enemies, primarily the Amorite Semites. Taking advantage of the situation, Elamite tribes invaded from the east. In 2003 B.C. the city of Ur was destroyed.
In Mesopotamia, the city of Babylon advanced and gradually achieved dominance. The first period - Old Babylonian - covers the time from the end of the reign of the III dynasty of Ur to 1595 BC, when Babylonia was conquered by the Kassites. The second period, Middle Babylonian (Kassite) occupied more than 400 years of Kassite rule (1595-1158 BC). The third Neo-Babylonian period is associated with the reign of the Chaldean dynasty, which ended with the conquest of Babylon by the Persians (626-538 BC).
In 1792 B.C. The sixth king of Babylon was Hammurabi, who reigned until 1750 BC. Hammura's policies contributed to the transformation of Babylon into the capital of a huge state that subjugated almost all of Mesopotamia. The state power of Babylonia was one of the classic examples of ancient Eastern despotism. The government of the country was strictly centralized. During the reign of Hammurabi, agriculture, cattle breeding, as well as crafts and trade flourished. Foreign trade, which the velitamkars carried out, was of particular importance.
The population of Babylonia was divided into two classes: free and slave. Free people were divided into two categories that had different legal rights: full free citizens avilum and persons with limited legal and political rights muskenum; they were not members of the community, did not have real estate and were used to work on royal land. The real slaves in old Babylonian society were foreign slaves.
Hammurabi created the first legal system in the history of civilization. The Laws of Hammurabi are one of the first, most detailed sets of laws. The Hammura Code included 282 articles of law. When punishing, the law required that the basic principle of assigning punishment to the tallion be followed, i.e. recompense of equal for equal.
In 538 BC. The Persian king Cyrus annexed Babylonia to the powerful Persian state, and it forever lost its independence.
So, it was in Sumer at the end of the 4th millennium BC. humanity emerged from primitiveness and entered the era of civilization. The transition to civilization formed a new specific worldview. The people of Mesopotamia were afraid of death and strived for the fullness of their earthly existence. In the worldview of the Sumerians, and then the Akkadian Semites, an important role was played by the deification of those forces of nature, the importance of which was especially great for agriculture - sky, earth and water. A unified system of religious beliefs emerged around the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Anu ruled in the sky, Enlil ruled in the earth, and Enki ruled in the world ocean. Marduk was considered the supreme god and creator of the Universe. Each city and settlement revered its patron god.
Mesopotamian civilization gave the first experience of training educated people. The training was based on copying texts for various purposes. In large temples, palaces of rulers, in schools, as well as private individuals, entire collections of clay books, unique libraries, were created. The Sumerian school, eduba, which trained scribes and land surveyors, played a big role in this.
The treasury of world literature includes the Tales of Gilgamesh, the Poem about the Suffering Righteous Man, the myths of the ancient Sumerians and many other works.
Mesopotamian architecture created the original temple stepped tower-ziggurats, the memories of which were preserved by biblical legends. The population of Mesopotamia lived on a lunar calendar, which had its own differences for each city-state. After the rise of Babylon, the entire country switched to the calendar of the city of Nippur.
The foundations of scientific thought in antiquity were also laid in Mesopotamia. The source of the development of science was the economic practice of royal and temple households. The achievements of Mesopotamian civilization in the field of medicine are significant. The symbol of Mesopotamian medicine, a snake (the god Ningishzida), entwining a rod, has been preserved as an emblem of medicine in our time.
The Mesopotamian civilization had no immediate successors, although many civilizations around the world benefited from its achievements and learning.