CHAPTER TWO

MIDDLE EAST AND MEDITERRANEAN ANCIENT

CIVILIZATIONS

1. ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATIONS

Mesopotamia is a region in the Middle East in southwest Asia. It is
popularly known through the Tigris and Euphrates river system that
provided a fertile ground for the beginnings of human civilization. The
word mesopotamia is formed from Koine Greek where meso, mean between
or in the middle of, and potamos, meaning river. The region is now home to
modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey and Syria. Mesopotamian civilization
is the most ancient civilization recorded in human history until
now. Humans first settled in Mesopotamia in the Paleolithic Era. By
14,000 B.C., people in the region lived in small settlements with round
huts. Ancient Sumer was the first of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization
to develop. It is thought that somewhere around 5000 B.C was about the
time of origin. Major Sumerian city-states included Eridu, Ur, Nippur,
Lagash and Kish. The oldest civilization and most sprawling was Uruk, a
thriving trading hub that boasted six miles of defensive walls and a
population of between 40,000 and 80,000. At its peak, around 2800 B.C.,
it was most likely the largest city in the world.
Five thousand years later, these houses established settlements and
thus formed farming communities followed by the domestication of
animals and the development of agriculture, most notably irrigation
techniques that took advantage of the proximity of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. It is part of the Fertile Crescent, an area also known as
Cradle of Civilization for the number of innovations that arose from the
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Mantra: A historian is a prophet of the past!
early societies in this region, which are among some of the earliest known
human civilizations on earth.
Its history survives marked by multiple important inventions that
changed the world, including the concept of time, mathematics, the wheel,
sailboats, maps and writing. Mesopotamia is also defined by a changing
succession of ruling bodies from different areas and cities that seized
control over a period extending to thousands of years.
These scattered agrarian communities started in the northern part of
the ancient Mesopotamian region and spread south, continuing to grow
for several thousand years until forming what modern humans would
recognize as cities, which were considered the work of the Summer people.
Uruk was the first of these cities, dating back to around 3200 B.C. It was a
mud brick metropolis built on the riches brought from trade and conquest
and featured public art, gigantic columns and temples. At its peak, it had a
population of some 50,000 citizens. Sumerians are also responsible for the
earliest form of written language, cuneiform, with which they kept detailed
clerical records.
Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic, with followers worshipping
several principal gods and thousands of minor deities. The three main gods
were;
! Ea (Sumerian: Enki), the god of wisdom and magi
! Anu (Sumerian: An), the sky god
! Enlil (Ellil), the god of earth, storms and agriculture and the
controller of fates.
Ea was believed to be the creator and protector of humanity in both the
Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of the Great Flood. In the latter story, Ea
made humans out of clay, but the God Enlil sought to destroy humanity by

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creating a flood. Ea had the humans build an ark and mankind was spared.
This story resonates the biblical religious stories about the Garden of
Eden, the Great Flood and the construction of the Tower of Babel. It can
be safely concluded the Mesopotamian religion influenced Christianity,
Islam and other religions.
By 3000 B.C., Mesopotamia was firmly under the control of the
Sumerian people. Sumer contained several decentralized city-states namely;
Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Uruk, Kish and Ur. The first king of a united Sumer
is recorded as Etana of Kish. It is unknown whether Etana really existed or
was mythological, as he and many of the rulers listed in the Sumerian King
List that was developed around 2100 B.C. are all featured in Sumerian
mythology as well. Gilgamesh, the legendary subject of the Epic of
Gilgamesh, is said to be Lugalbanda’s son. Lugalbanda was said to be a
Priest-King. Gilgamesh is believed to have been born in Uruk around 2700
B.C.   Gilgamesh was a demi-god, born of goddess (holy mother and great
queen) and was said to have lived an exceptionally long life (the Sumerian
King List records his reign as 126 years) and to be possessed of super-
human strength.
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh is considered to be the earliest great work of
literature and the inspiration for some of the stories in the Bible. Dated
2100 and written in the Akkadian language, it is often regarded as the
earliest surviving great work of literature and the second oldest religious
text, after the Pyramid Texts (dated 2613-2181 B.C.). In the epic poem,
Gilgamesh goes on an adventure with a friend to the Cedar Forest, the
land of the gods in Mesopotamian mythology. When his friend is
butchered, Gilgamesh goes on a quest to discover the secret of eternal life,
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finding; Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created
man, they let death be his share and life withheld in their own hands.
As with the wheel, cities and law codes, the earliest examples of
written literature appear to have originated in ancient Mesopotamia. The
Sumerian civilization first developed writing around 3400 B.C., when they
began making markings on clay tablets in a script known as Cuneiform.
Their texts usually consisted of economic and administrative documents,
but by the third millennium B.C., Sumerian scribes were also copying
down essays, hymns, poetry and myths. Two of their oldest known literary
works are the Kesh Temple Hymn and the Instructions of Shuruppak, both of
which exist in written versions dating to around 2500 B.C. The former is
an ancient ode (an irregular metre poem) to the Kesh temple and the
deities that inhabited it, while the latter is a piece of wisdom literature that
takes the form of sagely advice supposedly handed down from the
Sumerian king Shuruppak to his son, Ziusudra. One of Shuruppak’s
proverbs warns the boy not to pass judgment when you drink beer. Another
counsels that a loving heart maintains a family; a hateful heart destroys a family.
While Shuruppak’s fatherly wisdom is one of the most ancient
examples of written literature, history’s oldest known fictional story is
probably the Epic of Gilgamesh, a mythic poem that first appeared as early as
the third millennium B.C. The adventure-filled tale centers on a Sumerian
king named Gilgamesh who is described as being one-third man and two-
thirds god. Over the course of twelve clay tablets’ worth of text, he goes on
a classic hero’s journey that sees him slay monsters, rub elbows with the
gods and search for the key to immortality—all with predictably tragic
results. The Epic of Gilgamesh started out as series of Sumerian poems and
tales. However, the Babylonians wrote the most complete version around

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the 12th century B.C. The story was later lost to history after 600 B.C. After
about 2,500 years, the mid-19th century (1853) that archaeologists finally
unearthed a copy near Iraqi city of Mosul. Since then, scholars have hailed
the 4,000-year-old epic as a foundational text in world literature.
In the Mesopotamian civilization, nomadic communities of the
western desert filtered into the prosperous agricultural heartland.
Shepherds would bring their flocks into the sown area in the summer.
Such groups would immigrate as herders, harvest labourers and soldiers
and occasionally settle down. Few gained the power to make their own
rules including Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians and Aramaeans.

The Akkadian Empire

Most importantly, the Akkadian Empire is the first ever known
empire in the entire world! Located in the area to the north of Sumer,
Akkadia became established and a dominant force in Mesopotamia around
3000 B.C. It is thought to be the first dynastic rulership to have existed. It
took over the dominance of Sumer and the Levant at around 2300 B.C. As
such, the Empire’s age can be reduced to 2234-2154 B.C. The inhabitants
spoke Semitic languages that are dialectically and closely related to Arabic
and Hebrew. Given that unity is paramount in every civilization, the
Akkadians were able to successfully create the first united empire in
Ancient Mesopotamia. It was a hereditary monarchy, meaning that the
country was ruled by a King who was succeeded by his sons upon his
death. The first ruler of the Akkadian empire was known as Sargon and his
sons, Rimush, Manishtushi, Naram-Sin, grandson Naram-Sin and great-
grandson Shar-Kali-Sharri were the list of rulers. Little is known of
Sargon’s background, but legendary evidence predicate him a similar origin
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to the Biblical story of Moses. He was at one point an officer who worked
for the king of Kish and Akkadia was a city that Sargon himself
established. When the city of Uruk invaded Kish, Sargon took Kish from
Uruk and thus got motivated to continue with conquest.
The Akkadian Civilization, as an organized whole, owes its firm
roots from King Sargon of Akkad the Great, its pioneer. The empire was
considered the world’s first multicultural empire with a central
government. However, the Akkadians are important for more than just
being pioneers! Sargon of Akkad did set the ideal for what a
Mesopotamian king should be when it came to conquering ability.
Sargon expanded his empire through military means, conquering all
of Sumer and moving into what is now Syria. Under Sargon, trade beyond
Mesopotamian borders grew, and architecture became more sophisticated,
notably the appearance of ziggurats, flat-topped buildings with a pyramid
shape and steps. The final king of the Akkadian Empire, Shar-kali-sharri,
died in 2193 B.C., and Mesopotamia went through a century of unrest,
with different groups and tribes struggling for the quandary control.
Among these groups were the Gutian people, the barbarians from the
Zagros Mountains. The Gutian rule is considered a disorderly one that
caused a severe downturn in the empire’s prospects.
Most intriguing, when the Persians conquered Mesopotamia more
than 2,000 years later, they would claim to be inspired by Sargon. The
most enduring aspect of Akkadian rule is in language. Before the
Akkadians, most people in Mesopotamia spoke Sumerian. The Akkadians
introduced their language, Akkadian, which is closely related to other
languages, such as Aramaic and Arabic, that would one day be spoken in
this region. As it is always easier to switch to a language that shares a great

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deal with your first language, Sargon laid the groundwork that would
enable other languages to replace Akkadian. In a way, Sargon’s wit
prepared the ground for the modern Iraqis to speak Arabic.
In 2100 B.C. the city of Ur attempted to establish a dynasty for a
new empire. The ruler of Ur-Namma, the king of the city of Ur, brought
Sumerians back into control after Utu-hengal, the leader of the city of
Uruk, defeated the Gutians. Under Ur-Namma, the first code of law in
recorded history, The Code of Ur-Nammu (2100 B.C.), appeared. Ur-Namma
was attacked by both the Elamites and the Amorites and defeated in 2004
B.C. the Akkadian Empire not only united dozens of city-states, but also
two very different Mesopotamian cultures. Northern Mesopotamia had
mountains and rain, whereas the south was more desert. This difference in
climate meant that the two regions developed different cultures, and these
were in conflict with each other. As such, the Akkadian Empire effectively
split into two spheres of influence, north and south.

Babylonian Empire
Around 60 miles south of Baghdad is where the ancient city once
stood. It was built sometime around 2300 B.C and underwent periods of
rulership from various cultures. Babylon was first built where the
Euphrates and Tigris Rivers run closest to each other. Much of it’s earliest
structures have now been lost to rising water levels which have steadily
been increasing over the last few hundred years. Once a minor city-state,
Babylon was most probably a port town with trade the most important
economic aspects of the culture. The name is thought to derive from bav-
il or bav-ilimwhich, in the Akkadian language of the time, meant Gate of
God or Gate of the gods and Babylon coming from Greek. Babylon was
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founded at some point before the reign of Sargon of Akkad. At that time,
Babylon seems to have been a minor city or perhaps a large port town on
the Euphrates River at the point where it runs closest to R. Tigris.
Whatever early role the city played in the ancient world is lost to modern-
day scholars because the water level in the region has been raising steadily
over the centuries and the ruins of Old Babylon have been subsequently
lost. The known history of Babylon, then, begins with its most famous
king; Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.). Possibly the most famous of all the
ancient Mesopotamia civilizations, Babylon was originally home to one of
the Seven Wonders of the World, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It was also
the place in which the Biblical Tower of Babel was thought to have built and
ultimately destroyed. There are many references to Babylon throughout the
Bible, which has made it a hotspot for archaeologists around the world.
The Babylonian Empire is well remembered for their greatest king,
Hammurabi, who wrote the first code of laws. Between 1790 B.C., and
1750 B.C., Hammurabi, the king of the city-state of Babylon, conquered
and united most of Mesopotamia under his rule. In this way, he formed a
large empire that became known as the Babylonian Empire. While his
penalties, such as eye for an eye, may sound particularly harsh to us, back
then crimes were punished with years of feuds between families. Frankly,
putting someone's eye out was the fastest way to solve the problem. Also,
the Babylonians went right on speaking the Akkadian language.
Choosing Babylon as the capital, the Amorites took control and
established Babylonia. Kings were considered deities and the most famous
of these was Hammurabi. He worked to expand the empire, and the
Babylonians were intermittently at war with their neighbours.

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Hammurabi’s most famous contribution is his list of laws, better known as
the Code of Hammurabi, devised around 1772 B.C.
The Code of Hammurabi consisted of 282 laws. They covered such
matters as family relationships, taxes, land and business deals, trade, loans,
debts, wages, and crime. Hammurabi’s innovation was not just writing
down the laws for everyone to see, but making sure that everyone
throughout the empire followed the same legal codes, and that none of the
governors enacted a different code for their territories. Hammurabi
changed the old laws that were unfair and made clear those that were
confusing. He had the code carved into stone and placed in a public place
for everyone to see. In addition to putting together a code of laws,
Hammurabi introduced the idea of equal justice, or fair treatment, under
the laws. His equal justice, however, was limited to equality within each
social class. Under the Code of Hammurabi, members of the ruling class
were favoured over people of other classes. The punishments they received
were often lighter than those received by other people. At that time, this
was considered fair and just. Hammurabi’s code lasted over the years, but
his empire did not. By about 1600 B.C., the Babylonian Empire had
fallen. After Hammurabi's death, the Babylonians were harassed by Indo-
European tribes in the northern mountains. The Babylon Empire came to
an end when the Indo-European Hittites sacked Babylon in 1595 B.C.
Around the same time the Hykos invaded Egypt and the Hurrians
occupied Syria. The late second millennium B.C. has been called the first
international age. It was a time when there was more interaction between
kingdoms.
In the 1600s B.C., the Hittites, armed with war chariots and iron
weapons, captured and looted Babylon. Smelting was a significant

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contribution of the Hittites, allowing for more sophisticated weaponry that
lead them to expand the empire even further. Their attempts to keep the
technology to themselves eventually failed and other empires became a
match for them.
The Hittites soon returned to their homeland, and their neighbours,
the Kassites (a tribe from the Zagros mountains in present-day Iran),
moved in and conquered Babylon. They ruled the city for more than 500
years. The Kassites adopted Babylonian laws, religion and literature, which
helped Babylonian culture live on.
The Kassites arrived in Babylonia and filled a vacuum left by the
Hittite invasion where they controlled Mesopotamia from 1595 to 1157
B.C. They were defeated by the Elamites in 1157 B.C. A 300-year Middle
Eastern Dark lasted from 1157 to 883 B.C. The last Kassite king, Enlil-
nadin-ahi, was taken to Susa and imprisoned there, where he also died.
During this period the Assyrians in what is now northern Syria gained
strength. The Elamites conquered Babylonia thus ending the Kassite state.

Kassite and Assyrian Empire

After the fall of the Babylonian Empire, several different groups
invaded and ruled Mesopotamia. In the 1600s B.C., the Hittites, armed
with war chariots and iron weapons, captured and looted Babylon. The
Hittites soon returned to their homeland and their neighbours, the
Kassites, moved in and conquered Babylon. They ruled the city for more
than 500 years. The Kassites adopted Babylonian laws, religion, and
literature, which helped Babylonian culture live on. From the Hittites, the
Assyrians had learned how to make and use iron weapons and war
chariots. The Assyrian army introduced the battering ram, a heavy wooden
beam used to break down walls. They were also among the first to use the
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lance, a spear attached to a long handle. Craftily, the Assyrians knocked
down and methodically conquered their neighbours. By about 700 B.C.,
the Assyrians ruled the largest empire in the world. They controlled all of
Mesopotamia, as well as lands in present-day Turkey, Egypt, and the
Persian Gulf.
It is thought the civilization became wealthy enough to develop
armies and warriors through trading goods with Anatolia (located in
modern-day Turkey). Under the Assyrian Civilization, ancient
Mesopotamia expanded from the Persian Gulf to Egypt, to its Western
borders of modern-day Turkey.
The Assyrian Empire under the leadership of Ashur-uballit I rose
around 1365 B.C. in the areas between the lands controlled by the Hittites
and the Kassites. Around 1220 B.C., King Tukulti-Ninurta I aspired to
rule all of Mesopotamia and seized Babylon. The Assyrian Empire
continued to expand over the next two centuries, moving into modern-day
Palestine and Syria. Over time, there were many rises and falls of the
Assyrian Civilization. The Babylonians had control of southern
Mesopotamia, and the Assyrians had the north. One of their strongest
leaders during this time was King Shamshi-Adad.
Under Shamshi-Adad the empire expanded to control much of the
north, and the Assyrians grew wealthy. However, after Shamshi-Adad’s
death in 1781 B.C., the Assyrians grew weak and soon fell under the
control of the Babylonian Empire. Over time, there were many rises and
falls of the Assyrian Civilization. The Babylonians had control of southern
Mesopotamia and the Assyrians had the north. The last strong Assyrian
king was known as Assurbanipal. In 612 B.C, the Babylonians, led by King
Nebopolassar, joined hands with their allies, the Medes, and destroyed the

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city of Nineveh, this brought an end to the Assyrian Empire. Babylon
enjoyed one more moment of greatness in Mesopotamia.

New Babylonian Empire

The New Babylonian Empire also known as Neo-Babylonian Empire
or better still, the Second Babylonian Empire. Historically, the Empire is
also known as Chaldean Empire which lasted for 75 years only and was
succeeded by the Persian Empire under King Cyrus. One of the most
recognized kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was Nebuchadnezzar II,
the son of Nebopolassar. Nebuchadnezzar II ruled from 605 to 562 B.C.
He is known for conquering the kingdom of Judah, as Sennacherib had
once attempted but failed a hundred years earlier. In 586 B.C, he
destroyed the Jewish temple in city of Jerusalem. He also forced thousands
of Jews to move to Babylon where many were subjected to slavery. This is
known as the Babylonian Captivity in the Holy Bible.
In 609 B.C, the Assyrian Empire fell to its enemies and the New
Babylonian Empire rose in its place. With chronological precision, the
Empire began in 626 B.C and ended in 539 B.C. One of this empire’s
best-known rulers was the famous King Nebuchadnezzar. He is believed to
have built the terraced garden known as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
This garden is remembered as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient
World. The Neo-Babylonian period was a renaissance that witnessed a great
flourishing of art, architecture and science. The art and architecture
reached its zenith under King Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled from 604–
562 B.C and was a great patron of urban development, bent on rebuilding
all of Babylonia’s cities to reflect their former glory. The last ruler of the
empire was Nabonidus (reigned from 556 to 539 B.C), who spent much of
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his reign in Tayma in northern Arabia. The appetite to know the collapse
of Neo-Babylonian Empire is satisfied by diverse scripts. Some
historians claim that the people of Babylon opened the gates of the city so
that King Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, could enter and capture the
unpopular Nebonidas. Other accounts narrate of Cyrus holding back the
flow of the Euphrate River so that his army could enter by way of the dried
river-bed, which ran through the city. In either case, Cyrus and the
Persians became the next power to reckon with and to dominate the
famous larger Mesopotamian territory. With Cyrus as the ruler of
Mesopotamia, the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland, as long
as they recognized Cyrus as their overlord. Just like the previous Empires,
the Persian one could not reign perpetually, King Alexander the Great,
King of Macedonia, a Greek, overthrew them to the political pit of
oblivion!

The Legacy of Mesopotamia Civilization

The civilization is majorly known for is prosperity, city life and its
rich and voluminous literature, mathematics and astronomy. The
Mesopotamians left a massive legacy for future civilizations and set the
precedent for civilization. Urbanization, writing, astronomy, wind power,
irrigation, trade notation, agricultural developments, mathematics, animal
husbandry, the wheel, and the narratives which would eventually be retold
as the Hebrew Scriptures and form the Christian Old Testament all came
from the land of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamian cities were the first cities
which were economic, cultural, and religious centers of the realm. Also the
Mesopotamians were the first who detached their civilization from the
perils of environment. For the first time man had created an environment
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which he could tailor to his own preferences. Finally administrators could
easily control transactions and the masses. The Mesopotamians may have
vanished long ago, however the impact of their legacy affects us every single
day. Here are the itemized as follows;
" The greatest legacy of Mesopotamia to the world is its scholarly

tradition of time calculation and mathematics. Dating around 1800

B.C are tablets with multiplication and division tables, square- and
square-root tables, and tables of compound interest. The square root
of 2 was given as: 1 + 24/60 + 51/602 + 10/603.
" They created the first sundial, a device that uses the solar (sun) to

tell time.
" The origins of the sixty-second minute and sixty-minute hour can be
traced all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. Like modern
mathematics is a decimal system based on the number ten, the
Sumerians mainly used a structure that was based around groupings
of 60.
" The urbanised southland was called Sumer and Akkad and the first
known language of the land was Sumerian. It was gradually replaced
by Akkadian around 2400 B.C when Akkadian speaking gens
arrived. Akkadian was used until the time of great Alexander (336-
323 B.C) with minimum local adaptations.
" Mesopotamia was important to Europeans because of references to
it in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible. For instance, the
Book of Genesis of the Old Testament refers to Shimar’, meaning
Sumer, as a land of brick-built cities.
" One of the most influential idea from Mesopotamia or maybe ever
was the notion of monotheism. In fact two of the three world's

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 largest religions are Monotheistic. Perhaps their greatest legacy
though was the foundation and standard for civilizations to come
and the basic ideas which combined with ideas of freedom led to
our western civilization today.
" Mesopotamia culture was a synthesis of both Sumerian and Semitic
forms. One of these legacies was establishment of various legal codes
developed by a succession of Mesopotamian rulers. Most notably
among these rulers was Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.), a Babylonian
ruler who had various legal codes, guidelines, and precedents
compiled.
" The Ancient Mesopotamia created many inventions that are still in
use today. Some of the famous things that they invented were the
wheels, sailboat, plough, symmetrical arc and chariot.
" Assyrian kings united their huge empire by building the world’s first
system of paved roads and developing a postal system.
" The Assyrians were also the first to make locks that opened with
keys. Also they invented the first written language called Cuneiform.
Cuneiform was a highly developed written language created by the
Sumerians. This name comes from a Latin word meaning wedge.
This is because they used a wedge-shaped Stylus to etch their writing
on clay tablets.
" They also invented the magnifying glass and established the pioneer
remote libraries.

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