The Role of Refugees in Building the Babylonian Empire

Episode 12: Migrants and Old Assyrian Merchants

Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization

Dr Amanda H Podany

Film Review

This lecture mainly concerns the foreign refugees that settled n Mesopotamia during the Ur III period. These included the Eblaites from Ebla (west of the Euprates); the Hurrians (from Assyria); the Gutians (from the Zagras mountains on Iran’s western border); the Elamites (from Elam – now western Iran); and the Amorites (originating in the Levant but occupying large portions of southern Mesopotamia from 2000 to 15000 BC).

Only the Amorites, who repeatedly raided Mesopotamian crop land to pasture their herds, posed a serious threat to the Ur III dynasty. During the 21st century BC, King Shulgi and King Shu-Sin constructed one of the world’s first defensive walls to keep them out. This would prove ineffective. When Amorite kings eventually took power in central and northwest Mesopotamia, their territory included a previously insignificant area known as Babylon,

Hamurabi was one of these kings. In 1900 BC, Yamhad (Aleppo in modern day Syria) eventually emerged as the largest Babylonian (Amorite) kingdom.

During this period, Mesopotamia had between 70 and 100 separate kingdoms that  formed military alliances with other powerful kingdoms and engaged in near constant warfare.

King Gilgamesh, who ruled Uruk around 2500 BC, was celebrated in the Akkadian epic poem the Epic of Gilgamesh. According to Podany, his rule was a prelude to the very successful Old Babylonian Period.

Podany spends a significant portion of the lecture discussing the trading colony Assyrian immigrants established in 2000 BC in Kanash in Anatolia (modern day Turkey). The merchants originated from Ashur, the religious capitol of Assyria on the west bank of the Tigris. Ashur tradesmen (usually extended family members) transported tin and fine textiles via donkey caravans from Assyria to Kanash, which they traded for silver (the medium of exchange).

The film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/migrants-and-old-assyrian-merchants

Uruk: The World’s First Big City

Uruk’s Colonies

Episode 5: Uruk: The World’s Biggest City

Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization

Dr Amanda H Podany

Film Review

Founded around 40000 BC, Uruk was the first large city in the world. A walled city, it was approximately 260 hectares (the size of a large university campus) and housed 25,000 residents. It had two distinct temple precincts, one dedicated to Inana, the goddess of love, and the other to Anu, the god of the heavens. Each took 100 years to build, and (to keep the population employed) citizens began rebuilding them once they were completed

The economy was mainly based on farming, with most residents owning or working on farms outside the city walls and coming into the city to sleep. With the invention of the plow (pulled by oxen or donkeys) farming became much more efficient. This period also saw the invention of the wheel, the pottery wheel, cylinder seals (used like a signature to authenticate documents), a primitive writing system arsenic bronze. Wealthy began using bronze tools (because they were stronger than stone) and bronze dishes instead of ceramic ones.

Irrigation canals were enlarge until they were enough to accommodate sailing vessels.

There is evidence of a centralized government in Uruk that lived more luxurious lives than commoners but no kings. Although most people were illiterate, central government used the new writing system extensively. Scribes who kept governmental records (on clay tablets) learned to write in special schools. Archeologists have discovered clay tablets with lexicons of the proto-cuneiform* words they were expected to learn. Many are bilingual, with Sumerian** and Akkadian** versions of each word.

Uruk had a string of colonies across Mesopotamia and modern-day Syria and Turkey. They gained some via conquest (the first evidence of Middle East warfare. Others were uninhabited land taken up by Uruk settlers. The main purpose of the colonies wasn’t subjugation and exploitation, as with modern colonialism, but to facilitate trade. There is evidence Uruk traded with Egypt during this period.

Elements of modern Western life that derive from fourth millennium Uruk include

• rectangular houses
• streets
• specialized rooms (ie kitchens)
• marriage
• laws
• courts
• armies
• diplomats
• burial of dead
• written language
• story telling

use of domesticated animals and plants to make clothes

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*Proto-cuneiform – earliest form of writing on Earth, consisting of pictographs or simple drawings.

**Sumerian – language of ancient Sumer (area of southern Mesopotamia from 4500-1900 BC), gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, though it continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states.

***Akkadian – east Semitic language, now extinct, spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa and Babylonia)/

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/uruk-worlds-biggest-city

Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization

Episode 1: Uncovering Near Eastern Civilization

Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization

Dr Amanda H Podany

Film Review

With its amazing longevity of 3,000 years, Mesopotamia accounts accounts for two-thirds of the total history of human civilization. Western concepts of writing, criminal and contract law and diplomatic relations can all be traced back to Mesopotamia.

According to Podany, Mesopotamian civilization is much less studied than Roman, Greek or Egyptian civilization, largely because its written language, Akkadian,* was only deciphered 170 years ago. The deciphering of Akkadian hieroglyphics led to a burst of archeological investigation of ancient Mesopotamian sites (most in modern day Iraq). At present, 250,000 separate Akkadian tablets have been discovered, some of which have yet to be read.

Most of these tablets relate to everyday activities: court documents, business letters, rations, lists of animals and multiplication tables.

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*Written Akkadian originated in the Kingdom of Sumer (4500 – 1900 BC) in southern Mesopotamia.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/uncovering-near-eastern-civilization