Early CivilizationsEarly CivilizationsEarly CivilizationsEarly Civilizations

Chapter 2Chapter 2

I. Mesopotamia• Mesos – Greek for “middle”• Potamos – Greek for “river”• Greek meaning “land between the

rivers”• Area located between the Tigris and

Euphrates Rivers – Modern-day Iraq• Fertile Crescent – Rich farmland

located between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea

•Sumerians – People who established the 1st civilization more than 5,000 years ago

Sumerian Art

A. Environmental Challenges• 1) Unpredictable Floods• Each year the two rivers flooded• Did not flood at the same time or on the

same land each year• If rivers did not flood the land was a

desert• Solution: Sumerians dug irrigation

ditches

• 2) Villages had no natural defenses • Left the Sumerians open to attacks• Created state of constant warfare• Solution: Constructed mud bricks

that provided some protection against invaders

•3) Extremely limited natural resources

•Solution – Created large trade networks to get resources

B. Sumerian Religion• Polytheism – Belief in more than one

god• Polys – Greek for “many”• Theos – Greek for “god”• Believed in over 3000 gods• Ziggurat – Huge pyramid-like buildings

built to honor gods

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Ziggurat of Ur

•Epic of Gilgamesh – Oldest known work of literature

• Story of King Gilgamesh’s unsuccessful quest for immortality

• Flood story

C. First Empire• Empire – Bringing people and

previously independent nations under the control of one ruler

• Sargon of Akkad – Defeated the city of Sumer and created the world’s first empire in 2350 BC

Statue of Sargon of Akkad

D. Hammurabi – 1780 BC•Conquered Mesopotamia and established his empire at Babylon

•Most famous for his code of laws

E. Code of Hammurabi • 282 laws• Helped bring many people

together under one law• Retributive Justice – Punishment

equals the crime• “An eye for an eye”• “A tooth for a tooth”

A total of 282 laws are etched on this 7 ft. 5 in. tall black basalt pillar (stele). The top portion, shown here, depicts Hammurabi with Shamash, the sun god. Shamash is presenting to Hammurabi a staff and ring, which symbolize the power to administer the law. Although Hammurabi's Code is not the first code of laws (the first records date four centuries earlier), it is the best preserved legal document reflecting the social structure of Babylon during Hammurabi's rule. This amazing find was discovered in 1901 and today is in the famous Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

Hammurabi had these laws posted in prominent places throughout his empire

And why do you think he believed it important to place the laws in prominent locations so the people could visibly see them?

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Actual Code of Hammurabi

The Louvre

• Set different punishments for rich and poor

• Only equal punishment for people of the same class

• A rich person who took the eye of a lower class person had to pay a fine

Tablet from the Code of Hammurabi