Writing and city life byRs

The development of writing the first Mesopotamian tablets, written around

3200BCE contained pictures like signs and numbers. These were about 5000 lists of oxen, fish, bread

loaves,etc –lists of goods that were brought into or distributed from the temples of Uruk , a city in

south.

In recorded history of Mesopotamia its first knownlanguage was Sumerian. It was gradually replaced byakkadian around 2400 BCE when akkadian speakersarrived. This language flourished till about alexander'stime (336-323BCE),with some regional changes occurring. From 1400BCE , Aramaic also trickled in this language ,similar to Hebrew , became widely spoken after 1000BCE.It is still spokenin parts of Iraq.

Writing began when society needed to keep recordsof transactions- because in city life transactionoccurred at different times, and involved manypeople and variety of goods . Mesopotamians wroteon the tablets of clay. A scribe would wet clay and patit into a size he could hold it comfortably in onehand. He carefully smoothen its surfaces. With thesharp end of a reed cut obliquely, he would presswedge shaped (cuneiform*) signs on to thesmoothened surface it was still moist .

Sumer, an ancient civilization of southern Mesopotamia, is believed to be the place where written language was first invented around 3200 BCE and having cites like Uruk Ur

The seal -An urban artifact

In India, early stone seals were stamped. In Mesopotamia until the end of the first millennium BCE , cylindrical stone seals, pierced down the center, were fitted with a stick and rolled over wet clay so that the continuous picture was created. They were carved by the skilled

craftsmen, and sometimes carry writing: the name of the owner, his god, his official owner, etc. a seal could be rolled on clay covering the string

knot of a cloth package or the mouth of a pot, keeping the contents safe. When rolled on a letter written on a clay tablet, it become a mark

authenticity. So the seal was the mark of a city dwellers role in public life.

The warka head

The Warka Vase or the Uruk Vase is a carved alabaster stone vessel found in the temple complex of the Sumerian goddess Inanna in the ruins of the ancient city of Uruk, located in the modern Al Muthanna Governorate, in southern Iraq. Like the Narmer Palette from Egypt, it is one of the earliest surviving works of narrative reliefsculpture, dated to c. 3200–3000 BC. this woman’s head was sculpted with white marble. The eyes and eyebrows would probably have taken lapis lazuli (blue ) and shell (white) and bitumen (black) inlays, respectively. There is a groove along the top of the head, perhaps for an ornament, this is world famous piece of sculpture, admired for the delicate modeling of the woman’s mouth, chin and cheeks. And it was modeled in a hard stone that would have been imported from a long distance.

The legacy of writing The greatest legacy of Mesopotamia to the world is the scholarly tradition of time reckoning and mathematics. Dating around

1800BCE are the 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

the division of yeas into 12 months according to , the revolution of the moon around the earth, the division of month into four

weeks, the day into 24 hours, and hour into 60 minutes – all that we take for granted in our daily lives- has come to us from the

Mesopotamians.

These time divisions were adopted by the successors of alexander and from the transmitted roman world,

then to the world of Islam, and then to medieval Europe. Whenever the solar and the lunar eclipse

were observed, there occurrence was noted according to the year, month and

day. So too there was records about the observed positions of stars and constellation in the night sky.

Early Semitic alphabet

Main article: Middle Bronze Age alphabetsThe first pure alphabets emerged around 1800 BC in Ancient Egypt, as a representation of language developed by Semitic workers in Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had a slight possibility of being inculcated into

Egyptian hieroglyphs for upwards of a millennium. These early abjads remained of marginal importance for several centuries, and it is only towards the end of the Bronze Age that the Proto-Sinaitic script splits

into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (ca. 1400 BC) Byblos syllabary and the South Arabian alphabet (ca. 1200 BC). The Proto-Canaanite was probably

somehow influenced by the undeciphered Byblos syllabary and in turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet (ca. 1300 BC).

In China, historians have learned much about the early Chinese dynasties from the written documents left behind. From the Shang Dynasty, most of this

writing has survived on bones or on bronze. Markings on turtle shells, or jiaguwen, are attested from the late Shang (1200–1050 BCE). The writings from the Shang Dynasty are the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters used throughout East

Asia (China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam).

City life in Mesopotamia the name Mesopotamia is derived from a Greek word mesos meaning middle, and potamos meaning river.

Mesopotamia civilization is known for its prosperity, city life, its voluminous and rich literature and its

mathematics and astronomy. This is land between the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates and now part of republic Iraq. Archeology in Mesopotamia began work in 1840s at

one or two sites like Uruk and Mari. Mesopotamia was important to Europeans because of reference to it in the

old testament, the first part of the Bible.

Foe instances book of genesis of the old testament refers to ‘Shimar’ meaning Sumer as a land of brick

built cities. Travellers and the scholars of Europe looked on Mesopotamia as a ancestral land, and when archeological work began in the area, there was an attempt to prove the literal truth of the old

testament.

Mesopotamia and its geography Iraq is a land of diverse environment. In the north east lie green undulating plains gradually to tree

covered ranges with clear stream and wild flowers, with enough rainfall to grow crops. Here agriculture

began between 7000 and 6000BCE . In the north there is a stretch of upland called steppe, where animal herding offers people a better livelihood

than agriculture- after the winter offers the people a better livelihood than agriculture

To the east, tributaries of the Tigris provide routes of communication into mountains of Iran. The south

is a desert and this is where the first cities and writing emerged . This desert could support the

cities because the rivers euphrates and tigris, which rise in the norhtern mountains, carry loads of silt. Mesopotamian goats and sheep that grazed on the

steppe, the north eastern plains and mountain slopes produced meat, milk and wool in abundance.

Causes of urbanization1. Economic development : cities and towns are not just

place with large population on. It is when economic develops in a sphere other than food production and it becomes an advantage for people to cluster in towns.

2. Self – Sufficient : urban economics comprises besides food production, trade, manufacturers and services. City

people came to be self sufficient and dependent on the products and services of the other people.

3. Interaction with people: there is a continuous interactionwith the people. For example, the carver of stone sealrequires a bronze tools that he himself can not make,colored stones for the seal that he does not know where toget his specialization is fine carving not trading.4. Other activities: there are many different activities haveto be coordinated there must be not only stones but alsobronze tools and pot available for seal cutlers and urbaneconomic often required the keeping of written records .

5. Social Organization: there must be a social organization in place. fuel, metal, wool etc. come from many different places for city manufacturers. so, organized trade and storage is needed.

there are deliveries of grain and other food items from the village of the city and food supplies need to be stored and distributed. 6. Transport: besides craft, trade and services, transport is also

important for urban development. if it takes too much time then the city economy will be viable.

7. Water: the cheapest mode of transportation is water. boats loaded with sacks of grains are propelled by the current of river.