THE MESOPOTAMIANSTHE MESOPOTAMIANS

Ana Horcas Chorro

6th C

Location

• The name of Mesopotamia means in Greek “the country between the rivers”.

• The main area of Mesopotamia was in the current country of Iraq.

• It was between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers

• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers watered two big valleys where farmers grew wheat and barley and raised goats and sheep.

• If the rain was very heavy the rivers overflowed and flooded the towns, but if it was too light there was drought and people were starving.

Hammurabi

• In the third and second millenniums before Christ, Mesopotamia was composed of several nations. In the twenty-eighth century BC the king of Babylon, Hammurabi, founded one single nation covering the area between the Persian Gulf and the city of Mari.

Babylon

• Babylon was the capital of Mesopotamia.• It was a beautiful city with its royal castle,

its ziggurat (a tower that seems to touch the sky), the temples, the hanging gardens and the bridge over the Euphrates river.

• It had a wall 6 meters wide and 18 km long surrounding the city.

• Babylon had a small wall to protect the city. It had eight gates.

Gods

• The Mesopotamians believed in many gods. Each of them had an specific task except Enlil who governed everything. The Mesopotamians believed that everything that happened to them was the result of the will of the gods. Therefore they offered temples, statues, food, sacrifices, hymns, prayers and jewelry.

Writing

• At the beginning traders were issuing their gods along with a ball of clay containing in it as many chips as commodities. Then they began to make marks on the balls that gradually became a tablet. At first signs schematically represented objects. Later they designated sounds and syllables.