Mesopotamian Civilization



Mesopotamian Civilization

Introduction

Mesopotamia is an ancient civilization located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It has a hot, dry, climate. Mesopotamia was started in 5,300 B.C. and ended 2,900 B.C. Prior to Saddam Hussein's draining of the marshlands, the entire place was swamps. Thus, the nickname of the inhabitants as “Swamp-Arabs”. There are 5 distinct characteristics to every culture, they are: steady food supply, specialization of labor, structure of government, social levels, and an advanced culture. There are 8 characteristics in any culture that are significant in order to know and study that civilization. These characteristics are: their art, architecture and engineering, their writings and manuscripts, their musical instruments, religion they followed, technology which they had, and leisure and recreational activities. This report will look at all these eight characteristics of the highly advanced Mesopotamia civilization.

The Mesopotamian's Culture is deemed as the beginning of civilized cultures. Mesopotamian's Culture is known as the Paleolithic period or Old Stone Age. It started from 35000 to 10000 B.C.

The Sumerian's had founded the Mesopotamian civilization between 3500 and 3000 B.C. This period consisted of constant change. The Sumerian culture had its own local god and its own ruler. Kings were not thought of as gods-rather, the god was considered the owner of the city-state. The life of Sumeria and the Mesopotamia's was ruled by the Polytheistic religion, which was the belief in, or worship of more than one god. The Ziggurat was a temple of sun dried mud brick that consisted of clay and straw to compose a place of worship of the gods. They believed that gods lived on the mountaintops so Ziggurats would bring them closer to the gods. The center temple contained the main God or Goddess where they would serve their God or Goddess by feeding and clothing the statue known as the offering stands. Some of the gods of the Mesopotamian civilizations were: Anu, (god of the heaven's and sky); he was the father of Enilil, Enki and Inanna. Ekilil was the god of wind and Enki was the god of the ocean. Inanna was the worshipped as the goddess of love, fertility, and war.

Mesopotamians civilization had several female deities. Examples of symbols that they worshipped were mother earth, the moon, snakes, and the double axe. Mesopotamians believed that all vegetation was born of mother earth and that each day the sun was born and rose all day until it went back into mother earth only to be reborn the next day. The moon was also a symbol of worship. This was seen as being holy like the sun because of its constant rebirth. Snakes were especially sacred to Mesopotamians. Snakes and other serpents were regular focuses of art and statues.

For a very long time after the Mesopotamians their ideas were still influencing future religions and societies. For thousands of years the snake was an important symbol in religions across the world. The double axe was representative of the female's deity. When the axe was used it ...