Mesopotamia

MESOPOTAMIA
The First Civilisation in History

Chapter Ten: Egypt

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For information on the origin of this culture, go to the Current Theories section. Otherwise, continue on to Egypt.

Mesopotamia is the name given to encompass all the civilisations that began in what is now Iran, Iraq and Kuwait, along the Banks of the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, known as the Fertile Cresent. The most famous of these civilisations would be the Babylonians, and the Sumerians that preceded them. For the purpose of these pages, knowledge of their culture is not required. They were highly advanced in that they founded domesticated agriculture and the use of canals for irrigation. They also were the first in history to master the art of writing, a monetary system, and structurally sound building. This is commonly held, and thus evidence is not required here to support these claims.

It is postulated that around 3,100 B.C. the civilisations within the Fertile Cresent began to emerge, and fairly suddenly at that. Early forms of writing have been found, represented by small clay triangles, spheres, cones, and other tokens that were molded to represent sheep, measures of grain, jars of oil, and other goods. It is theorised that these tokens served a community as a means of keeping track of goods for the purpose of pooling and redistributing the community’s resources. They were sometimes placed in burial sites, and may have also indicated gifts to the temple, tribute to a ruler, or tax payments. The shape of the token carried its meaning.

Its importance here is that this culture seems to have appeared relatively overnight within this Fertile Cresent. Not only that, but the capacity for forms of writing seem to have been brought with them. It seems that they knew that they needed to write information down, such as for a monetary system, but they just didn't know what to write. So the writing was rather crude, but the intent was not. The same would occur if a child were to try inventing a monetary system after watching their parents' buying the groceries.

Figure 4: Example of the Sumerian Cuneiform tablets. Click for larger image of The pike-and-shield-carrying army of King Eannatum of Lagash, trampling on the defeated of the city of Umma.

Figure 1: Map showing the location of Sumer on the banks of the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

Figure 2: Map of what is now Iran, showing the location of the major Sumerian cities.

Figure 3: Map of what is now Iraq showing location of the major Sumerian cities.

The period in time that this culture emerged is a curious one; 3,100 B.C. seems to be a period when many civilisations sprang up; Egypt, the civilisations in the Indus Valley, many places in South America, all these seem to have one thing in common - the period in which they were founded.

It would be an effor in futility to continue in describing this culture, as the only real knowledge required for the purposes of these pages is to indicate that cultures such as this evolved relatively overnight with a well-developed knowledge of notions such as the requirement for a monetary system, argiculture, and a capacity to record their history, but it appears as though they simply did not know how to do these, how to carry out these ideas. An example of this was given above regarding the development of the monetary system of the Sumerians.

So why did they evolve in this manner; all across the world at once, with the same notions and motivations, the same myths such as the flood myth, and all literally overnight?