[introduction.]

In the same way that the Nile valley was the centre of ancient civilisation in North-East Africa so the ancient kingdoms of the Middle East were to grow up in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, that is in the "land between the rivers" or Mesopotamia.

Natural Conditions

p Natural conditions in Mesopotamia are far from uniform. The northern part consists of hilly territory watered by small mountain streams and an abundant rainfall. The southern part of Mesopotamia is a marshy depression, the soil consisting of alluvial deposits. The rivers overflowed their banks from March to July, and the water in the fields then dried up. As a result of the uneven extent to which the soil dried up in different places even in ancient times it was essential to construct an artificial means of regulating the water supply.

The natural riches of Mesopotamia were less spectacular than those of the Nile valley. However, limestone and clay were to be found in some places; important types of vegetation were date palms and various kinds of reeds; in the mountains which lined the valley wild cattle, goats, boars and lions roamed and the rivers were teeming with fish.

The Ancient Kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad

p In the southern part of Mesopotamia and along the shores of the Persian Gulf tribes called the Sumerians had settled very early. It was they who first built irrigation works consisting of 25 canals, reservoirs and dykes. The main occupation of the Sumerians was agriculture. The land in that region as in Egypt was divided up among peasant communes and the most common crops were barley, wheat, flax and sesame. The peasant communes were obliged to pay taxes in kind, generally constituting a tenth of the crop, which went to the royal granaries. In the royal and temple estates, where slave labour predominated, the land was mostly planted with orchards and stockbreeding flourished.

p Towards the end of the 4th millennium B.C. in southern Mesopotamia there existed more than twenty small estates. We do not know their names, but we do know that their rulers were princepriests called “patesi” and these kingdoms have accordingly been referred to as “patesiats”. At the very end of the 4th millenⁿ.^ium, ^B>C- ^{a stru}ggle began between the larger of these " patesiats”, such as Lagash and Umma, each striving to unite southern Mesopotamia under their own hegemony.

The central and north-western parts of Mesopotamia were inhabited by Semitic tribes, who appear to have originally come from Arabia, and took their name from that of their chief town, Akkad. In approximately the year 2500 B.C. the ruler of the Akkadians was the talented administrator and military leader Sargon I. He was the first man in history to recruit regular troops from among peasants in the poor village communes, who were later to receive plots of land by way of payment for their military 26 service. Relying on these troops Sargon carried out a successful series of military campaigns. With his conquest of Sumer towns he succeeded in uniting the whole of Mesopotamia under his rule. He appears also to have conquered Elam, a state situated in the mountains to the east of Mesopotamia and also led an expedition into Syria and Asia Minor. It was with good reason that at the end of his reign Sargon I conferred on himself the proud title of "king of the lands".

The Ancient Kingdom of Babylon

p Shortly before 2000 B.C. Akkad was invaded from Arabia by tribes known as the Amorites, and Sumer by the Elamites. Soon these invaders succeeded in capturing the whole valley of Mesopotamia. Then war broke out between the Amorites and the Elamites. The war ended with a decisive victory for the Amorite kings, and the rise of the town of Babylon which was soon to become an extremely important economic, political and cultural centre. The flowering of the ancient Babylonian Kingdom and its eventual unification round this new centre took place during the reign of the famous King Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.).

p Hammurabi succeeded in defeating the Elamites and then conquered the kingdom of Mari to the north of Babylon, and finally the town of Assur, the centre of what was later to be the extremely powerful state of Assyria. However, Hammurabi was famous not only as a conqueror but also for his famous code of laws. This code, carved into a basalt pillar and consisting of 282 statutes, has been preserved intact up till the present day. This code provides us with an interesting insight into the economic and political structure of the ancient Babylonian society. Hammurabi’s code clearly appertains to a society with a rigid class structure. The property rights of the landowners, priests and merchants are guaranteed and the interests of these groups are carefully protected. We learn that in the kingdom of Babylon not only agriculture was highly developed but various crafts and trading as well. The code lists the following crafts: pottery, stone-masonry, leather tanning, dress making and ironwork. As far as trading is concerned it is interesting to note that largescale transactions were negotiated by the temples or even the kings themselves. Their orders were carried out by merchants, who in their turn employed agents and assistants. The main wares traded with the neighbouring states were grain, cattle, silver and copper.

p The Code of Hammurabi also sheds light on the status of slaves in ancient Babylon. A particularly widespread practice 27
 
O Important towns
o Other settlements (some names are not given)
o Approximate location ot towns KASSIIES -Tribes
N B The course of the rivers in the southern part of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates is indicated approximately due to changes in the river beds 28 appears to be what is called debt slavery. If a debtor was unable to pay back his debt within the appointed term he was obliged to pay it off by means of his own or his children’s labour. Such servitude could be made to last a whole lifetime, but Hammurabi limited debt slavery to a period of three years.

Babylonian society during the reign of Hammurabi reached a high level of development. However, this Golden Age was to be of short duration since the country was to suffer a number of crushing invasions, resulting in the collapse of the ancient kingdom of Babylon.

Assyria

p The Assyrian kingdom grew up out of a small commune in nothern Mesopotamia centred round the town of Assur. The most illustrious chapter in the history of the military state of Assyria was in the eighth century B.C. The Assyrian King, Tiglath- Pileser III (745-727 B.C.), waged a number of victorious campaigns. He conquered Syria and Phoenicia. The kings of Tyre and Israel paid him tribute. His expedition against the state of Urartu ended in a crushing defeat for the latter. Finally Tiglath-Pileser conquered Babylonia and made himself King of Babylon.

p His military feats were continued by other Assyrian kings— Sargon II (722-705 B.C.) and Esarhaddon (680-669 B.C.). As a result of their conquests and campaigns Assyria became a tremendous power, incorporating all central and eastern Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and part of Egypt. Measured by the standards of those times Assyria was undoubtedly a world power.

p Assyria was a state of warlords and slave-owners. Slavery was more developed there than it had been in either Egypt or Babylon. In the king’s employ there were thousands of slaves who were often used for the construction of roads, canals and even whole towns. The slave trade was also developed on a fairly wide scale.

p Assyria was famous for its high level of military organisation. The Assyrian army was divided into various arms: 1) two-horse chariots, 2) mounted cavalry (which made its first appearance in the Assyrian army), 3) infantry equipped with either heavy or light weapons, 4) engineers, and 5) siege troops (equipped with stone-throwers and battering rams). The army provided the backbone of the king’s power and it was customary for kings to present themselves to the army on acceding to the throne.

However, the Assyrian military power was a clay-legged colossus. The various parts of this enormous state were not sufficiently close-knit and the subject nations and peoples were exposed to 29 cruel oppression. Insurgent Babylon together with the Medes (the people of a large state situated on the Iranian plateau) dealt a crushing blow to the kingdom of Assyria.

The Religion and Culture of Babylonia
and Assyria

p The role of religion in Babylonian society was no less important than in ancient Egypt. All spheres of cultural life—from literature to science—were subject to powerful religious influence. The most important gods were Marduk, Shamash and the vegetation deities Tammuz and Ishtar

p (roughly equivalents of Osiris and Isis). In addition there were also various popular beliefs connected with spirits of the local rivers and canals, and the spirits of the dead were also worshipped.

p In Mesopotamia the written language, unlike that of the ancient Egyptians, was cuneiform. Wedgeshaped signs were imprinted on clay tablets which once they had been fired could be preserved indefinitely.

p A large number of works of ancient Babylonian literature have survived to the present day, including the famous epic of Gilgamesh, in which the legend of the Flood first figured.

p The rudiments of science in ancient Babylonia were closely bound up with agriculture. As far back as the Sumerian era there had existed a sexagesimal system of counting, to which the present division of the circle into 360 degrees can be traced back. The Babylonians mastered the four arithmetical principles, simple fractions, squaring, cubing and square roots. They were also quite advanced in astronomy and succeeded in picking out five of the 30 planets and calculating their orbits. Their study of the lunar phases enabled them to draw up a calendar divided into years, months and days (each day contained 12 hours and each hour was divided up into thirty minutes).

Assyrian culture cannot be regarded as indigenous. On the whole, the Assyrians, thanks to their conquests and trade links, acted as the disseminators of Babylonian culture throughout the other countries of the ancient East. For example the famous library belonging to the Assyrian King Assurbanipal contained a collection of literary and religious texts, scientific treatises, reference books and dictionaries written in various languages, and represented a real treasure-house of the cultural achievements of the ancient East.