MESOPOTAMIA: "CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION"
MESOPOTAMIA: "CRADLE OF
CIVILIZATION"
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Mesopotamia was an ancient civilization. It lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The fertile plain is also known as the "Cradle of Civilization".
Mesopotamia is known as the cradle of civilization because it was the site of many crucial early developments.
Mesopotamia: Cradle of civilization, birthplace of writing, astronomy, and law, flourished between 4,000 and 3,100 BC.
Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning 'between two rivers') was an ancient region located in the eastern Mediterranean, bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and Turkey and known as the Fertile Crescent and the Cradle of Civilization.
Mesopotamia was geographically situated in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and northeastern Syria.
Modern Iraqi girl
the plough, the wheel, and complex laws and social structures, which emerged from fertile land and were sustained by innovative irrigation.
Key civilizations, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, rose and fell in this region over thousands of years.
The Mesopotamians are credited with inventing the wheel for transportation as well as sailboats and complex architecture, and they developed advanced mathematics and astronomy.
The Mesopotamians developed a clock and calendar by inventing a base-60 number system, which led to the 60-second minute and 60-minute hour, and divided the year into 12 periods, naming each after a constellation.
They created organized societies with systems of law, specialized labor, and social classes.
Mesopotamian customs and traditions were deeply rooted in religion, involving polytheistic worship, elaborate festivals such as the New Year's Akitu, and a belief that gods controlled natural forces and human destiny. Key practices included building Ziggurats as temples, developing sophisticated systems for divination, and maintaining societal order through written laws.
Mesopotamians worshipped a vast pantheon of gods and goddesses, with each city having its own patron deity.
Priests interpreted omens from dreams, animal entrails, and celestial events to guide decisions and maintain a relationship with the gods.
The afterlife was generally viewed as a grim underworld called Kur, which influenced burial rites and shaped ethical behaviour.
The Mesopotamians developed one of the earliest systems of written laws to govern society, such as the famous Code of Hammurabi.
The invention of cuneiform script on clay tablets was a pivotal tradition used for everything from recording business transactions to writing literature and letters.
Daily life involved work such as building, farming, and weaving, with men and women generally working and trading alongside one another.
The base-60 system was also used to study the sky, which led to the division of the year into 12 months and the week into seven days, with each day named after one of the seven visible planets.
The Sumerians are credited with inventing the wheel around 3500 BCE, revolutionising transportation and trade.
The Mesopotamians built ships to facilitate long-distance trade, exchanging goods like textiles and leather for materials like copper and precious stones from places as far away as northern India.
Mesopotamian Cultures: After the early historical cultures of Sumer and Akkad, the region was later dominated by the great empires of Assyria and Babylonia, and was in constant interaction with the contemporary cultures of Anatolia (modern Turkey), northwest Syria, the Levant, Egypt, Iran and the Gulf.
Mesopotamia was home to various civilizations spanning thousands of years, which contributed significantly to world culture and progress. Many of the aspects of daily life taken for granted in the present day, such as writing, the wheel, a code of laws, the sail, the concept of the 24-hour day, beer-brewing, civil rights, and irrigation of crops, all were first developed in the land between two rivers, which was home to the great Mesopotamian civilizations.
Archaeological excavations starting in the 1840s CE have revealed human settlements dating to 10,000 BCE in Mesopotamia that indicate the fertile conditions of the land between the two rivers allowed an ancient hunter-gatherer people to settle in the land, domesticate animals, and turn their attention to agriculture and the development of irrigation. Trade soon followed, and with prosperity came urbanisation and the birth of the city. It is generally thought that writing was invented due to trade, out of the necessity for long-distance communication, and for keeping a more careful track of accounts.
Some of the major Mesopotamian civilizations include the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian civilizations. Evidence shows extensive use of technology, literature, legal codes, philosophy, religion, and architecture in these societies.
Mohanjodaro Harappa Civilizations:
Mohenjo-daro Sindhi: 'Mound of the Dead' is an archaeological site in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan. Built c. 2500 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilisations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, and Norte Chico.
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were two major cities of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization in modern-day Pakistan, dating back to around 2600 BCE. They were renowned for their advanced urban planning, including grid-based streets, public baths, and sophisticated drainage systems with covered sewers and indoor plumbing. These cities showcase the civilization's technological achievements, organised society, and extensive trade networks.
Mohenjo-daro, the modern name for the site, has been interpreted as "Mound of the Dead" in Sindhi.
Mohenjo-daro is located off the right (west) bank of the lower Indus River in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan. It lies on a Pleistocene ridge in the flood plain of the Indus, around 28 kilometres (17 mi) from the town of Larkana.
Mohenjo-daro was built in the 26th century BCE. It was one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, which developed c. 3000 BCE from the prehistoric Indus culture. At its height, the Indus Valley Civilization spanned much of what is now Pakistan and North India, extending westwards to the Iranian border, south to Gujarat in India and northwards to an outpost in Bactria, with major urban centres at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Lothal, Kalibangan, Dholavira and Rakhigarhi. Mohenjo-daro was the most advanced city of its time, with remarkably sophisticated civil engineering and urban planning. When the Indus civilisation went into sudden decline, c. 1900 BCE, Mohenjo-daro was abandoned.
With an estimated population of at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered for several centuries. Still, by c. 1700 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilisation had been abandoned, along with other large cities of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The site was rediscovered in the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the first site in South Asia to be so designated. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.
Cock-fighting may have had ritual and religious significance for the city. Mohenjo-daro may also have been a point of diffusion for the clade of domesticated Chicken found in Africa, Western Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Mohenjo-daro had no series of city walls, but was fortified with guard towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Based on these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus Valley cities such as Harappa, scholars have postulated that Mohenjo-daro was an administrative centre. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share a similar architectural layout and were generally not as heavily fortified as other Indus Valley sites. It is obvious from the identical city layouts of all Indus sites that there was some kind of political or administrative centrality, but the extent and functioning of an administrative centre remains unclear.
The Mesopotamian and Indus Valley (Mohenjo-daro - Harappa) Civilizations are among the best-known world civilizations.
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