Civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley
Timeline
Ca. 5000 B.C. - Ubaidians migrate from modern day Iran to Mesopotamia
Ca. 3500-3100 B.C. - Settlements of Uruk (Mesopotamia)
Ca. 3500-3000 B.C. - Sumer, the first great civilization.
Ca. 3000 B.C. - King Abargi and Queen Shubad rule city of Ur.
2371 B.C. - Sargon I of Akkad comes to power and starts a dynasty that lasts for about 200 years. He is the first to unite the land between the rivers.
2291 B.C. - Naramsin, grandson of Sargon I, comes to power, proclaims himself “king of the four corners of the earth”
2112 B.C. - Third Dynasty of Ur begins with Ur-Nammu.
2004 B.C. - Elamites take Ur.
1850 B.C. - Amorites take control of the valley and establish capital in Babylon.
1792 B.C. - Hammurabi, sixth king of Amorite dynasty.
1595 B.C. - Hittites of Anatolia devastated land in Babylonia
1555 B.C. - Kassites conquered land, and ruled land for almost 500 years
1250 B.C. - Assyrians no longer ruled by Mitanni tribes and establish their own kingdom
Ca. 1200 B.C. - Hittite power collapses, and there is instability in the Middle East.
884 B.C. - (Assyria) Assurnasirpal comes to power
745 B.C. - (Assyria) Tiglathpilesar III (Pul), son of Assurnasirpal comes to power
727 B.C. - (Assyria) Tiglathpilesar III dies
722 B.C. - (Assyria) Sargon II comes to power
705 B.C. - (Assyria) Sennacherib comes to power, son of Sargon II
701 B.C. - (Assyria) Sennacherib crushes the Phoenicians.
681 B.C. - (Assyria) Sennacherib is assassinated, his son Esarhaddon comes to power
668 B.C. - (Assyria) Assurbanipal son of Esarhaddon comes to power.
634 B.C. - (Assyria) Assurbanipal appoints one of his twin sons to be successor, other twin rose up and political divisions arose.
612 B.C. - Fall of Assyria. Chaldean people with the Medes rise to destroy Nineveh. Nabopolassar comes to power
604 B.C. - (Chaldea) Nabopolassar dies, his son Nebuchadnezzar claims the throne.
597 B.C. - (Chaldea) Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem, Jehoiakim of Judah killed. Jehoiachin assumes throne in Judah, but soon after is sent to exile in Babylon
586 B.C. - (Chaldea) Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem and takes vassal king Zedekiah blinded to Babylon
562 B.C. - (Chaldea) Nebuchadnezzar dies.
539 B.C. - Cyrus captures Babylon from the governor Belshazzar.
538 B.C. - Jewish exile in Babylon ends
520 B.C. - King Darius orders the carving of the Behistun Rock, which has inscriptions in 3 languages, Akkadian, Elamite, and Old Persian.
Summary
The Tigris-Euphrates valley is also called Mesopotamia, which means The Land between the Rivers. The Plain of Shinar and Eden are located in or near this land.
Climate and Natural Resources
Extremely hot summers with scarce rain. Each spring the rivers flooded the banks, which was unpredictable and violent. People eventually learned to build reservoirs and irrigation systems. The floods they depended on for agriculture and livestock. The cultures here are known for their use of clay. It was used to build the larger buildings and also pottery. Stone and metal were rare. They traded to get such materials and were excellent at working with these materials. The date-palm tree was the only type of tree that grows on the banks of the rivers, in which there were many uses.
The Earliest cultures
The Ubaidians were the earliest known. The name came from the site Tell el-Ubaid near Ur. They came from the land now known as Iran around 5000 B.C., and occupied the marshlands in southern Mesopotamia. They had a village of mud-brick houses, and they had a simple irrigation system. They also had figurines that were found which probably represented deities.
There was also a settlement in Uruk around 3500-3100 B.C. Excavations at Jemdet Nasr reveal another civilization in which little is known.
Sumer
This is the first great civilization of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, which is known to have existed from about 3500 B.C. until 3000 B.C.
Religion: Their temples was a prominent feature of the Mesopotamian city. They are the step pyramids known as ziggurats. The shrine was located on the top of the ziggurat. They had a whole pantheon of gods, and were believed to be in control of all aspects of life. The ruler of the gods was the sky god Anu.
Government: The city-states were centralized forms of government. The ruler of the cities were representatives of the god who owned the land. The governments were theocracies.
Writing: The system of writing is cuneiform, from Latin root meaning “wedge”. The system was made up of pictographs. More abstract ideas were ideograms, which were to describe concepts. Later symbols came to represent syllables, or phonograms. This system of writing was adopted by Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians for their own languages. These today can be translated because of the Behistun Rock, which had inscriptions of 3 languages: Akkadian, Elamite, and Old Persian.
Literature: There were found proverbs similar to Biblical proverbs. There is also the story of the Flood, but in the Sumerian account as an epic of Utnapishtun (Utnapishtim, according to Pritchard). This account lasts for 6 days and 6 nights. There is also findings of theodicy which is similar to the account of Job.
Akkad
There was no central rule during the civilization of Sumer. The first time the land was under a united rule was under Sargon I of Akkad. His dynasty started in 2371 B.C. and lasted for 200 years. The city-states of Akkad were inhabited by Semites. They had their own language but had a similar culture to the Sumerians.
Sargon I was a common citizen of Kish. He usurped power somehow to become king. He subdued the north of Akkad and also conquered into Sumerian land to the Persian Gulf. His territory pushed eastward to Elam and westward to the Mediterranean Sea. He adopted cuneiform to write their own Semitic language. A significant successor was Naramsin (his grandson) who consolidated further his predecessors’ work and gave himself the title “king of the four quarters of the earth”.
Soon thereafter, the Gutians, from the Zagros Mountains, invaded Mesopotamia and imposed harsh rule.
Third Dynasty of Ur
The governor of Ur named Ur-Nammu revolted against the Gutians and drove them from the land. He has a prosperous reign and the Sumerian city-states flourished. Ur-Nammu published the earliest known law code. The fifth generation of his dynasty was weak; the Elamites destroyed Ur in 2004 B.C. The Amorites overtook the valley in 1850 B.C. and established the capital at Babylon.
Babylonia
Hammurabi was the sixth king of the Amorite dynasty. He united the city-states of Mesopotamia. Babylon was the political and cultural center of the Middle East. The land became known as Babylonia. Hammurabi was a good warrior and ruler, and known best for his code of laws.
The law code was written on several stelae. There were three types of citizens in Babylonia: nobles, commoners, and slaves. The crimes against slaves were less serious than against the other citizens. The code was designed to stop revenge of crimes and to enforce law, which made sure that punishment would fit the crime, not to exceed or underscore the penalty of the crime. There are many similarities in the Law of Moses.
The kingdom began to decline after Hammurabi’s death. The Hittites devastated the land, and later the Kassites conquered the area. The latter governed the area for almost 500 years.
Assyria
This group is a nation of Semitic nomads. At first they were ruled by the Mitanni tribes, but became independent around 1250 B.C. Their capital city was Assur, named after their god of war. This fits their attitude in ruling; their rule was fiercely militaristic. They were very cruel to their captured enemies.
Assurnasirpal ruled a reign of terror. The conquered Aramean tribes were put to work building palaces and monuments. Later under the rule of Tiglathpilesar III, or Pul in the Bible (2 Kings 15-16), conquered more territories became apart of the empire. This included Phoenicia and Israel (1 Chronicles 5).
After his reign, there were revolts, but Sargon II seized the throne. He besieged Samaria, the capital of Israel, because they would not pay tribute to Sargon II. Assyrians moved in to Samaria over time, and intermarried with the Israelites who were not sent into exile, which became known as Samaritans.
Sennacherib, Sargon’s son, came to power, and he suppressed a revolt in Babylon, crushed the Phoenicians and took 40 fortified cities in Judah (2 Kings 18:13). As Isaiah prophesied that he would not take Judah’s king Hezekiah and Jerusalem, Sennacherib retreated without cause as God said he would (2 Kings 18-19). Sennacherib was assassinated in 681 B.C. (Isaiah 37:38). His son Esarhaddon (2 Kings 19) came to power in Nineveh. He was another cruel ruler. He temporarily captured Memphis. He rebuilt Babylon as well, which was destroyed by his father.
Esarhaddon’s son took the throne after him, Assurbanipal. He had the greatest empire out of all the Mesopotamian kings. He established a royal library in Nineveh. However, under his reign, there was discontent across the land.
Chaldea
Nabopolassar led the revolt against the Assyrians and became the king of the Babylonians. The kings of Syria and Phoenicia were considered his vassals. Nebuchadnezzar was sent there to control them, but returned to Babylon to become king. The Egyptians and the Judeans stirred up in rebellion. Nebuchadnezzar responded to besiege Jerusalem and Jehoiakim king of Judah was killed in battle. Jehoiachin, the new king was forced to surrender shortly thereafter, and Nebuchadnezzar robbed the temple and the palace (2 Kings 24:13) and took the Judean people back to Babylon in captivity (2 Kings 24:13).
Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24-25; 1 Chronicles 6; 2 Chronicles 36; Daniel 1-5) also made Babylon the most beautiful city in the Ancient Near East. He built the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Procession Street. “I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who made this” was written on every stone on its sidewalks. There were also sculptures dedicated to Ishtar, a goddess.
The remainder of Judea became rebellious once again, and the vassal king Zedekiah, who was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah (2 Kings 24-25; 1 Chronicles 3; 2 Chronicles 36) was blinded (2 Kings 25:7), and the Jews began the Babylonian exile which lasted until 538 B.C.
The rulers after Nebuchadnezzar’s death were unpopular. Nabonidus tried to change the chief deity of the empire from Marduk to Sin, a moon deity. His son Belshazzar (Daniel 5) ruled the nation in his absence, which was conquered by Cyrus king of Persia with the help of the Marduk priests. Chaldea became a part of the Persian empire.
Scientific discoveries: The Chaldeans were possibly the first astronomers. A priest named Naburimannu computed the length of a solar year. Kidinnu, another priest, determined the tilt of the earth’s axis, and the precession of equinoxes. They knew the five closest planets to the earth, and matched them with deities, just as they did with the moon and sun. They were worshipped on different days of the week, to match the seven days of the week. They studied astronomy because they thought they could tell the future. They practiced divination, also by studying the inside of the liver of sacrificed animals.
Sources
Howe, Helen and Robert Howe. Ancient and Medieval Worlds. White Plains: Longman, 1992. Chapter 1.
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