Reading about the dawn of civilization has been fascinating. According to my Encyclopedia of World History by Peter Stearns, civilization has the following features:
- large concentrations of people, usually cities, in central areas (even though the majority of settlements remained rural);
- hierarchical social and political structures, usually with states and priesthoods;
- economic specialization and organized societal division of labor; and,
- formal methods of permanent record keeping using some form of writing.
The history of Mesopotamia also suggests that civilization makes large-scale war and conquest both possible (e.g. wheeled chariots) and worth-while (portable spoils). The first civilization developed in Sumeria, lower Mesopotamia, around 3300 BCE. It was a scattering of independent city states that grew up around regional temples. They were run by priests and semi-democratic citizen councils. Through trade their technologies spread from the Indus to the Nile, and harmless neolithic tribes became conquerers of the people who made their civilizations possible. This is the thanks you get for inventing writing!
The first conquerers (2334 BCE) were the Akkadians led by Sargon I. His daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as high priestess and is the first known author. She wrote hymns to the Inanna, the virgin goddess of love, fertility, and war. The Akkadian Empire is considered the first true state as it separated religious and governing powers. It only lasted about 200 years, however, and was followed by a brief Sumerian renaissance in which local rule was re-established. After that, Sumeria was finished as both upper and lower Mesopotamia were conquered, invaded, and ruled by a succession of outsiders.
The most famous of the subsequent empires is the Babylonian Empire, which united upper and lower Mesopotamia, and left behind the Law Code of Hammurabi, which was literally "set in stone"—no small feat in a place where stone had to be imported. Babylonia was the largest state yet and made significant advances in astronomy and mathematics, as well as preserving the Epic of Gilgamesh on some of the huge number of cuneiform tablets they left behind. They too were conquered, however, and the war machines rolled on as before.
Next up: Mesopotamian art!
