Writing & city life
1. Introduction
Mesopotamian archaeology began in the 1840s at Uruk and Mari with decades-long digs of buildings,
statues, ornaments, graves, tools, seals, and thousands of documents, unlike any Indian site.
Europeans valued Mesopotamia for Old Testament references; Genesis mentions Shimar (Sumer) with
brick cities, leading to a 1873 British Museum expedition to find a Flood tablet.
2. Mesopotamia and its Geography
North-east: green plains rise to forested mountains with streams, wildflowers, & enough rainfall for crops.
Agriculture began here 7000–6000 BCE.
North: upland steppe where herding is better than farming after winter rains.
Sheep and goats feed on steppe grasses and shrubs.
East: Tigris tributaries provide routes into Iran’s mountains.
South: desert where first cities and writing appeared.
Desert supported cities as Euphrates and Tigris bring fertile silt from north.
Euphrates water flowed into channels, flooding fields for crops and grazing sheep and goats for meat,
milk, and wool.
3. The first Mesopotamian cities began in the Bronze Age (c.3000 BCE); bronze made from copper and tin
brought from far; used for tools in carpentry, bead drilling, seal and shell work, and for making weapon
spear tips.
4. Significance f urbanism
Urban economies include food production, trade, manufactures, and services.
City people are not self-sufficient and depend on products or services of others.
Continuous interaction exists; a stone seal carver needs bronze tools and coloured stones he cannot make
or get.
Carver specialises in carving, not trading; the bronze tool maker cannot get copper, tin, or charcoal
himself.
Division of labour is a mark of urban life.
Social organisation is needed as fuel, metal, stones, wood, etc., come from many places for city
manufacturers.
Organised trade and storage are required; grain and food come from villages and need storage and
distribution.
Activities must be coordinated; some give commands, others obey, and written records are often kept.
5. Movement of goods into cities
Mesopotamia had rich food but few minerals; the south lacked stones for tools, seals, and jewels.
Iraqi date-palm was unsuitable for carts, wheels, or boats; no metal for tools, vessels, or ornaments.
Mesopotamians traded textiles and agricultural produce for wood, copper, tin, silver, gold, shell, and
stones from Turkey, Iran, or across the Gulf.
Regular trade needed social organisation to equip expeditions and direct exchanges by southern
Mesopotamians.
Water was cheapest transport; river boats or barges used current or wind, canals linked settlements, and
Euphrates was a major trade route.
6. Development of writing
First Mesopotamian tablets (c. 3200 BCE) had picture-like signs and numbers listing goods from Uruk
temples.
Writing began to record city transactions involving many people, times, and goods.
Clay tablets were made by wetting, patting, smoothing clay, and pressing wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs;
dried tablets became almost indestructible.
Each transaction needed a separate tablet, so hundreds survive, giving detailed knowledge of
Mesopotamia.
By 2600 BCE, letters became cuneiform in Sumerian, used for records, dictionaries, legal land transfers,
royal deeds, and law announcements.
Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian after 2400 BCE; cuneiform in Akkadian continued until 1st century CE
(over 2,000 years).
7. The System of Writing: A Mesopotamian scribe had to learn hundreds of signs and write on wet clay
tablets before they dried, making writing a skilled craft.
8. Literacy: There were hundreds of complex signs to learn, kings who could read recorded it in inscriptions,
but mostly writing reflected speech.
, 9. Uses of writing
Sumerian epic about Enmarker, ruler of Uruk (“The City”), links city life, trade, and writing.
Enmarker organised first Sumerian trade, sending a messenger to Aratta for lapis lazuli and precious
metals for a temple.
Messenger travelled by stars & sun, crossed mountains, greeted by Susa’s people, but got messages mixed
up.
Enmarker wrote a clay tablet, examined by Aratta’s ruler, showing kings organised trade and writing.
Poem shows writing stored information, sent messages, and signified Mesopotamian urban superiority.
10. The Seal An Urban Artefact: In Mesopotamia, cylindrical stone seals were rolled on wet clay to make
continuous designs, engraved with owner’s name, god, or rank, used to seal packages, pots, and letters for
safety and authenticity, showing a city dweller’s role in public life.
11. Urbanisation in Southern Mesopotamia: Temples and Kings
From 5000 BCE, settlements began in southern Mesopotamia; earliest cities grew around temples, trade,
or as imperial cities.
Early settlers built and rebuilt small brick temples for gods like Moon God of Ur or Inanna.
Temples grew larger with rooms around courtyards; outer walls had regular projections unlike ordinary
houses.
Gods were worshipped with grain, curd, and fish; they owned fields, fisheries, and herds.
Temples processed produce, employed merchants, and kept written records of distributions.
Agriculture faced hazards: floods, changing channels, upstream diversion, and silt blockage caused village
relocations and conflicts.
Successful war chiefs distributed loot, took prisoners, offered booty to gods, beautified temples, and
managed temple wealth.
Leaders settled villagers nearby for army recruitment and safety; Uruk grew massively by 3000 BCE with
armed depictions, walls, and continuous occupation.
War captives and locals worked for temples or rulers, paid in rations; one temple needed 1,500 men for 10
hours a day over five years.
Rulers commanded people to fetch materials; technical advances included bronze tools and brick columns.
Hundreds made baked clay cones for colourful temple mosaics; sculptures were made in imported stone.
Potter's wheel allowed mass production of pots, a technological landmark for urban economy.
12. Life in the city
Riches like jewellery, gold vessels, musical instruments inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli, and ceremonial
daggers were buried with some kings and queens at Ur.
Nuclear family was the norm; married sons often lived with parents; father was head of family.
Marriage required declaration and consent from bride’s parents; gifts were exchanged.
At weddings, both parties exchanged gifts, ate together, and made offerings in a temple.
Bride received inheritance from father; sons inherited house, herds, and fields.
Ur excavated in 1930s; narrow winding streets show wheeled carts could not reach many houses.
Grain and firewood delivered by donkeys
irregular house plots indicate no town planning.
No street drains; inner courtyards had drains and clay pipes
sloped roofs channelled rainwater into sumps to prevent muddy streets.
Household refuse swept into streets, raising street levels and house thresholds
light came from doorways into courtyards, giving privacy.
Omen tablets show house superstitions; town cemetery had graves of royalty and commoners
some buried under ordinary house floors.
13. A trading town in a pastoral zone
after 2000 BCE, Mari flourished upstream on the Euphrates, away from southern productive plains.
Agriculture and animal rearing were close; some communities had both farmers and pastoralists, most
land used for sheep and goats.
Herders exchanged animals, cheese, leather, and meat for grain and metal tools; manure helped farmers.
Shepherds could damage crops; herdsmen could raid villages; settled groups could deny them water.
Nomadic western desert communities entered farmland; some became labourers, soldiers, prosperous
settlers, or rulers (Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians, Aramaeans).
Kings of Mari were Amorites; they respected Mesopotamian gods, built a temple for Dagan, and watched
herder camps for raids.
1. Introduction
Mesopotamian archaeology began in the 1840s at Uruk and Mari with decades-long digs of buildings,
statues, ornaments, graves, tools, seals, and thousands of documents, unlike any Indian site.
Europeans valued Mesopotamia for Old Testament references; Genesis mentions Shimar (Sumer) with
brick cities, leading to a 1873 British Museum expedition to find a Flood tablet.
2. Mesopotamia and its Geography
North-east: green plains rise to forested mountains with streams, wildflowers, & enough rainfall for crops.
Agriculture began here 7000–6000 BCE.
North: upland steppe where herding is better than farming after winter rains.
Sheep and goats feed on steppe grasses and shrubs.
East: Tigris tributaries provide routes into Iran’s mountains.
South: desert where first cities and writing appeared.
Desert supported cities as Euphrates and Tigris bring fertile silt from north.
Euphrates water flowed into channels, flooding fields for crops and grazing sheep and goats for meat,
milk, and wool.
3. The first Mesopotamian cities began in the Bronze Age (c.3000 BCE); bronze made from copper and tin
brought from far; used for tools in carpentry, bead drilling, seal and shell work, and for making weapon
spear tips.
4. Significance f urbanism
Urban economies include food production, trade, manufactures, and services.
City people are not self-sufficient and depend on products or services of others.
Continuous interaction exists; a stone seal carver needs bronze tools and coloured stones he cannot make
or get.
Carver specialises in carving, not trading; the bronze tool maker cannot get copper, tin, or charcoal
himself.
Division of labour is a mark of urban life.
Social organisation is needed as fuel, metal, stones, wood, etc., come from many places for city
manufacturers.
Organised trade and storage are required; grain and food come from villages and need storage and
distribution.
Activities must be coordinated; some give commands, others obey, and written records are often kept.
5. Movement of goods into cities
Mesopotamia had rich food but few minerals; the south lacked stones for tools, seals, and jewels.
Iraqi date-palm was unsuitable for carts, wheels, or boats; no metal for tools, vessels, or ornaments.
Mesopotamians traded textiles and agricultural produce for wood, copper, tin, silver, gold, shell, and
stones from Turkey, Iran, or across the Gulf.
Regular trade needed social organisation to equip expeditions and direct exchanges by southern
Mesopotamians.
Water was cheapest transport; river boats or barges used current or wind, canals linked settlements, and
Euphrates was a major trade route.
6. Development of writing
First Mesopotamian tablets (c. 3200 BCE) had picture-like signs and numbers listing goods from Uruk
temples.
Writing began to record city transactions involving many people, times, and goods.
Clay tablets were made by wetting, patting, smoothing clay, and pressing wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs;
dried tablets became almost indestructible.
Each transaction needed a separate tablet, so hundreds survive, giving detailed knowledge of
Mesopotamia.
By 2600 BCE, letters became cuneiform in Sumerian, used for records, dictionaries, legal land transfers,
royal deeds, and law announcements.
Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian after 2400 BCE; cuneiform in Akkadian continued until 1st century CE
(over 2,000 years).
7. The System of Writing: A Mesopotamian scribe had to learn hundreds of signs and write on wet clay
tablets before they dried, making writing a skilled craft.
8. Literacy: There were hundreds of complex signs to learn, kings who could read recorded it in inscriptions,
but mostly writing reflected speech.
, 9. Uses of writing
Sumerian epic about Enmarker, ruler of Uruk (“The City”), links city life, trade, and writing.
Enmarker organised first Sumerian trade, sending a messenger to Aratta for lapis lazuli and precious
metals for a temple.
Messenger travelled by stars & sun, crossed mountains, greeted by Susa’s people, but got messages mixed
up.
Enmarker wrote a clay tablet, examined by Aratta’s ruler, showing kings organised trade and writing.
Poem shows writing stored information, sent messages, and signified Mesopotamian urban superiority.
10. The Seal An Urban Artefact: In Mesopotamia, cylindrical stone seals were rolled on wet clay to make
continuous designs, engraved with owner’s name, god, or rank, used to seal packages, pots, and letters for
safety and authenticity, showing a city dweller’s role in public life.
11. Urbanisation in Southern Mesopotamia: Temples and Kings
From 5000 BCE, settlements began in southern Mesopotamia; earliest cities grew around temples, trade,
or as imperial cities.
Early settlers built and rebuilt small brick temples for gods like Moon God of Ur or Inanna.
Temples grew larger with rooms around courtyards; outer walls had regular projections unlike ordinary
houses.
Gods were worshipped with grain, curd, and fish; they owned fields, fisheries, and herds.
Temples processed produce, employed merchants, and kept written records of distributions.
Agriculture faced hazards: floods, changing channels, upstream diversion, and silt blockage caused village
relocations and conflicts.
Successful war chiefs distributed loot, took prisoners, offered booty to gods, beautified temples, and
managed temple wealth.
Leaders settled villagers nearby for army recruitment and safety; Uruk grew massively by 3000 BCE with
armed depictions, walls, and continuous occupation.
War captives and locals worked for temples or rulers, paid in rations; one temple needed 1,500 men for 10
hours a day over five years.
Rulers commanded people to fetch materials; technical advances included bronze tools and brick columns.
Hundreds made baked clay cones for colourful temple mosaics; sculptures were made in imported stone.
Potter's wheel allowed mass production of pots, a technological landmark for urban economy.
12. Life in the city
Riches like jewellery, gold vessels, musical instruments inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli, and ceremonial
daggers were buried with some kings and queens at Ur.
Nuclear family was the norm; married sons often lived with parents; father was head of family.
Marriage required declaration and consent from bride’s parents; gifts were exchanged.
At weddings, both parties exchanged gifts, ate together, and made offerings in a temple.
Bride received inheritance from father; sons inherited house, herds, and fields.
Ur excavated in 1930s; narrow winding streets show wheeled carts could not reach many houses.
Grain and firewood delivered by donkeys
irregular house plots indicate no town planning.
No street drains; inner courtyards had drains and clay pipes
sloped roofs channelled rainwater into sumps to prevent muddy streets.
Household refuse swept into streets, raising street levels and house thresholds
light came from doorways into courtyards, giving privacy.
Omen tablets show house superstitions; town cemetery had graves of royalty and commoners
some buried under ordinary house floors.
13. A trading town in a pastoral zone
after 2000 BCE, Mari flourished upstream on the Euphrates, away from southern productive plains.
Agriculture and animal rearing were close; some communities had both farmers and pastoralists, most
land used for sheep and goats.
Herders exchanged animals, cheese, leather, and meat for grain and metal tools; manure helped farmers.
Shepherds could damage crops; herdsmen could raid villages; settled groups could deny them water.
Nomadic western desert communities entered farmland; some became labourers, soldiers, prosperous
settlers, or rulers (Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians, Aramaeans).
Kings of Mari were Amorites; they respected Mesopotamian gods, built a temple for Dagan, and watched
herder camps for raids.
