# GEP1005 Week 3 Part 1

**Channel:** BAUGO
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb4CFNs8N2c
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/Mb4CFNs8N2c

## Chapters

- 0:16 — Bronze Age and River Civilizations
- 4:19 — Mesopotamia and Sumerian Society
- 7:39 — Writing, Mathematics, and Epic Literature
- 10:15 — Religion, Ziggurats, and Legacy

## Transcript

**[0:16]:** hi everyone we are in chapter 2 this week in this chapter we are dealing with the bronze age and emergence of mesopotamian civilization it was one of the river valley civilizations emerged in this age after listening this chapter you will learn about the meaning of the term mesopotamia mesopotamian states political structure of sumerian civilization the writing system of sumerians meaning of the term polytheistic religion in mesopotamia emergence of scribes in the mesopotamians society the technological developments in the bronze age ziggurats in mesopotamia importance of the babylonian king hammurabi in the history of humanity keywords of this chapter are mesopotamia bronze tigers euphrates fertile crescent city-state polytheistic cigarette and cliniform around 5000 bc the fertile valleys of the tigris euphrates indus nile and yellow rivers were able to support very large populations and it was here that the great urban civilization of the ancient world emerged we are dealing with the questions of where did diverse

**[1:39]:** civilizations emerge what were the main characteristics of them let's answer this very briefly and then go to the characteristics of those civilizations in the bronze age the first civilizations emerged in near and middle east and asia around some rivers they are named as river valley civilizations since they were formed along with river valleys mesopotamian egyptian indian and chinese civilizations are the examples for them for discussing the characteristics of these civilizations we need to know about the bronze age between the years 4000 bc and 2000 bc first of all what is bronze the mixture of copper and tin makes the bronze people invented this new mixture around 4000 bc it is lighter than stone and quickly made what is the significance of this period in the history of the humanity this is the age of innovation in the middle east human beings made greater variety of tools with bronze the amount and variety of the tools

**[2:58]:** they made with bronze was higher than the tools they made with the stone or bone they made metal holes close weapons which led to formation of organized armies which in turn provided means of control for the groups who were in contests for land and food another crucial invention was real around 4000 bc it was vital to both trade and monumental construction people were able to move large block of stones to the construction sites people of the middle east invented potter's wheel around 6000 bc this enabled them to produce higher quality ceramics these high quality ceramics made the food storage easier the development led to the emergence of specialized workers as pottery makers abandonment of high quality potteries were also used in trade the middle east was the first region to move from the neolithic age to the bronze age this month there was an agricultural surplus development of government and property rights in the region

**[4:19]:** mesopotamians taught to construct irrigation channels in order to benefit from the rivers and to secure their cultivated area from unexpected flutes of the rivers usage of irrigation channels agricultural surplus and the bronze technology enabled middle eastern people to develop governmental structure religious and economic system and army let's see how this happened first time in mesopotamia around 3500 bc along tigris and euphrates valleys mesopotamia is a greek word meso means between potamia is the plural of the word potami means river mesopotamia means between the rivers the first civilization in the bronze age emerged in mesopotamia was sumer it arose between tigers and euphorized rivers the geographical location of mesopotamia is also called the fertile crescent it is also known as the cradle of civilization it refers to the region between tigris and euphrates rivers it looks almost like a crescent the land of this region in fact is semi-arid people of the region made this large

**[5:41]:** amount of semi-arid land fertile and arable through irrigation channels so that the land became fertile it is predicted that the sumerians migrated into this region from north around 4000 bc in mesopotamia the sumerians obtained larger food surpluses which led to the population growth which in turn led to the village expansion what was the political organization of the

**[6:18]:** sumerians

**[6:24]:** we do know that there were king governors all right they were organized as city-states which were self-ruling small kingdoms ruled by a king each estate controlled surrounding agricultural fields kings regulated boundaries and religion governors furious were the elites of the sumerian society farmers and slaves constituted the common people sumerian economy sumerian economy depended on slave labor basically which was provided by captured people during the inter-city state wars in sumerian land that is mesopotamia the lack of natural barriers for invasion led to a recurrent warfare among these states they used these wars as a source of providing slaves sumerians facilitated

**[7:39]:** they use cards to transport their goods so that agriculture and trade developed which was the heart of a civilization scenarion culture the writing system of the

**[7:56]:** smithsonian cuneiform derived from the latin kunaius means wedge writing was a crucial factor for the development of civilizations why because it made possible records of trade property land borders and the amount of agricultural productions sumerian writing baked on clay tablets it composed of symbols initially it had 2 000 phonetic symbols derived from pictures pictograph elements in time it reduced to 300 symbols cuneiform was difficult to learn therefore spatial people who were purists monopolized it and they also became scribes of the society this monopoly gave them political power and religious importance sumerians wrote the oldest epic in the history of the humanity the kilgamos it was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cuneiform script it is about the adventures of the king of uruk it was written about 2000 bc the epic is a legion of the fluid which agrees in many details with the biblical story of noah this parallel story made archaeologists to

**[9:29]:** search for and find all the clay tablets of gilgamesh sumerians used and developed mathematics sumerian number system was based on the number 60 rather than today's decimal 10 system they had developed knowledge of mathematical astronomy as well their calendar had 12 lunar months of 30 days each sumerian religion sumerians had polytheistic religion in their religion anthropomorphic gods or goddesses represented forces of presences in the world in the same way with greek mythology paulie means in greek

**[10:15]:** vary a lot more than one theistic derives from theros god in greek theistic means religious polytheistic means believing in more than one god gods and goddesses were identified with natural sources such as storms the sky rivers mountains trees and so on that is to say they believed that there was a divine power behind these natural objects this belief is called anemism which was common among agricultural people mesopotamians believed that humans were created to serve the gods who would protect them from natural disasters diseases and unwanted events peers was the key actors in conducting rituals to serve the gods and they were also responsible to calm down the god's true prayers sacrifices and magic gods were willing to regulate the natural sources especially euphrates and tigress whose flows were unpredictable and when the influence people lost their products the mesopotamians had gloomy view for the afterworld the spirits of the dead were supposed to be in

**[11:44]:** the dark they were doomed to hunger and thirst unless someone offered them food and drink mesopotamian people had ceremonies to commemorate their death people were buried with their goods like ornaments and potteries in their perception of religion afterlife included suffering many stories in sumerian religion appear similar to the stories in other middle eastern religions ziggurats they were the religious monuments of mesopotamian civilization like pyramids of egypt ziggurat was temple tower with stages sometimes with a temple on the top the stairs lead to the temple they had terraces that were planted with trees to resemble to a mountain in the western tradition they took place as tower of bible true is mentioned as a biblical story ziggurat's architecture shaped western architectural style and city planning like in united states and england please pay attention to the political structure of mesopotamia the political structure economy society culture and religion of the sumerians deeply affected the other states

**[13:12]:** and empires founded in mesopotamia we should approach mesopotamia as a region there was no one single empire that dominated mesopotamia for centuries one of these was the acadian

**[13:32]:** empire you