meg959

Guest Writer

I have been studying ancient Mesopotamia in school and I find it quite interesting, so I thought that I should write an article on it. The name Mesopotamia means "land between the rivers" in Greek. This name was given to the communities that started forming in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates (pronounced you-fra-ties) rivers around 3500 BCE.

The two rivers are found in a part of the world that was called the Fertile Crescent The climate is hot and dry in the summer, and mild and wet in the winter. It was a crescent shaped band of land that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. The Fertile Crescent included countries that we know today such as Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

Around 3500 BCE, people started to settle along the flood plains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. A flood plain is a low, flat area of land next to a river that can possibly be flooded throughout the year. The fertile land of Mesopotamia, which is nourished by the yearly flooding of the two rivers, is an excellent place for people to settle. The northern Mesopotamia got plenty of rainfall, which helped raise crops. There was less rain in southern Mesopotamia, but the fertile soil left behind by the flood waters kept the farmland moist.

The Mesopotamians were the first people to use the wheel, but it was invented by the Sumerians. The invention of the wheel changed life on earth. We wouldn't have cars or tractors or bikes if the wheel weren't invented. Wagons and chariots could have been used to transport people and heavy loads, such as crop and other products. Before the wheel, donkeys or people had to carry the heavy load.

Craftspeople such as potters, carpenters, weavers, and metal workers made goods that people could trade and use. They made things such as clothing, farming tools, bowls, and also jewelry. Also, raw materials such as wool, barley, and wheat were sold and traded. The Babylonians were the first people to use money for goods and products. The shekel was a coin made of silver, most often, it weighed the same amount as 180 grains of barley. Another coin called a mina, was worth 60 shekels, and a talent was worth 60 minas.

Some of the most important contributions of the Mesopotamia world were their laws. Their most important laws were set by Hammurabi, the king of Babylonia who sat in the throne at about 1792 BCE. His code included 282 laws about family life, work, buying and selling land, and trades. Here are a few of Hammurabi's laws:

• If a noble destroys the eye of another noble, his eye shall be destroyed as well.
• If a noble is caught committed robbery, he shall be put to death.
• If a man borrows another man's boat and carelessly destroys it, he shall replace the man's boat.
• If a doctor does an operation that causes death or injury to a noble, his hand shall be cut off.
• If a son strikes his father, his hand shall be cut off.

meg959