Ancient World: Mesopotamia

"Over 3000 essential facts" about the entire ancient world in just 140 pages. Quick and dirty history baby. Instead of reading without true processing, I'm going to read in sections and comment on what I find interesting.  I love the ancient world, and I even teach Ancient and Medieval World Literature, but still I feel ignorant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 1: Mesopotamia
6000-330 BCE

I have to admit that this section, the first in the book, reminded me of how much I hate dates.  I'm terrible at remembering them, situating events in relation to each other, and the such not.  The chapter also reminded me how much I adore learning about the ancient world.  5000+ years ago people were so amazingly similar to how we are now, and so very different.

Interesting facts:

Around 2100 BCE, silver coins had monetary value in Mesopotamia, one of the first appearances of "real money".  These coins had a standard weight and 'change' could be made by snipping off segments of a coil.  These silver coins could not compete with barley, however, which remained the highest form of payment.

In Assyria, King Assurnasirpal II built himself a seriously awesome capital.  In true party fashion, he held a sort of house-warming party, a banquet, and he claimed 70,000 people attended.  Well, I'm pretty sure he didn't take a true count, but if he claimed that many people were there, a seriously large amount had to show up right?

Literature of the Time (from my brain, not the book)

Descent of Inanna: Inanna is the Sumerian goddess of love and fertility and war (Sumer was in Mesopotamia).  In Akkadia, Inanna's counterpart was Ishtar, and it's posited that the Egyptian goddess Isis is also derived from Inanna.  The Descent of Inanna is considered the oldest text available to us today.  In the story, Inanna travels to the underworld to visit her sister, Ereshkigal, the queen.  Her reasons for the visitation are suspect, so Ereshkigal has Inanna stripped of her clothing, jewelry, everything as she enters each gate to the underworld. And so begins the adventure.  The story is truly interesting, and I recommend reading it.  To make it a bit more appealing to you, I might add that it would be a wonderful read for the Women UnBound challenge as it portrays strong female characters.


Enuma Elish - Enuma Elish, or The Epic of Creation, is the Babylonian story of how the world began.  According to the legend, Apsu and Tiamat had some unruly children and Apsu, pissed at how loud they were, decided to do away with them.  Tiamat, being a mother, is rather upset at this idea.  The children aren't too thrilled either, and the result is Apsu's death.  Tiamat, being a wife, is rather upset at this.  Chaos ensues.  But in the meantime the sky, the land, and humanity is created from various body parts and blood.  Now tell me that doesn't sound like fun?

Code of Hammurabi - Widely considered the first set of written laws, the Code comes to us from Hammurabi, a king of Babylon, who unequivocally states that these laws were sent to him by none other than Marduk, the big dog of gods.  The code includes such wonderful laws as:  if a son slaps his father, his hand shall be cut off and if a man take a woman to wife but doesn't have sex with her, she is not then his wife. There are hands being cut off, exceptions and rules for free men versus women versus slaves, costs for ferries and oxen.  It's good stuff people.

Epic of Gilgamesh - I'm betting you've heard of this one.  Gilgamesh is a spoiled brat until the gods create Enkidu, his physical equal who promptly kicks his self-entitled but.  From there the two go on an epic journey.  There's violence, tears, sex, love, loss, and immortality.  The original hero, Gilgamesh, is the literary precursor to Odysseus, King Arthur, Batman, and Harry Potter. Go out and honor He Who Came First by reading this awesome story.

And those are my top-of-the-head thoughts about Mesopotamia.