Even so, the historian Marc Van De Mieroop notes: There was not a sudden change from hunting-gathering to farming, but rather a slow process during which people increased their reliance on resources they managed directly, but still supplemented their diets by hunting wild animals. Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. Today the great cities that once rose along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are largely unexcavated mounds or broken bricks on arid plains, and the once fertile crescent has steadily dwindled to a wasteland due to human factors (such as overuse of the land through agricultural pursuits or urban development) and also due to climate change. Map of Mesopotamia, 2000-1600 BCEby P L Kessler (Copyright). The story of the Great Flood and Noah's Ark, the story of the Fall of Man, the concept of a Garden of Eden, even the complaints of Job had all been written centuries before the biblical texts by the Mesopotamians. 6. The Mesopotamians influenced the cultures of Egypt and Greece through long-distance trade and cultural diffusion and, through these cultures, impacted the culture of Rome which set the standard for the development and spread of western civilization. Shalmaneser IIIby Ali Kalamchi (Copyright). The legacy of Mesopotamia endures today through many of the most basic aspects of modern life such as the sixty-second minute and the sixty-minute hour. The archaeologists who sought physical evidence to support the biblical stories found exactly the opposite once cuneiform was deciphered by the scholar and translator George Smith (1840-1876 CE) in 1872 CE. When the winter snow melts in the mountains, … At this time, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and the stories found in its pages were thought to be original compositions. There …, MessageToEagle.com – There are many reasons why we should treat the wisdom of the past seriously. The library at Mari contained over 20,000 cuneiform tablets (books) and the palace there was considered one of the finest in the region. Why was the Taurus Mountains important? The rise of the Kassite Dynasty (a tribe who came from the Zagros Mountains in the north and are thought to have originated in modern-day Iran) leads to a shift in power and an expansion of culture and learning after the Kassites conquered Babylon. It is generally thought that writing was invented due to trade, out of the necessity for long-distance communication, and for keeping more careful track of accounts. Hammurabi, King of Babylon, rose from relative obscurity to conquer the region and reign for 43 years. Bertman writes: At the head of society were the kings and priests served by the populous staff of palace and temple. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Unlike Egypt, Mesopotamia –especially in the south– was barren of stone that could be quarried for construction.” The land was equally devoid of trees for timber, so the people “turned to other natural resources that lay abundantly at hand: the muddy clay of its riverbanks and the rushes and reeds that grew in their marshes. 2. The work one did, however, was never considered simply a `job’ but one’s contribution to the community and, by extension, to the gods’ efforts in keeping the world at peace and in harmony. A freelance writer and former part-time Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, New York, Joshua J. Increased prosperity in the region gave rise to ornate temples and statuary, sophisticated pottery and figurines, toys for children (including dolls for girls and wheeled carts for boys), and the use of personal seals (known as Cylinder Seals) to denote ownership of property and to stand for an individual’s signature. Cities and temple complexes, with their famous ziggurats (the step-pyramid structures indigenous to the region), were all built using oven-baked bricks of clay which were then painted. Zagros mountains.