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Life in Ancient Mesopotamaia - Coggle Diagram
Life in Ancient Mesopotamaia
Food
Upper Mesopotamia
Deer
Bread
Cattle and Sheep
Goats
Ducks
Rock doves
Lower Mesopotamia
Wild fish
Cattle and Sheep
Bread
Barley
Wheat
Vegtables
Fruit
Deserts
Bread Soaked with Honey
Fruits
Nuts with Honey
Pistachio Nuts mixed with Dates
Raisins mixed with Cottage cheese
Hunting
The Mesopotamians would throw nets on birds and then club them
The kings would ride in chariots to hunt lions. Once a lion was hit by a spear royal guards would herd it closer to the king who would shoot it with arrows and make his horses trample it.
Fishing nets and fishing rods were used
They would use mastiffs to catch wild onagers to attach to their chariots
Clothes
Sumerians
Women
Long dresses
Sheepskin Shawls
Leather Sandals
Men
Sheepskin Kilts
Leather shoes or Sandals
Children
Short tunics
Babyonians
Men
Short Plain tunics
Hat
Sandals
Women
Short Colored Tunics
Sandals
Feathered Head dress
Children
Kilts
Tunics
Assyrains
Men
Long Woolen Tunics
Women
Shawls
Tunics
Children
Goat skin Cloaks
No shoes, Pants or shirts
Akkadians
Men
Kilts
Leather Shoes
They wore long beards
Women
Knee Length Skirts
Headdress
Children
Loincloths
No shoes
All children wore Loin cloths with no shirts
Jobs
Men
Men had all the important jobs. A man could be anything really unless it was deemed Unmanly. Men would commonly work as kings, soldiers, scribes, bankers, farmers and government officials.
Women
Women typically just worked in the house but in sumeria women could have many important jobs such as monarchs, scribes, priestess and healers
Housing
Normal Houses
Most of the houses were made of mud bricks and reeds. The mud would be taken from the banks of the tigris river and molded into a rectangleish shape, then the brick would be placed in the sunlight to dry. To make the roofs the mesopotamians would take reeds and weave them into sturdy mats which they would then place on their buildings
Inside the buildings
Ziggurats
Courtyards
Storage rooms
Table for holding offerings
Worship rooms
Commoner houses
A courtyard in the middle of the house for air
Basement used for disposing waste
Tables and usually only one chair
Wealthy people houses
Cotton and silk drapes
Beds made out of reeds
a guest room
Special Buildings
Ziggurats
Made with baked bricks and bitumen, a naturally occurring tar. Once the mesopotamians had perfected the art of making dried out bricks they would take the mud and dip it in the tar and place their brick in a fire so it would cook.
Would have flat roofs
Education
Wealthy Children
Wealthy Girls
No school, get taught how to cook, clean and marry
Wealthy boys
They were the only ones who got to go to school where they would learn how to read and write.
Poor Children
Poor Girls
No school, they got taught how to farm, cook and clean
Poor Boys
No school for them either. They were taught how to farm, buy land and raise a family with the woman they chose
Schools
Lessons
The kids had Writing lessons
They learned their religion from their schools
Once they mastered writing they learned Zoology
Inside
Shelves for storing clay tablets
Ovens for baking selected tablets
Baked Clay benches
Chairs made out of reeds and mud
Homework tablets with writing
They had clay bowls made for holding their writing materials
Schools were usually attached to churches
Students attended school from the age of 8
Students would be at school from sunrise to sunset
Discipline
Slapping
Hitting
Starving
Sacrificing
Entertainment
Children would play with dolls, spinning tops and dolls
The ancient mesopotamians liked playing the lyre, harp, piano and flutes
Wrestling was also popular. After a war the main war heros would get ready to wrestle each other for other people's entertainment
The Children would also write poetry and read it out loud
Children would play with miniature versions of their father's weapons
Kings would have banquets and go hunting. The kings also enjoyed forcing their servants to garden
The mesopotamians had their own cult. Members of this cult would use all their time dancing, singing and screeching at other people.
They would play board games, most notably a board game called Hedgehog cart which involves pushing a hedgehog on a cart
Social Status
The Emperor/ king was at the top
Nobles after the Priests
Priests came after the King
Government Officials were third
Merchants and Framers were second
Slaves came last
The Sumerians called their land Kiengir which meant Land of the Civilized lords
Religion
Gods
Appearance
The gods were humanoid and were excatly the same as the people except they were immortal and had otherworldly powers
The gods all had a melammue which the gods all had a melammue which the mesopotamians described as a ethereal glow.
Most of the gods had horns
They all were very tall
There was a god called Enlil, who was the god of the mountains. They said that if Enlil did not wake up nothing did. There was a legend which was about the one time Enlil did not rise from his bed and how everything went wrong
The one female goddess Ianna was a sky god who ruled the sky with her father An.
The earth god Nippr was worshiped at a city called Eridu
While the Sumerains strated with 3,600 gods, the babylonians wanted less. By the end of the babylonians they only had 300!
Rituals
There is one ritual in which a statue of a god is built over a fire with it’s hands in front of it. The mesopotamians would then place a baby on the sizziling hands.
They would do fire lighting ceremonies to honor the god girra, the god of purity
They would Sacrifice Holy goats
They would kill animals and examine their insides to read the future
General Stuff
The gods were all male except for one which was called inanna
Each god had it’s own Patron city, much like the greek goddess Athena and her city Athens.
Most of the gods repersented things on earth like the sky or the earth. But some of the gods were animals. The animal gods were most commonly food animals but there was sone animal gods who were fantastical creatures.
The sumerians helpfully listed their gods and when counted it said that they had over 3,600 deities.
The Babylonians had the same gods as the Sumerians but they disliked the fact they had a female god so they replaced her with a male god named Ishtar. They also removed Inanna’s father An and instead appointed him messenger for the gods
The Underworld
The Mesopotamians belived that demons were both good and evil
People would make protective amulets to protect themselves from the evil demons
They said that the good demons were only good because the gods had purified them
The mesopotamians didn’t understand how diseases worked so they decided that they were Demons.
The most famous Demon was one called Pazuzu who was the ruler of the good demons
The most feared thing in mesopotamia was that harm would come to children so they naturally made a demon called Lamashtu who was known to harm pregnant women and eating babies.
Pazuzu was often called upon to fight Lamashtu and they formed most of the legends about demons
The god of the underworld and death was called Nergal, Nergal was also called Erra in ancient babylonia
Eclipses were said to be signs of demons approaching
Family
In an ancient mesopotamian family everyone would have a job. The men were the rulers of the house and were there to be important and shout at people. Women could do anything they wanted to as long they had their husband's permission. The women's job was to get some minor money and cook, clean and take care of all of the children
The children's job was to be good and well behaved
Families could sell their children to king as slaves if they wanted money
Marriage
Women would marry at the age of 13
Men would marry at the age of 15
Girls would be taught how to attract a man and marry him
Law
There was laws on Divorce, trade, insults, slavery and liability.
There was three classes, amelu (the elite), mushkenue (free men ) and ardu (slaves)
Women had limited rights but could still initiate divorce and buy and sell anything they wanted
The laws were called the Hammurabi's code and consisted of 282 laws
Women would be married by a contract her family arranged
Hammurabi said that the gods gave him the code
