Western Civilization

officials, apartment buildings, and

grand residences, all built of stone.

The inhabitants of Caral also devel-

oped a system of irrigation by divert-

ing a river more than a mile upstream

into their fields.

Why early civilizations developed

remains difficult to explain. One

theory maintains that challenges

forced human beings to make efforts

that resulted in the rise of civiliza-

tion. Some scholars have argued that

material forces, such as the growth

of food surpluses, made possible the

specialization of labor and the devel-

opment of large communities with

bureaucratic organization. But the

area of the Fertile Crescent, in which

civilization emerged in Southwest

Asia (see Map 1.2), was not natu-

rally conducive to agriculture. Abun-

dant food could be produced only

with a massive human effort to

manage the water, an undertaking

that required organization and led

to civilized societies. Other histori-

ans have argued that nonmaterial

forces, primarily religious, provided

the sense of unity and purpose that made such organ-

ized living possible. And some scholars doubt that we

will ever discover the actual causes of early civilization.

Civilization in Mesopotamia

Q FOCUSQUESTION: How are the chief characteristics

of civilization evident in ancient Mesopotamia?

The Greeks spoke of the valley between the Tigris

and Euphrates Rivers in Southwest Asia as Mesopota-

mia (mess-uh-puh-TAY-mee-uh), the “land between

the rivers.” The region receives little rain, but the soil

of the plain of southern Mesopotamia was enlarged

andenrichedovertheyearsbylayersofsiltdeposited

by the rivers. In late spring, the Tigris and Euphrates

overflow their banks and deposit their fertile silt, but

since this flooding depends on the melting of snows

in the upland mountains where the rivers begin, it is

irregular and sometimes catastrophic. In such circum-

stances, people could raise crops only by building a

complex system of irrigation and

drainage ditches to control the flow

of the rivers. Large-scale irrigation

made possible the expansion of

agriculture in this region, and the

abundant food provided the mate-

rial base for the emergence of civi-

lization in Mesopotamia.

The City-States of

Ancient Mesopotamia

The creators of Mesopotamian civi-

lization were the Sumerians (soo-

MER-ee-unz or soo-MEER-ee-unz),

a people whose origins remain

unclear. By 3000B.C.E., they had

established a number of independ-

ent cities in southern Mesopotamia,

including Eridu, Ur, Uruk, Umma,

and Lagash. As the Sumerian cities

grew larger, they came to exercise

political and economic control over

the surrounding countryside, form-

ing city-states. These city-states

were the basic units of Sumerian

civilization.

SUMERIAN CITIES Sumerian cities were surrounded by

walls.Uruk,forexample,occupiedanareaofapproxi-

mately one thousand acres encircled by a wall six

miles long with defense towers located every thirty to

thirty-five feet along the wall. City dwellings, built of

sun-dried bricks, included both the small flats of peas-

ants and the larger dwellings of the civic and priestly

officials. Although Mesopotamia had little stone or

wood to use for building, it did have plenty of mud.

Mud bricks, easily shaped by hand, were left to bake

in the hot sun until they were hard enough to use for

building. People in Mesopotamia were remarkably

inventive with mud bricks, inventing the arch and

constructing some of the largest brick buildings in the

world.

The most prominent building in a Sumerian city was

the temple, which was dedicated to the chief god or god-

dess of the city and often built atop a massive stepped

tower called a ziggurat (ZIG-uh-rat). The Sumerians

believed that gods and goddesses owned the cities, and

muchwealthwasusedtobuildtemplesaswellaselabo-

rate houses for the priests and priestesses who served

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(Turkmenistan)
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Central Asia Civilization
Civilization in Mesopotamia 7
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