ANCIENTMESOPOTAMIA

The Land Between Two RiversBy: Samer Al-Ani

Government

Mesopotamia’s Government wasn’t strong until Hammurabi came. Hammurabi was the first person to make laws in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia would have city-states, only the smaller ones would have war to get supremacy.

Hammurabi Giving Orders

Laws

Hammurabi’s Laws were very strict, they had no prison or jail, they would just cut their head off. The two laws that I found that relate to the statement above were:

Law #6: If anyone steals the property of a temple or of the court he shall be put to his death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.

Law #14: If anyone steals the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.

Hammurabi!

Code of Law

Education

They were educated the majority of the things we learn today, but just much more simple. The subjects they learnt included, reading, writing, grammar, math, science, medicine, law, and music. How they learnt? Its straightforward, the teachers just gave them a pile of clay tablets and the students would just copy them out.

A Clay Tablet

Clay Tablets

Those clay tablets had grammar training, math tables, and long list of words grouped in categories such as gods, animals, plants, stones, and stars. Most people could’ve got suitable education, but some people didn’t.

Another Tablet…

Scribes and Poets

Some people got no education and some people got limited education, and the higher ups got the best education possible, it has to do with social class.

Sculpture of a scribe.

Onto Jobs…

Not all people had education, so they would just learn the basics of farming from their parents, which was the majority of people’s jobs, because it was the easiest, and most important. They would have many other jobs; they had artists, soldiers, slaves (which wasn’t really a job), doctors, scientists, poets, merchants, priests, architects, and merchants.

Mesopotamian Farmer

Priests

Priests were paid the most, from the king. They would pray to their Gods for the country, then the king would pay them for it. They were very high up, in social classes, around 2nd most important.

A Priest

Merchants

Another job that was paid a lot was a little more risky then the other jobs. It was the merchants. They would get things to sell from the king or ruler, and go to other territory to sell things.

Merchants.

Farmers

Farmers would have no respect at all by the higher ups, even though they were most important. They would have to fish, grow crops, get meat from the animals, and the most important get fresh water from the water.

Farmers

Doctors

Doctors were not very smart at their time, example, if someone had an infection in their head they would drill the patient’s head. Of course that would hurt, so they gave him whisky or alcohol to drink.