1. Topic
2. Agricultural Cultivation
   1. The rivers flood and deliver silt to the desert.
   2. Irrigation makes this land fertile to exploit
3. Chronology
   1. 'Ubaid period ca. 5,300 - 4,100 B.C.
      1. Eridu
   2. Uruk Period ca. 4,100 - 3,100 BC
      1. Uruk or Warka
   3. Early Dynastic Period ca. 2,900 - 2,334 B.C.
      1. Ur
   4. 2,334 B.C.
      1. Writing Begins!
      2. Acadian Empire!
4. 'Ubaid Period
   1. punctuated by the initial settlement of the sumer.
   2. Irrigated agriculture makes population growth possible
   3. Villages in lowland marshes become towns.
      1. Temples are established in each individual town
         1. how important is the temple?
         2. extremely important!
         3. heart of the religious life
         4. heart of the economic life
         5. Eventually, the diety becomes the city which is the property of the diety
         6. Specialised so deeply, they have a head snake charmer
         7. Storage Facilities
         8. Craft Goods
         9. Festivals
         10. The Temples redistribute wealth
   4. Slow potter's wheel
      1. tornet
      2. that means pots can be reasonably standardized
      3. standardized was their stuff, and specialized were they.
   5. craft specialization
   6. Eridu
      1. first major community in mesopotamia
      2. there are creation myths written in cuniform
      3. they just get bigger and bigger and bigger
      4. Topic
5. Uruk Period
   1. Early
      1. population increase
      2. new inventions arise
         1. plough
         2. wheeled carts
         3. sails
         4. There are really innumerable things that show up in mesopotamia first
      3. expansion is tied explicitly to the receding of marsh land in mesopotamia
   2. Late
      1. First true state
      2. First true city
         1. by 3100 B.C., 10,000 to 40,000
      3. monumental architecture
         1. Whitewashed mud brick
         2. Ziggurat
            1. a ziggerat is a large pyramid made of mud brick and other materials, serving as a base for a temple
            2. Sacred human mountains
      4. centrally-controlled economy
         1. clay administrative seals
            1. bureaucracy
         2. tribute of labor and goods
         3. how do we tell?
            1. clay administrative seals
            2. the seal must be broken to access the resource
            3. how are administrative seals worn?
         4. Bevel Rim bowls
            1. pictorgrams from cuniform
            2. Ration cups were likely the reason for these bowls
      5. Writing
         1. Proto Cuniform
         2. Earliest clay writing written in Sumerian. Very, very, arcane
         3. A uruk pot
            1. Topic
6. Early Dynastic Period
   1. independent ruling of dynasties and city states
   2. increased warfare with city-states arising
   3. walled cities arise
   4. Ur
      1. the third dynasty ziggerat is up to three times larger than the Uruk period
      2. Sir Charles Leonard Woolley
      3. Cemetary
         1. 2500 burials, mostly commoners
         2. 16 royal tombs with lavish goods and sacrifices of humans
      4. Grave Good
         1. golden headdress
         2. Ram in the thicket
            1. Abraham sacrifies the Ram in the Thicket btw
         3. Jewelery
         4. Gold Daggers
         5. Lyres and Harps
   5. Unification
      1. Sargon unites Mesopotamia under his fist!
      2. 2,334 B.C.
      3. Chronology of Empire
         1. The Babylonians come after it
         2. Assyrians
         3. Neo-Assyrians
         4. Persians
         5. Greeks
         6. So on and so forth