Mesopotamian Art Achievements

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For any evidence of a civilization ever existing there has to be some form of art or architecture left behind. Clues of a long forgotten government, economy, and social class for scientists to find. Remains of their math and science, religion and literature works left to vanish into thin air. The remnants of Mesopotamia reveal to us that their intellectual achievements were far greater than those of Egypt, in terms of their architecture, economy and government, knowledge in math and science, their religion, and what is left of their art and writing.

Temples were built on large amounts of land; this served as the “god’s estate on earth” (11). They built cities small and grand. Among the first to appear, Sumer, then there was Akkad, “the first true empire in history” for creating an empire that “extended from the Persian Gulf almost to the Mediterranean Sea” (13). Next was Babylon, home of Hammurabi’s code and the beautiful hanging gardens.
In these great cities, they established an economy fit to last. Mesopotamia was an agricultural based society, relying on food to trade for what they needed. In order to do that, they had to settle
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The Sumerians formed stories and poems of great heroes such as the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, a heroic ruler in search of fame and undying glory, but ultimately figures out that he; like all other mortals, must die. Developed to write these stories, were written languages. The world’s first writing was comprised of pictographic symbols, originating in Mesopotamia (11). Symbols, such as a foot, stood for walking and a mouth next to water meant to drink (11). Another form of writing developed by the Sumerian people was cuneiform, a “wedge-shaped impression in soft clay” (11). Many others of the Near East also adopted this type of writing and even encouraged the Egyptians to invent their own type of writing

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