Ancient Near East

affect law and social justice would play in a civilization. The roles of individuals in their society, the influence of religion and social hierarchy can affect the enforcement of social justice and the basis of a society’s laws. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient India all had similarities and differences in their attitudes towards law and social justice. Mesopotamia, meaning the “land between the rivers”, was one of the earliest civilizations in the world. It was located between the…

Ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia are both examples of cultures that performed sexual acts as a form of worship. The intent for the utilization of these sexual encounters was to mimic events from their cultural myths to ensure the continuity of that event. This mimicry can be categorized as a form of sympathetic magic, or a type of magic predicated on the belief that an event can be affected through an object or act symbolizing it. For ancient Egyptians the purpose of these acts was to…

characteristics that we see today, have evolved over the course of many years, all the way to when they were created, by the first civilizations, around 3000 to 5000 years ago. These ancient civilizations contributed greatly to what culture, and religion, all across the world, is today. There were four dominant ancient civilizations, of the past, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and India. As they evolved these civilizations shared many similarities, culturally and religiously. Two civilizations…

In ancient times, civilizations depended on the resources around them and how they could utilize their property to accommodate them. Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt are an important part of history where society can learn more about how things began. They were the first civilizations that have recorded evidence and were affected by the dictated outcomes of agricultural prosperity, religious formation, and government structures. The lands of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia was influxes by previous…

Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China developed religious, cultural, and political systems inherited by today’s generation. These three important civilizations centered around rivers, to form agricultural societies. The ideas and systems of these civilizations share many commonalities and differences. Through trade, the innovative ideas of these civilizations were diffused throughout the area. Many of these innovative ideas originated in Mesopotamia, recognized as the first civilization. The religions…

With the Agricultural Revolution came the flourishing of many ancient civilizations. Two of these civilizations, the ancient Mesopotamians and the ancient Egyptians have provided modern day historians to uncover what life was like during these times. While these two civilizations are located in different areas and have their own distinctive culture, the two have similarities which come from a geographical influence. According the texts that have been discovered and provided, Egyptian rulers…

Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian societies were quite similar, using the same formats of religion, language, and government to develop their societies and become more advanced. First, their format of religion. Mesopotamians worshipped over 3,000 gods, just about one for every realm. For these gods, they built shrines called ziggurats that only priests could enter. They also had to keep them appeased at all times using their harvest. If their harvest went bad, it was seen as a message that the…

The discovery of beer is linked to the first civilizations through the crops that are used to make it, grains. The book, “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” says, “grain soaked in water, so that it starts to sprout, tastes sweet” (page 14). The sweetness of the grain likely improved the quality of living for many of these newly settled people. It also advanced their society by creating a new desire for technology. The grain could replace sugar which put it in high demand. This pushed the…

In this book, author Gwendolyn Leick, an anthropologist and Assyriologist, describes the ancient history of Mesopotamia by way of ten cities: Eridu, Uruk, Shuruppak, Akkad, Ur, Nippur, Sippar, Ashur, Nineveh, and Babylon. The cities are given separate chapters which are arranged roughly chronologically over an immense time span, from the beginnings of Eridu in the fifth millennium BCE to the end of Babylonian culture in the first centuries of the Common Era. The chapter are further divided by…

Exploring ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt Do you ever wish you could go back in time to an era when cultures and lifestyles were different? Somewhere that you could immerse yourself into that cultures art, literature, and philosophy. Ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt are two regions that have a lot of history and significant cultural developments over time. Both civilizations shared similarities including written traditions, polytheistic religions, and having agricultural societies.…