Sumer

The Indus Valley and Mesopotamia were two ancient civilizations who thrived off of the banks of prominent rivers. These two civilizations relied on the rivers for social interaction, health, transportation, food, and water. Even though the rivers started these two civilizations, they also may have been the cause to their collapse. The Indus Valley is located on the north western side of a country now known as India. The Indus Valley consists of five prominent cities that surround the Indus…

When a person from the Indus civilization heard of the Mesopotamians' gods around 1200 BCE, they would have thought, "These are the great gods that they worship, but ours are better." They would have thought this because the Mesopotamian gods were more unpredictable than the Indus gods, as seen when Ea told Utnapishtim of the great flood: Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, Tear down (this) house, build a ship! Give up possessions, seek thou life. Despise property and keep the soul alive…

I have always had a fascination with Mesopotamia and the cultures that develop in this region of the world. Their ability to cultivate the land and create organized city states, established a stable support system, which allowed for the exchange ideas, culture, laws, religion, and trade. Trading fostered the cross-cultural sharing of their celebrated Gods. However, each Sumerian city state had its own chief protector God. Within the temples, devoted to the city’s divine protector, there have…

This civilization existed around 5000-3500 BCE. The first city-states gradually develop in southern Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia lies between the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates in southern Iraq. Some of the major Mesopotamian civilizations include the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian, and Babylonian civilizations. The Sumerians were the first people to migrate to Mesopotamia, they created a good civilization. They invented writing and government. They were organized in city-states where each city had…

The Origins of Urim and Thummim Two simple stones; they were smooth and clear in color. There is proof of the stones existence during the 8th century BC. Those that understand them know these stones as Urim and Thummim (The Alchemist). Their main function was to communicate with God because “they were one of the three legitimate means of obtaining oracles in early Israel” (Jewish Viral Library). Now, not just anybody could use them, only a select few had the knowledge to make them function.…

Since the beginning of time, humans have experienced the great turmoil of war. From ancient civilizations, and even currently, we have used violence and war to solve disputes in order to obtain land, gain resources, and increase government power. After all of the suffering and violence, we eventually resolve back to harmony and concord, and this is a cycle that will continue on throughout human existence. The ancient Sumerian art piece Standard of Ur and Banksy’s modern painting Soldiers…

The Epic of Gilgamesh was written over 4100 years ago and is an epic that is still relevant to life in the 21st Century. There are multiple reasons for this, such as the characters, the topics, and the themes addressed in the story. The main theme at this point of the story was: your worst enemies can one day be your best friends. This is very true because, in real life, many of our best friends were once our worst enemies, and the hate that once tied us together slowly morphs into mutual…

About 5000 years ago the first civilizations started to be formed around the rivers in Africa; Egypt and Mesopotamia were the first river valley civilizations. Although the mesopotamia and Egyptian civilizations were strongly affected by their geographic locations, the ways on which locations effected their religion and society, and government, were both similar and different, because they had the same system of government but different points of view over religion and society. Society: The…

The Epic of Gilgamesh has been of interest to many scholarly groups since it’s discovery in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly scholars of the Christian faith. Christians find the account of a flood in The Epic of Gilgamesh interesting, as it directly parallel’s the same flood recorded in Genesis. The epic follows the deeds of Gilgamesh, a ruler of great knowledge. He is considered an “oppressive ruler,” which causes his subjects to cry out to the gods to create a nemesis that will cause…

The Mesopotamian civilization and the Yellow river civilization both had characteristics that showed an advanced society. Mesopotamia had a form of centralized government named Hammurabi's code which is a set of the laws written by King Hammurabi. The Yellow river valley civilization had oracle bones, a form of religion which were shoulder bones of animals that were thrown into fires and read by priests to see what would happen in the future. Mesopotamia achieved greatness because of a written…