Vocabulary:  

• Agriculture: The practice of growing crops and raising animals
• Artifact: An object made by humans of past eras
• Aqueduct: A structure that carries large quantities of water over long distances, usually in the form of arched, bridge-like structures
• BCE: Before Common Era, which is a way we record time. To figure out how many years ago that was, add our current year (rounded down) to the year BCE (for example, if the year an art object was made was circa 500 BCE, then the object is 2000 + 2500 = 2,500 years old).
• Fertile Crescent: An area that included the modern-day countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and parts of Iran and Turkey, where people cleared natural vegetation and grew crops
• Silt: Tiny particles of rocks and minerals in rivers, which can be carried to other areas during flooding; makes soil rich and assists the growth of crops

Mesopotamia—Modern-day Iraq

The commonly used name Mesopotamia means “land between two rivers” and refers to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It comes from the ancient Greek root words “mesos,” meaning middle, and “potamos,” meaning river. However, the people who lived in this area wouldn’t have called themselves Mesopotamians; that name was first used in Greek texts that were written several thousands of years later. This area was never fully unified or called by just one name; we use Mesopotamia now to speak about the people and art of that region. 

Map of Mesopotamia showing different archaeological sites in the area 

It is important that we understand that many of the terms we use to refer to people and places—past and present—may not represent how these communities would identify or even think of themselves. This is true for other areas in the world outside of Egypt or Mesopotamia. As we discussed during our land acknowledgement in the introduction of this lesson, the area we now call Los Angeles was not called that by the indigenous people of this land: The Tongva called the world they lived in Tovangaar.

Humans purposefully began to settle the region we have called Mesopotamia in part because of the abundant access to water, which they used for drinking and growing food. The overflow of the Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers deposited rich soils in this region that people took advantage of to produce many different crops. This is why the area has also been called the Fertile Crescent. The kind of rich soil deposited by the rivers is called silt, a type of soil also found along the Nile River in Egypt. However, unlike the Nile, the rivers in Mesopotamia did not flood regularly, so getting water to their fields was more challenging. This led to the invention of aqueducts and irrigation systems, types of architecture that enabled people to transport water over long distances to areas where it was less abundant.

People and Languages

There were several groups of people who lived in this area throughout the millennia, speaking different languages and having different cultures and traditions. These groups included the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. From research conducted in the region, we know that urbanization began around 4000 BCE. This is the time when people started living closer together, forming towns, villages, and even cities. Artifacts, sometimes called material culture, can give us a glimpse of how some people might have looked/dressed at the time. 

Ashurnasirpal II and a Winged Deity, northern Iraq, Nimrud, 9th century BCE, sculpture, gypseous alabaster, 97 1/2 × 84 1/2 × 5 1/2 in. (247.65 × 214.63 × 13.97 cm); weight: 1,902 pounds (1,769.9 kg); mount: 12 × 84 × 18 1/4 in. (30.48 × 213.36 × 46.36 cm), LACMA, purchased with funds provided by Anna Bing Arnold (66.4.3), Art of the Middle East: Ancient, https://collections.lacma.org/node/235354

Possible Questions to Think About: Who do you think would have been portrayed in early Mesopotamian art? If you were an artist in early Mesopotamia, how would you draw a self-portrait?

Animals in Mesopotamian Art:

The fauna of ancient Mesopotamia included animals that lived in and around the rivers, including fish, snakes, reptiles, and amphibians. On the outskirts, there were other animals, too, like leopards, lions, wild cattle, boar, deer, ostrich, vultures, and eagles. People created objects inspired by this wide range of animals, and we can observe some representations of them in the Mesopotamian stamp seals in LACMA’s collection.

Cylinder Seal, Mesopotamia, Agade period, c. 2334–2154 BCE, black serpentine, height: 1 1/4 in. (3.2 cm); diameter: 7/8 in. (2.2 cm), LACMA, gift of Nasli M. Heeramaneck (M.76.174.354), Art of the Middle East: Ancient, https://collections.lacma.org/node/184959

Stamp Seal, northern Mesopotamia, c. 4000 BCE, black serpentine, height: 3/8 in. (.84 cm); diameter: 1 3/8 in. (3.4 cm), LACMA, gift of Nasli M. Heeramaneck (M.76.174.457), Art of the Middle East: Ancient, https://collections.lacma.org/node/185118

Possible Questions to Think About: Do you notice any animals depicted in these objects? If you could pick an animal to portray from your environment, what would it be? A pet? An animal you've seen at the zoo? A bird, like a pigeon or a crow?

Early World Cultures programs are made possible by a generous grant from the Max H. Gluck Foundation.