The First Civilization: Mesopotamia

Civilization, life in cities, was born over five thousand years ago on the fertile plains of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Using archaeology and textual sources in translation, this course will build a picture of the Sumerian civilization, one that lies at the root of our own urban, literate, globalised world.

In Sumer, the inhabitants of vast settlements worked the land, built monumental architecture, and created extraordinary art. The Sumerians developed the earliest writing, established richly furnished temples to receive the blessing of their gods, formed armies to battle for control of land and water, thereby establishing some of the earliest empires, and sought exotic materials from distant lands along trade routes stretching from Egypt in the west to Afghanistan in the east. Using archaeology and textual sources in translation, this course will build a picture of the Sumerian civilization, one that lies at the root of our own urban, literate, globalised world.