How Did Technology Affect Mesopotamian Society

Ancient river civilizations are agricultural civilizations that grew along rivers as the name suggests. Such civilizations benefited much from the benefits provided by the river which included drinking water supply, fish for food, transportation of people and goods as well as fertile land for the growth of crops. Ancient Egypt is an example of one of these early river valley civilizations, as it developed as a result of the Nile River. These river valley civilizations shared a quite a number of similarities, one of the being the construction of large structures as a show of wealth or way of appeasing gods and the development of unique building strategies.

Have you ever wondered what made Egypt and Mesopotamia successful civilizations? Ancient Egyptians developed their civilizations by the Nile River around 3000B.C. Ancient Mesopotamia developed their civilizations between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers around 3100B.C. Their location, government, and rules have helped Egypt and Mesopotamia to be successful civilizations. Rivers were an essential part of the development of the civilizations. Rivers provided transportation, food, and water to them. For example, document one is a song.

There are many civilizations built on rivers. These civilizations experience many advantages, and disadvantages because they live along rivers. Rivers give the natural resource of water. Throughout history many great countries thrived on rivers, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, to name a few. Water from a river can be useful and therefore some civilizations thrived on their rivers, and for other communities the river was their doom.

Rivers can help develop different civilizations such as the Nile River. This great river measures thirty five hundred miles through many different countries (Orlin, 2010). The Nile helped to bring life, security and dictated how the people planned activities throughout the year. For example, the farmers would seed the land after the Nile would start swell and then recede to its normal banks (Orlin, 2010). This helped the seedlings to grow and then produce bountiful harvest. The Nile provided security for the Egyptian people by allowing the reeds and natural grasses around the bank of the river (Orlin, 2010). This would allow any enemy that wanted to attack to not

One way geography can affect the lives of people in the Ancient World is by allowing them to flourish permanent settlements. One important geographical feature that paved the way for permanent settlements is rivers. Rivers are necessary for major cities in the Ancient World to remain prosperous, as seen in the Geography of the Ancient Middle East Map (Doc 5). Rivers provide fertile soil for farming and plentiful drinking water. In Mesopotamia, two major rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates helped shape civilization for the next 2000 years. In Egypt, however, the Nile River was so important; it was given a hymn, as

The ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt develop into successful civilizations by having floods from the nile river that provided water, food and fertile area in the middle of the desert as document 1 states. In document 2 it says that they also had rivers that provided many resources such as transportation, trade as well as plants, the rivers were surrounded by deserts.

Although Egypt and Mesopotamia were both early agricultural societies built upon the water provided by the major rivers which sustained them, they exhibited important differences as a consequence of the different physical environments in which they developed. In this paper I will first focus on what I consider to be the major aspects of these differences in environment and then explore the consequences of these differences in their religious beliefs, political organization and commercial practices.

Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian agricultural lives were highly differentiated due to their contrasting geographical situations, and also differences in technological processes and developments. Only a small area of Egyptian land (the Delta and Nile Valley) was fertile during the annual inundation of the river Nile. Moreover, harsh natural circumstances created a famine risk for the entire population, thus restricting the freedom to decide for a common citizen. To illustrate, an uneven spillage of the river Nile, when there were insufficient water resources for the agriculture or floods threatening corps, required a unified, or communal, water regulation and distributional system. So, a

The geography impacted life in Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates flooded and brought rich soil or silt to the land. Source A it states, the land is quite fertile due to seasonal rains and the rivers and streams flowing from the mountains. Also, I learned a few more things in class on when the Nile river flooded rich silt came to their land also made ditches for the water to their crops. Everything that has been made in Mesopotamia that has been invented in Mesopotamia has

Known as the “cradle of civilization”, the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia was the first known society that began near rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates were natural barriers as well as a source of maintenance for a growth in population. The rivers served as a source throughout the Fertile Crescent within Mesopotamia. These rivers provided a means of transportation which ultimately led to trading and it had fertile soil. Through trading with other civilizations such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the economy of Mesopotamia would flourish as well as incorporate cultural diffusion. Settlements were mostly situated along the river banks since the land was more fertile. The Sumerians were one set of people who occupied Mesopotamia in Sumer. The two rivers were able to help them to have urbanization, thus domesticating animals. The city of Harappa and Mohenjo- Daro are also similar to the Mesopotamian civilization because they also built cities along the Indus River, and traded during the ancient times. This river civilization corresponds to that of the Nile River that is located in Egypt. Since Egypt was a desert, the Nile River provided a slew of resources. Tigris and Euphrates were also related to the Nile River because, whenever they flooded over, it was an advantage for farmers because it fertilized the

Ancient Egypt and Ancient Middle East were located by the rivers and depended on them heavily. Ancient Middle East had a civilization, Mesopotamia, that was located between the Tigris and Euphrates river and they used it for many occupancies. “Built dams to hold back the flood waters and irrigation ditches to carry water” (Ellis and Esler 31). This civilization used the river to help with farming. The rivers would flood and it would destroy all their crops. Farming is a necessity in the early times. Farming would allow for the food to be

The Mesopotamian societies thrived on what was known as the Fertile Crescent. The area was named so because of the river systems throughout the area. The fertile river valeys allowed for large crop yields, leading to surplus harvests, giving opportunity for more variety in crops as well as trading opportunities. The most prominent of these river systems was the Tigris-Euphrates system, {1} where the first urban societies in Mesopotamia may have appeared. The cultures here would have had basic farming skills, to produce sufficient harvested crops to supply a growing populations. It would be unlikely, however, that they would have had the understanding of crop cycling. Without replenishing the soil, the constant use will deplete the fields, with each crop yield decreasing. This would lead to the demand for more cultivated land to produce the necessary harvest to sustain a large population. Without this knowledge, and the subsequent decrease in crop yields, over many years, this may have been a factor which helped to bring about their eventual decline. The land, that which sustained them for so long, could have eventually caused their society to decline, without the knowledge of how to maintain it. This may be why what was known as the Fertile Crescent is

Moving away from Paleolithic and the Neolithic age of hunter gathering and farming, humans then entered a period called civilization. Civilization is an advance stage of human society where a higher form of government, culture, and lifestyle has been attained. Civilization came about when there was an adequate amount of food, so people could concentrate on different things other than farming. Mesopotamia and Egypt are two nations that formed the basis of civilization. In addition, rivers played a very important role in ancient civilization, and they furnished the prosperity of these nations. The three great rivers that will be looked at in this paper are the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates. The sophistication that came about by taking advantage

The people of Mesopotamia also had bad world because of the overload of water that caused them to have a surplus of food. The Nile allowed the Egyptians to work their crops instead of worrying about the river, unlike the people in Mesopotamia. Due to the flooding of the

It is undeniable that the natural environment of ancient Mesopotamia had a profound effect on the earliest civilizations known to the world. Humankind’s ability to control irrigation waters directly correlates with the rise of mass agriculture. With this mastery of their river environment, early farmers were capable of supporting large urban populations. However, in Mesopotamia the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were both a source of life as well as destruction for early societies. In many ways, the geography of ancient Mesopotamia fostered a sense of catastrophic determinism within the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Babylonians. The scarcity of resources as well as the untamable nature of their deluge environment led these early people to