Arts

Sculpture  

Mesopotamia, which is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris river Euphrates system. It held  the world’s first ever urban civilization with an intense cultural sphere which included music, art, and literature. The Sumerians of the lower part of Mesopotamia created the first cities, invented writing, modern poetry, and invented vast architectural structures.

Animal representations in the sculptural arts of the ancient near east are very known for their images that hold very expressive power. Beautiful and durable, these artworks have withstood the millennia and created the record of humanity, its concerns and beliefs, for all of the following generations. (HA)

Jewelry

In Mesopotamia, common people could afford jewelry because they lived in a area of great resources. Jewelry was a symbol of wealth, power, religion, and status. Ankle bracelets, gold earrings, silver hair rings, and amulets were all popular at this time. Jewelry was mainly made of electrum, jasper, onyx, lapis lazuli, sardonyx, agate and silver.   (HP)

Pottery

Depending on how the pottery looks and the style of it will determine what time period that the pottery is from. Some of the more recent pottery is from earthenware with engravings on it and that are much more delicate than later pieces made that are covered in alkaline glaze. Although all of the pieces of pottery are from ancient Mesopotamia, the area that they came from also shows many different and fascinating styles. Some have different colored paints then others have no color at all.

 So far the earliest piece of pottery that archeologists have found is from 7000 BC. The pottery from there is hand shaped, not glazed at all and has simple geometric patterns of line incisions. The second oldest pottery that has been found is from 5300-4000 BC and from Ubaid. This piece of pottery is from the time where it was made from a darker clay and usually had a green or brown tint to the pottery. They also used a wheel to make pots have a very wide rim. After Ubaid was the Uruk, they were the first to mass produce pottery with the wheel and used cedar oil and ground up pigments as paints to color the pottery. The pottery that is from this era had black or a very dark red paint and was very thick.  (HA)

Cylinder Seals

Cylinder seals are made of hardstones and occasionally glass and ceramics. They were only used in the Arab world, with them being used by Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and more. They usually showed religious themes, perhaps describing the person's beliefs. The fancy ones also had an emblem made of a gemstone. (HP)

Sciences

Math 

Astronomy

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Writing

Writing has been around for a long time yet it didn't always look like the writing we use today. Writing used to be pictographs (a form of writing). Writing started around 3400 B.C. in an area called Sumer near the Persian Gulf. To sign a clay document and sometimes to guarantee that it was officially closed, Mesopotamians used seals, mostly of long-lasting and sometimes high-priced materials. Cuneiform is the initial writing of Sumerians utilizing simple pictures and pictograms.  Many could be worn or pinned on like jewelry. Some materials are stones, lapis lazulis, carnelian, gold, and silver. (CC)

Boats

Mesopotamia, an old civilization, used to have a problem. Mesopotamians were to other civilizations. In order to survive, Mesopotamians needed to trade and enter into commercial connections with other relationships. In order to be able to trade, Mesopotamians needed to be able to travel but, sadly, Mesopotamia was enclosed by two rivers called “The Tigris and Euphrates.” Because Mesopotamians resources are dropping, traveling by water was essential.

The very first sailboats produced by the Mesopotamians would look very primitive by today's standards. The boats themselves were made of a bunch of wood and a material called papyrus. The sails were made of linen or papyrus (thick paper like material) and were shaped like a large rectangle or a square. These simple boats could carry people and goods upstream and downstream and could be used to navigate difficult canals bad weather. The addition of the sailboat to the Mesopotamian lifestyle altered everything about civilization as we know it. (CC)