"Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning "between the rivers,"..."
Mesopotamia: 3500 BCE - 539 BCE
Characteristics: Warrior art and narration in stone relief
Chief Artists and Major Works: Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's Code
Historical Events: Sumerians invent writing (3400 BCE); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 BCE); Abraham founds monotheism
Mesopotamia was an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in by the northest by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today's Iraq, mostly, but also parts of the modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The rivers that the name 'Mesopotamia' refers to is the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and the land was known as 'Al-Jazirah' (the island) by the Arabs referencing what Egyptologist J.H Breasted would later call the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization began.
We know little about religion within Mesopotamia however we have taken a lot of what their religion was from their poetry, "The Epic of Gilgamesh" being the most important. The Sumerians were highly religious people and had a theocratic culture where gods ruled the earth and man was created to serve them. They practiced tithing and so 10% of their goods went to the gods. There was also a leader of each state who was considered a local god who talked to the head gods. There were many temples and statues that were built in their name. In Ur, their own head god had an earthly home of the city of Ziggurat. These temples were built up in layers and would tower above the flat land of the area, as if reaching to the heavens.
Within the art itself, the sizes of entire figures were determined by a hieratic imaging system. The most important people were made the tallest. In the same vein, a beard on a figure signified a man in a powerful position.
Two-dimensional depictions usually show figures' heads, legs and feet in profile, while their shoulders and torso are shown frontally.
The famous statues found at the Abu Temple in Tell Asmar from around 2700 BCE are examples of the way Sumerian sculpture is typically based on cones and cylinders - arms and legs like pipes, skirts smooth and round, flaring out at their bottoms. Faces are dominated by very large eyes; but, for reasons we might take for granted, artists of many cultures have placed emphasis on eyes.
The Early Bronze Age of Mesopotamia (3000 BCE - 2119 BCE) was the age at which the arts were beginning to become more detailed. The cultural stability necessary for the creation of art in the region resulted in more intricate designs in architecture and sculpture, as well as "a number of specific and momentous inventions: the plough and the wheel, the chariot and the sailboat, and the cylinder seal, the single more distinctive art form of ancient Mesopotamia and a pervasive demonstration of the importance of property ownership and business in the country's daily life," were all either invented or improved upon during this time.
Libraries were also formed; the Akkadian Empire of Sargon was the first multi-national realm in the world and Sargon's daughter, Enheduanna, the first author of literary works known by name. The library at Mari contained over 20,000 cuneiform tablets and the palace was considered one of the finest in the region.
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