△ Dredge floods and irrigate fertile fields
"No one can compete with the roaring flood. They shake everything in the sky, and at the same time make the earth tremble and wash away the harvest when they are just ripe. "
This is a poem left by Sumerians on clay tablets, which vividly describes the damage caused by floods to them. Although Sumerians developed agriculture while hunting around 3500 BC, the heavy rain and long flood season in the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers seriously affected the development of agricultural production.
Unlike the ancient Egyptians who built large dams and reservoirs on the Nile, ancient Babylon adopted dredging in flood control. In the middle of the 30th century BC, after the establishment of Akkad Kingdom, a large-scale flood control project was launched immediately. They mainly rely on large-scale digging ditches and repairing canals to divert the flow of floods, so as to disperse their flow and leave a way out for floods. This not only controls the flood, but also provides convenient conditions for agricultural irrigation. The ancient Babylonian kingdom was a period of economic prosperity in the two river basins. At that time, the rulers ensured the rational use of water conservancy facilities in the form of national laws, and several articles in code of hammurabi were related to water conservancy. Several years in the period of Hammurabi were recorded as "Water Conservancy Year" by history. The Royal Government also has special officials who are responsible for digging canals and building water conservancy projects. The flood threatened Babylon, but it also brought fertile soil, which enabled the agricultural production in the two river basins to develop and prosper.
△ The earliest means of transportation in the world
Bronzes appeared in the ancient two river basins during the Babylonian kingdom of Cuba, even earlier than ancient Egypt. The extensive use of bronze tools promoted the development of agriculture and handicrafts in Babylon.
According to code of hammurabi, there are 20 or 30 kinds of handicrafts in the Kingdom of Babylon, such as weaving, wood products, brick making, leather, stone carving and jewelry. However, the two river basins are short of metal minerals and wood, so people must export corresponding products to obtain these materials. Textiles, mainly linen and wool fabrics, are important export products, which are sold to Asia and other places, thus promoting the production of vehicles.
The trade activities of the two river basins mainly rely on land transportation. With the increase of export trade volume, it is difficult for human and animal power to carry a large number of goods. If there are lighter, more stable and more labor-saving means of transportation, the cost of trade will be greatly reduced and the development of other industries will be promoted. On the basis of animal-drawn mud sledges, people invented cars. About 5000 years ago, wheeled vehicles appeared in the two river basins. This is the earliest place where cars appeared in the world. About 3500 BC, there were records about cars in Mesopotamia. The oldest physical cars were excavated from the tombs of Kish, Ur and Sass in Mesopotamia. At that time, the wheels were solid wheels cut from logs and pulled by cows or donkeys. Although it is strong and convenient to carry things, its mobility is poor because of its heavy weight. Later, a perforated wheel was used, which greatly facilitated transportation. The invention of the automobile was a great innovation in land transportation, which made Babylon's trade and transportation develop rapidly. Vehicle manufacturing technology has spread to all parts of the world, which has greatly promoted the development of trade and production. The invention of the automobile made human beings develop from stepping to rolling, which greatly improved the transportation efficiency.
△ Hanging Gardens-Architectural Wonders of Babylon, Cuba
Hanging gardens in Babylon are another miracle in the history of ancient architecture, and they are still fascinating today. The architectural technology represented by this city has become the most remarkable achievement of Babylon. The city of Babylon is located about 95 kilometers south of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, in the middle of Mesopotamia Plain, which is the closest place between the two rivers. Located in a traffic fortress, it was built in 3000 BC and was an important commercial center, which later developed into the capital of the kingdom of Babylon.
There are three walls in Babylon, both inside and outside. The thickness of the walls varies from 3 meters to 8 meters, and the walls are separated by trenches. There is a defensive tower every 44 meters around the city, and there are more than 300 in the whole city. According to Herodotus, a Greek historian, it has more than 100 doors, and the door frames, beams and gates are all made of copper. The city of Babylon not only has thick walls and high walls, but also has a set of hydraulic defense system. When the enemy attacked Enemy at the Gates, as long as the sluice was opened, the flood of the Euphrates River would surge out and turn the city into a Zeguo. The straight road running through the north and south in the city is called "Shengdao", which is paved with marble slabs one meter square, with white or rose in the middle and red on both sides. At the end of the holy road, there is a huge tower-shaped building-Babel of Babylon, which is as high as 30 stories. According to Hebrew mythology, people built the Babel of Babylon in an attempt to achieve a paradise with unified language, no barriers and no disputes. The Lord was afraid that mortals would have great power to build the city of Babylon and the Tower of Babel, and he was jealous of their wisdom and success, so he secretly cast spells and disturbed their accents, so that they could not finish the project because of mutual suspicion. However, this magnificent project finally reached an amazing height, but it was later destroyed. The largest building in the city, the Marduk Temple, is next to the Babel in Babylon.
But Babylon's most outstanding architectural achievement is the "Hanging Garden", which is called one of the seven wonders of the world.
Legend has it that Nebuchadnezzar II held a wedding after he ascended the throne, and the queen was Miras, Princess of Medea. The fathers of both sides established a strong friendship in the war against Assyria and made this marriage. Milas was not dissatisfied with the marriage itself, but had no opinion of Babylon. Because her hometown is in the mountains of Iran, where beautiful scenery, birds and flowers, pleasant scenery and humid climate, and Babylon is full of loess and hot climate. As a result, the queen was homesick and worried day and night, and the beautiful and plump girl soon became sallow and emaciated. In order to relieve her depression and imitate the scenery of her hometown, the new king built this unprecedented and envied "Hanging Garden".
△ cuneiform and blackboard writing
Cuneiform writing is a unique writing in the ancient two river basins. It is a "cuneiform" written on a clay tablet with reeds, wooden sticks or bone sticks as "pens". This kind of writing originated from hieroglyphics.
About 3500 BC, Sumerians invented hieroglyphics. With the development of social life, hieroglyphics are difficult to express complex and abstract concepts, so hieroglyphics have developed into ideographs, that is, the combination of various glyphs is used as a symbol of language meaning. So there are homophonic words, that is, words that appear at the same time are often represented by the same symbol. In this way, the Sumerian graphic symbols were reduced from about 2000 in the early days to more than 500 later. Sumerian characters were originally carved on stones, but because there were few stones in Mesopotamia and papyrus did not grow at the same time, they wrote them on clay tablets and dried them. Mud chips can be preserved for a long time after drying or drying. It is said that there were many such memorial tablets in the government and temples at that time, and now there are about 30 thousand pieces that can be seen. This script was later widely used by Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians, and played an important role in the exchange and dissemination of science and culture.
It is economical, simple and long-lasting to write and retain words with clay tablets. This invention contains wonderful practical wisdom.
△ Astrology has promoted the development of astronomy.
Ancient Mesopotamia had a very developed astronomy. More than 2000 years ago BC, there were accurate records about the appearance of Venus. Many scholars believe that this is because astrology was very popular at that time. At that time, celestial observation was the duty of priests and an activity in temples. The tower in the temple is the earliest observatory. It is believed that the change of astronomical phenomena is directly related to human affairs, and the future of the world can be predicted from astronomical phenomena. Astrological activities urge people to observe the astronomical phenomena carefully, which objectively promotes the development of astronomy.
In addition, due to the frequent occurrence of wars and natural disasters, people often predict their own destiny by observing the astronomical phenomena, which objectively promotes the development of astronomy.
△ Lunar and meton cycles
Sumer's calendar takes the moon's profit and loss cycle as the timing standard and belongs to the lunar calendar. In the Sumerian calendar around 2000 BC, a year was defined as 354 days and 12 months, which were divided into big and small months, big months with 30 days and small months with 29 days. In order to solve the error between the calendar and the actual astronomical observation, they also adopted the method of inserting leap. In ancient times, the most reasonable leap setting method was the meton period, that is, the 7-leap rule of 19, which was put forward by the Greek astronomer meton in 432 BC. For a long time, there is no fixed leap rule in the two river basins, which is often decided by the king at any time according to the situation, which brings great inconvenience to the arrangement of production. By the end of the 6th century BC, they had made a fixed leap rule. At first, it was a leap of 8 years, then it was a leap of 27 years 10, and finally it was a leap of 383 BC 19, which was consistent with the meton cycle.
△ Zodiac
The clear air in the two river basins is conducive to the observation of astronomical phenomena. Mesopotamia distinguished planets from stars, and obtained quite accurate data of planetary motion. In 2000 BC, they discovered the periodicity of Venus' movement. A clay tablet recorded the rendezvous period of the planets (that is, the time required for the relative positions of the planet, the sun and the earth to make a circle), and the relative errors were all below 1%. For example, they measured Saturn's rendezvous period as 378.06 days, and today's measured value is 378.09 days; They measured Jupiter's rendezvous period as 398.96 days, and today's measured value is 398.88 days.
You may have noticed that the distribution of stars in the sky on summer nights is different from that on winter nights. In summer, we can observe Altair and Vega, which are separated from each other, and the Milky Way between them. Sirius and Orion are the brightest stars in the sky and can only be seen on winter nights. This is because of the revolution of the earth, we can only see the stars in the sky with our backs to the sun at night, but in the same season, we see the same stars, so we can know that the sun rotates all year round. Astronomically, the path taken by the sun in the background of stars is called the ecliptic. People in the ancient two river basins already knew the zodiac and divided it into twelve constellations, one for each month. Each constellation is named after a mythical god or animal and represented by a special symbol. This set of symbols has been used to this day, forming the so-called zodiac, which is what we often say now. This is a common term in astrology. Although modern astronomy proves that the vernal equinox is actually in Pisces, people have always followed the Babylonian practice and set the vernal equinox in Aries.
Mesopotamia predicted solar eclipses long ago. In the 4th century BC, Mesopotamia compiled a table of the sun and the moon in astronomical observation, which was very convenient for calculating the solar eclipse.
In addition, Mesopotamia's timing method has a great influence on later generations, such as dividing the circumference into 360 degrees, dividing 1 hour into 60 minutes, dividing 1 into 60 seconds, and taking 7 days as a week. , has been used to this day.
△ Divide the fillet into 360 degrees for the first time.
Around BC 1800, the Babylonians invented a unique counting system in 60. The ancient Babylonians divided fish fillets into 360 degrees, 1 degree into 60 minutes, and 1 minute into 60 seconds. This method has remained unchanged since ancient times and laid the foundation of geometry. They also use 10 decimal system, but there is no sign indicating zero, so the counting system is not perfect. They complete the division by converting the divisor into the reciprocal. In order to facilitate calculation, people have also compiled many mathematical tables, such as grid table, square root table, cube table, cube root table and so on.
△ One-variable quadratic equation without negative roots
The ancient Babylonians could not only solve linear equations with one variable and linear equations with multiple variables, but also solve some quadratic equations with one variable and even some special cubic equations and quartic equations. But they don't have the concept of negative numbers yet, but only seek positive roots (including decimal roots).
In geometry, the Babylonians knew that the circumference angle of a quarter circle was a right angle, and they would use the side length to calculate the diagonal of the square; They have correct formulas for calculating the area of right triangle, isosceles triangle and trapezoid; They also have correct formulas for calculating the volumes of right cylinders and truncated square cones. They use pi = 3 or pi = 3. 125. They will also flexibly turn many geometric problems into algebraic problems.
△ The earliest achievements in medicine, zoology and chemistry
There are many medical rules in code of hammurabi, such as how much to pay the surgeon if the operation is successful, and how to cut off the doctor's hand if the operation fails. It is considered as the earliest medical legislation, and it also shows that doctors have become independent from priests and become a specialized profession. There are more than 800 pieces of medical clay tablets left over from the ancient two river basins. It can be seen from these medical clay tablets that doctors at that time used drugs, massage and other methods to treat diseases. More than 150 kinds of plant medicines were used, and some animal oils were made into ointments for treatment. In their records, there are many diseases such as cough, cold, jaundice, stroke and eye diseases. It shows that the medicine in the two river basins has reached a certain level.
The names of about 100 species of animals and 250 species of plants can also be seen on the clay tablets in the two river basins, and the earliest classification in the world has been made. Moreover, in production practice, they found that artificial pollination can improve the yield of date palms when they bloom. Although they can't think that they have been able to distinguish the sex of plants, they can see that they have some biological knowledge.
Among the clay tablets left by the ancient two river basins, there is a map engraved with the city of Nipur at that time, and the other is a map of the world drawn by them around 700 BC. Although this map is far from the actual situation, they still reflect that people at that time already had certain geographical knowledge. Another clay tablet about BC17th century recorded a method of making copper-lead glaze powder, which is considered as the earliest chemical literature in the world. In 2200 BC, Mesopotamia had made glass.
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