Map of Mesopotamia city
The earliest inhabitants of the two river basins in the civilized period were Sumerians, who came here before 4000 BC. Since then, Babylonians have inherited and developed the achievements of Sumerians, making the civilization of the two river basins an important page in the history of human civilization. So the civilization of the two river basins is also called Babylonian civilization.
About 5000 years ago, the residents of the ancient two river basins made pottery. The pottery they make is mainly painted pottery with dazzling colors. Interestingly, the coffin used after death is also made of clay and shaped like a rectangular box with a lid.
In ancient times, the metal manufacturing technology in Lianghe area reached a fairly skilled level. In Shang Dynasty in China, there was Simuwu cauldron. Almost at the same time, bronze statues weighing about 2 tons also appeared in the two river basins. At that time, there were many handicrafts, such as brick making, hemp spinning, stone carving, jewelry, leather, wood industry and so on.
There were characters in the civilization period of the two river basins very early, which is the famous cuneiform. In the early human writing, it is a relatively developed one.
The literary achievements of the two river basins are mainly proverbs, myths and epics, which reflect the social contradictions and social atmosphere at that time. There are many proverbs, such as "The poor are better off dead than alive", "If you want to eat meat, you can't eat meat if you have sheep", "The wife is the husband's future, the son is the father's backer, and the daughter-in-law is the nemesis of the father-in-law", "Shoes are people's eyes, and walking can increase people's knowledge". Some stories in the Old Testament also originated from the ancient two river basins. The Forgotten is the most famous heroic epic in the ancient two river basins. It creates a heroic image that despises God's will and benefits the people, and expresses people's desire to know the secret of life and death. The Forgotten is the earliest epic in the world.
The main scientific achievements of the two river basins are in mathematics and astronomy. Sumerians already knew decimal and hexadecimal, and the latter was more widely used in the ancient two river basins. Today, we use hours, minutes and seconds to measure time and divide a circle into 360 degrees, all of which are the achievements of the ancients in the two river basins. Their units of area and weight are mostly decimal 60. Ancient Greece and Rome both adopted some weight units here, and some places in Europe even used them until18th century.
The knowledge of astronomical calendar in ancient two river basins directly influenced European astronomy. Sumerians divided a year into 12 months and * * * 354 days according to the moon's profit and loss, and set up leap months to adjust the differences between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar. In the 7th century BC, a system of seven days a week was formed. Every day, a star god was on duty, and this day was named after him in the following order:
Sunday: Sun God; Monday: luna; Tuesday: Mars God; Wednesday: Mercury; Thursday: Jupiter; Friday: Venus; Saturday: Saturn.
To this day, European countries are still named after these seven stars, seven days a week.
As early as more than 5000 years ago, people in the two river basins created such a developed civilization, which is really fascinating. The highest achievement of ancient European civilization is ancient Greek culture. However, before the ancient Greeks entered the era of civilization, the civilization of the two river basins had lasted for about 2000 years. Many of the later achievements of the Greeks were developed on the basis of the civilization of the two river basins.