Patriarchy In Mesopotamian Culture

Government:The government of Mesopotamia was a strange one. There were kings and nobles who decided the laws and declared how their subjects should worship the gods, Then there was a group of people who could overrule the king and say which law was good or not, and get rid of it if it was not.

For this week we read two texts: Emmanuelle Saada’s, Empire’s Children: Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French Colonies and Margaret D. Jacobs’, “Maternal Colonialism: White Women and Indigenous Child Removal in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940.” Both texts explore racial mixing in terms of a superior (in their own eyes) white race imposing itself onto an indigenous race.

The Mesopotamian culture had three group of people live in that area. Each group kept marriage, social class, and religion important. The three groups are Sumerians than Akkadians and next Babylonians.The sumerians build ziggurats which are religious and they also wrote a prayer for every god. The Akkadians had a ruler Sargon and wrote a law code Ur-nammu. A father in the time periods between Akkadians and Babylonians, a father wrote advice to his son about had to live and rules. The babylonians wrote a different law code called hammurabi code. Each of these things show that marriage, social class, and religion is important.

As Mesopotamia starts to grow, Egypt was also thriving. Their ideas on patriarchal society start to spread and they start to have more of a stand in trading. Because of their trading, they created links many different countries with their products. They also influence on agriculture due to their uses of the Nile river. Because of the location and the overall area, Egypt because extremely prosperous. They have also introduced writings to preserve documents and just to be a form of expression.

Although ….Order out of chaos is a phrase that perfectly describes why religion developed in Egypt. The Egyptians believed in appeasing gods in order to maintain order. They also believed that multiple deities were present and in control of the elements of nature. One deity in that was very important was Sekhmet, the sun goddess of war. Sekhmet is one of the oldest and most powerful goddesses. In Egypt she was known to cause flames to devour the egyptian enemies. Her sun disk is represented with the Uraeus rearing cobra, which symbolizes power over the gods and Egypt. Sekhmet was greatly feared by some, because she was the warrior god of destruction, but also because she could deliver plague and sickness to the enemies of Egypt. The Egyptians

The Epic of Gilgamesh, in the late nineteenth century, has created a feeling of disagreement and interest among historians of the ancient east. The Epic creates a similarity to the bible and the society of Mesopotamia nearly 5,000 years ago. Gilgamesh is known to be the first great hero and with this story we learned a lot about Mesopotamian culture and their religion. While learning about their culture, we find many similar examples that may even be like our own culture. Some of these examples are the idea of a dominant strong male leaders and also the division when it comes to males and females and death was also important as well

THESIS STATEMENT In Ancient Greece, women were viewed as inferior to men; however, this did not stop women in literature from seeking power and breaking the confined societal roles. PURPOSE STATEMENT Through research of women in ancient Greece and analysis of The Agamemnon and The Medea in literary and critical works, the role restrictions of women and how and why two commanding women breached those restrictions are made clear. INTRODUCTION

“I / Will bury them with my own hand, to ensure that none / Of my enemies shall violate or insult their graves” (Euripides 1375-7).

Thus, included those of the scribe, the healer, artisan, weaver, potter, shoemaker, fisherman, teacher, and priest or priestess. (Mark, Joshua J.) During this time is when woman where finally able to enjoy their equal rights. Where as previously, woman where considered much like slaves. (Fiero, Gloria) Women enjoyed nearly equal rights and could own land, file for divorce, own their own businesses, and make contracts in trade. (Mark, Joshua J.) What a great innovation for woman during this time. The growth within Mesopotamia was expanding. This was our structure in history, as deemed in today’s society.

Regardless of the discrepancies and inconsistencies, Mesopotamian women had an unprecedented sovereignty and great potential for dominance, they were assigned a number of central political roles that influenced politics and social life. Mesopotamian pantheon, temple of Ishtar and Ziggurat at Ur, that many respected divinities including Ishtar, the goddess of war and love, who was believed to be the goddess of Uruk and the bordering territories, goddess Ninsun, Gilgamesh’s mother who served as his consultant as a mother would consult with her son in our modern day, Aruru goddess of birth, Nisaba goddess of grain, Ereshkigal the queen, Belit-Seri the underworld goddess and others. The presence of these goddesses and priestesses indicates the large scale in diversification of functions and duties and illustrates women’s dominance over the hierarchical system. The social, political, and religious order that existed in ancient Mesopotamia is deeply rooted in the power invested in the temple under women’s leadership and their great capacity to influence the city-state’s affairs and its fiscal responsibility.

The Epic of Gilgamesh reveals an essential perceptive of how Mesopotamian society viewed sex and women as a mean to become civilize the men of the story. Gilgamesh struggles with the concept of his own desires of man as he lusted after women to arrogantly proved his power, Enkidu becoming corrupted by the harlot and Gilgamesh denied of the goddess Ishtar can all be tied together to how women are view in the Epic as a stepping stone to further the narrates of the men in the epic. Gilgamesh journey’s started when the Uruk’s community viewed Gilgamesh personality as arrogance and grew impatience with him as he had an ongoing rampage of sexual exploitation of the women’s of Uruk, such as stated in the passage of the Epic “his lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble” (p. 4). It can be view that as his story could not advance without the women of Uruk, the goddess that made Gilgamesh and Enkidu can be regard as to the start to Gilgamesh story throughout the Epic that by Gilgamesh was guilty of abusing his power in Uruk and the women’s of Uruk lament to the Gods of the horrors of Gilgamesh,

Situated in the Tigris Euphrates valley was the property of Mesopotamia. It was here that the first cities in the world were founded between 4000 - 3500 BC from the Sumerian people. They developed their very own belief system, using various goddesses and gods. They developed rites and spiritual practices for worshiping these strong deities. Their daily lives were also much different than those of the last hunter gatherer groups that roamed over the world in a continuous hunt for resources. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014)

In researching the Mesopotamian, Mayan and Mississippian cultures, I wanted to explore how power was distributed across these three different cultures. I analyzed the OCM topic “Chief Executive”, in order to learn about the leaders of these different societies and the distribution of political power. My research question was “How does the political structure of the MMM societies differ, and how is the executive power distributed in each society?”

Gossiping during the Ancient Mediterranean was a form of social control, which enforced social norms such as ethical sexual behaviors. Gossip is usually established from witnessing an action that is considered a deviation from the standard behaviors within a given society. Set restraints and values produce a power dynamic and allow individuals to claim their subjecthood; this socially constructed definition of subjecthood allows people to categorize themselves within the social and political hierarchy in order to make sense of who they are, such as their sexuality. The interdictions built and created an understanding of one’s subjecthood and were controlled by gossip. As a result, gossip defines what is acceptable within that society, the creation

It was interesting to me that many religions have some of the same things in them for example the great flood with Utnapishtum; this story resembles Noah and the Ark which comes from the Christian bible. As I continue to learn about religions I find that most religions explain the same thing, for example how the earth was created, why we have sin, and why certain things are the way they are. I also thought it was interesting seeing how the religions would mention each other in their teachings for example, the bible quoting that Babylon was a wicked city that came up in the article. The Mesopotamian religion has many gods, it seemed like gods for everything from the sea to the underworld it reminded me of Greek gods/ religion. I found that