Mesopotamian Culture

Culture is the roots of society, giving its people a record of achievement in their own time. The Mesopotamian culture built the foundation of all cultures with its advancement of several key factors, which are needed for a society to introduce the framework of collective manifestations of human intellect. The three most important achievements by the Mesopotamian culture are the introduction of laws, a written language, and agriculture.

At the heart of the Mesopotamian culture was agriculture, which was the most important aspect of civilization because it gave an otherwise nomadic people a way to remain sedentary as a population. By not having to wander the lands in search of food, either in hunting or gathering, the seeds of civilization were planted keeping a population together. By creating such a civilization, a society was born and its culture was created.

Primarily, the advancement in agriculture came with the Mesopotamian's achievement with irrigation, which ensured the fertile land had enough water to continually grow crops to sustain the needs of the civilization. The basic channel of water through irrigation channels was limited in design, but the overall function was successful. By moving water throughout (or around) the crops, people were no longer bound entirely by weather and geography in ensuring their harvest success.

As with any society, a group of people living together for extended periods of time required some kind of order to be successful. The order was created by a series of laws, which governed the population. Such rule was a major factor in the success of the civilization, allowing the population to thrive together as a single entity rather than working against itself, which led to further human achievement. The Law Code of Hammurabi, which are the oldest written laws known, classified laws into six main categories, which, in part, are still used today: Personal property, land, trade and commerce, family, maltreatment and labor. The collection of the laws into a centralized code allowed everyone to live under the same set of rules but also gave governance to the main aspects of daily life in the civilization (Benton & DiYanni, 2008, p. 12).

Collectively, because the Mesopotamians developed and maintained both agriculture and laws, their culture could thrive and knowledge could be shared and expanded, specifically with a written language. A written language known as cuneiform, gave the Mesopotamians a record of their culture, which showed the people were proud of their achievements and wanted to record their advancements. An example is The Epic of Gilgamesh, which "begins with a kind of prologue that emphasizes Gilgamesh's wisdom as a ruler and his importance to recorded history" (Benton & DiYanni, 2008, p. 10). In addition, both verbal and written communication gave Mesopotamians the ability to share knowledge among each other. Whereas