Mesopotamia Compare And Contrast Essay

The Mesopotamian empires reign, was a time of a lot of development and primitive science, every city was testing weapons, government styles, and tools. Sargon, Hammurabi, and Nebuchadnezzar each built off of previous Mesopotamian government types, and reconstructed their own governments, to create a stronger civilization. Each one revolutionized a the government at the time, and paved the path for later rulers.

Both places practice polytheism and use a set person to be viewed as the connection to the Gods. But the variation occurs when Mesopotamia involved kings to rule in addition to the pharaoh. Another cultural difference is the mindset of positive Egyptians vs the negative of the Mesopotamians which may have affected the rights of women in Egypt seeing as they had more privilege than Mesopotamian women. Shared in both places was the socially acceptable mindset of hierarchies. The two main ones gender, men had more worth than women, and social, starting with the rich and ending with

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia present a valuable area of historical research. They are of great importance mostly because of their ethnic kinship (Watson, 2017). In such case, comparison and contrast essay is very promising as causal relationships can be formed based on a mutual starting point. This comparison-contrast essay focuses on differences and similarities in these societies’ economic, political and cultural life in order to make further implications regarding the circumstances the peoples of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia faced.

In regards to ruling, the initial two civic establishments of Egypt and Mesopotamia were indistinguishable. Leaders of Egypt were called pharaohs, and Mesopotamia had a class framework wherein the wealthiest class were the rulers much like Egyptians. The majority of the civic establishments each addressed their own gods. Some were fundamentally the same as one another, despite the fact that for Egypt, they trusted that their pharaoh was their God on earth. In Mesopotamia,

Mesopotamia and Egypt had many similarities and differences. Two similarities are their patriarchal societies and their use of metallurgy to produce tools and weapons. Two differences were the different styles of written language and the rule of kings in Mesopotamia verses the rule of pharaohs in Egypt. Mesopotamia and Egypt both used a patriarchal society that vested public and private authority in adult men. For instance, men not only held high positions in government, but also controlled household affairs.

Some of the similarities between Egypt and Mesopotamia are that the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia and the Nile River in Egypt were essential to the survival of these two civilizations. Also, both Egypt and Mesopotamia suffered from flooding of their own

Within a geographic comparison of Egypt and Mesopotamia it can be said that both societies

The two civilizations had leaders that they believed were close to god. They have different law and order systems. The Egyptians had set punishment for certain crimes, while the Mesopotamian had similar systems but with the Hammurabi code which was “Eye for an Eye”. Their political systems for a majority were like a monarchy/dictatorship. In both civilizations they had certain gender norms. In Egypt men and women were treated as equals for a majority but the still had different roles. They both got education because they believed education was very important. Women in Egypt had the role of baring and raising children and responsible for family and domestic issues. Men on the other had taught there boys how to trade or how to do the same labor they did and provided for the family. When Egyptians kids turned 14 they would help their dad or mom depending on what sex they were. Mesopotamia had different views men clearly had more power and the women were not treated as equals. Men went to work with their sons and women stayed home took care of the family with the

Similar to a pyramid, there are five classes in each social system for Mesopotamia and Egypt (Matthews et al, 2014). The top is the ruler, which is different in both civilization. However, the other four are the same. Under the ruler, are clergy members, army, or judicial system; followed by rich landowners, military chiefs, scribes, and architects; followed by the farmers, merchants, brewers, craftspeople, and low-level businesspeople and tradesman; finally at the bottom, slaves, tenant farmers, and small landowners (Matthews et al, 2014). The ruling class, on the other hand, was different. Mesopotamian kings were appointed by someone from the gods on Earth, however, the Egyptian ruler was a god. Government (political) systems receive their economic strength for both Mesopotamia and Egypt for their kingdoms were based on power from the gods and agriculture. However, Mesopotamian rulers were based more on warriors and Egyptian rulers were Pharaohs, god-kings (Matthews et al,

Although Mesopotamia was much larger than Egypt they both shared some similar geographical aspects. Mesopotamia stood for “the land between the rivers”. Since they received very little rainfall the Tigris and Euphrates rivers brought fresh water to their civilization. They then learned that they could harness to water and make it easier to access in their kingdom by building irrigation systems. Once they built the irrigation systems their population increased which attracted more foreigners. Egypt also shared an alike geography with Mesopotamia since they were both near a river that provided for their kingdoms. Since Mesopotamia was near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers they were more prone to more attacks from enemies to seize their land. Whereas

It is believed that the development of agriculture brought about a decline in the status of women in Mesopotamian society because men did the value-producing work of plowing and irrigation. Women were able to own property, control their dowry, and engage in trade. In contrast, paintings indicate that Egyptian women were subordinate to men and engaged in domestic activities, but they did have the right to hold, inherit and will property and retained rights over their own dowry after divorce. They probably had more rights than Mesopotamian

The geography of Mesopotamian affected their society. Located on a wide open plain with little protection, the Mesopotamian was always under fire. On the other hand, Egypt being more centralized on the Nile River had an upper hand. Egypt was very secured by natural boundaries. This allowed Egypt's kingdom to flourish for centuries. Unfortunately, Mesopotamia was never thought of a nation nor a country. Mesopotamia is a region located between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. In which established an extremely arranged city-states. Each city-state was self-reliant, Mesopotamia did not have a capital.

Mesopotamia is an ancient civilization from 3200 b.c to 536 b.c. It means “The land between the rivers.” Mesopotamia was formed between Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It was apart of the Fertile Crescent. The Fertile Crescent is a fertile arc of land from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Mesopotamia had river valley civilizations within it including Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Hittite, Assyria, Israel, and New Babylon.

The development of early civilizations depended heavily upon where it was located geographically and if this location proved to be any benefit to the people. Civilizations such as Mesopotamia and India where densely populated areas which saw new technological advances and innovations that added to their civilization’s advancement. Geographically, these two civilizations were comparable in nature due to their locations near rivers, which posed advantages as well as disadvantages. Mesopotamia and India differed in the aspect of the river’s effect it had on the soil which in turn affected the civilization’s agriculture.

Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations are very different from each other. Although both civilizations’ rivers flooded, the Egyptians could predict when the Nile River would flood. This prevented their crops from being destroyed. But the Mesopotamians could not predict the floods. The Egyptians were protected from invasion, while the Mesopotamians were not. The Mesopotamians had strict rules for the women as Egyptian women had more control. Cities in Egypt were not very important while they were to the Mesopotamians.