Mesopotamian vs. Egyptian Society: Religious,

Mesopotamian vs. Egyptian society: Religious, political, and social differences

While both the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt may share superficial similarities, these societies held fundamentally distinct worldviews. The people of Mesopotamia saw themselves as the playthings of capricious gods; the Egyptians saw themselves as blessed by the gods. Both civilizations were based by rivers; both took hold because of the fertility of the area. However, because of their different experiences of geography and the soil's fertility, the Babylonians and Egyptians interpreted the world around them in fundamentally different ways, which affected the social structures and political organizations of both lands.

The Babylonians of Mesopotamia felt vulnerable because of the propensity of the river near where they lived to overflow. Their violent myth of origins, detailing the battle between Marduk, the chief national god of Babylon, and Tiamat, a female figure representing the sea demonstrates this uncertainty. Mutilation is the beginning of being itself, as Marduk tears Tiamat apart to create the world. The blood of the murdered Tiamat generates humanity; from her body the earth is created. Water is thus the lifeblood of the land and necessary to irrigate the crops that the Babylonians planted on the parched and barren soil, but it is also symbolic of destructive power and rage.

The land limited as much as it nourished, according to the Babylonians. Even as Mesopotamia expanded, it could only unfurl as far as irrigation would allow (16) The Babylonians were dependent upon water for survival but they hated the way it could ravage their homes and even cut off family members from one another, as the land was reshaped by flooding. Their choices of crops were affected by the saltiness of the soil that was generated from the frequent flooding, and they had to carefully organize their planting to replenish the soil (14).

In contrast, the Egyptians conceptualized a far more positive creation myth, because their relationship with the earth was easier and more fruitful. The earth was depicted as a bountiful mound of life, giving birth to humanity from nothingness. Creation was glorious, not painful (23).While irrigation was not unheard-of, the Nile behaved in a reliable fashion, according to the Egyptians' perception. When the river overflowed its banks, "spreading water into the bordering valley," its effects were positive. "Unlike the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians needed no dams or weirs to raise the level of the river and divert water into channels. Moreover, the Nile, unlike the Tigris and Euphrates, flooded at the best time for grain agriculture" (23). There was no need to carefully choose only crops that could thrive in salty soil, as flooding created fertile silt, meaning the Egyptians could forego strict crop rotation. Abundant papyrus ensured that there were many natural materials to create the objects that came to define Egyptian culture, including paper, and game for food was abundant (23).

In ancient Mesopotamia, there was a clear distinction between city and rural culture. City-dwellers were dependent upon rural residents for buying surplus crops for their food. Trade was mutual, as residents of cities were often specialized artisans that could offer their skills. "Mesopotamian cities controlled the agricultural land and collected crop surpluses from villages in their vicinity. In return, the city provided rural districts with military protection against bandits and raiders and a market where villagers could acquire manufactured goods produced by urban specialists (16). But society was highly stratified because of this rural-city divide. Class divisions were sharply evident in Mesopotamian society -- the infamous law code of Hammurabi meted out different punishments according to class.

Even within religious structures, this inequality was tolerated by the Babylonians. The gods were conceptualized as anthropomorphic and not necessarily beneficent. The gods showed favor to some but not to all. Although all members of the society seemed to participate in some sort of religious rituals and superstitions, it is unclear how much the official temples were open to the general public. "Scholars similarly debate whether common people had much access to temple buildings and how religious practices and beliefs affected their everyday lives" (19). But even members of the elite subscribed to the belief that humanity was placed on earth to serve the more powerful gods, not vice versa. All humans could be humbled by divine power.

In contrast, Egypt evolved as much more human-centric culture. Its large population, spawned by the relative ease of raising and finding food, demanded a complex political system of leadership that placed a great deal of authority in kinship (25). Eventually, the Egyptian leaders came to be regarded as gods themselves. There was no objective law code, fair or unfair, like the impersonal Law of Hammurabi. Instead, the king's will was all. "So much depended on the kings that their deaths evoked elaborate efforts to ensure the well-being of their spirits on their journey to rejoin the gods" (25).