Mesopotamian History: Stories of Ancient People and Places

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course introduces students to the history of Mesopotamia, ancient Iraq, home to the world's first cities, writing and monetary exchange. Reading micro-histories of better- and lesser-known historical figures and original Akkadian and Sumerian sources (in translation), students will experience, from the distance of many millennia, the rise and fall of empires, class structures that divided and united society, the treatment of minority populations, the contributions of women --- scholars, queens, and priestesses, and the contributions of the Mesopotamian intellectual tradition to human experience. A visit to the Hearst Museum of Anthropology provides an opportunity for students to interact with original materials from antiquity.