Mesopotamian Cities

Cities are extraordinarily successful forms of human settlement, currently home to over 6 billion people around the world. They offer employment opportunities, production efficiency, and expansive social networks. However, they also have negative impacts on social lives, health, resources, and the environment; they are deep wells of inequality, isolation, and disease. Were ancient cities similarly difficult? Through alternating lectures and seminars, this course examines ancient Mesopotamian cities from the perspective of city life and urban challenges, comprising the positive and negative aspects and possible compensatory factors to urban living in the past. We will examine cities from the world’s earliest, in the 4th millennium BCE, through mature cities of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE, to the artificial imperial cities of the 1st millennium BCE.