Economic order: commercial characteristics and agricultural characteristics
It is well known that Egypt at that time was located near the Nile River valley, so their social characteristics were extremely prominent agrarian civilizations. The annual flooding of the Nile brought fertile soil to Egypt.
More specifically, the ancient Egyptians of that period generally had access to a lot of resources without effort and could sit back and relax. In this regard, the people of ancient Egypt at that time regarded it all as a reward from the gods and a blessing from the king. During that period, their daily lives generally changed according to the changes of the seasons at that time. At that time, they divide the year into multiple seasons, roughly three seasons - flooding, growing and harvesting.
They arrange their farm work according to the seasons and live a very regular life. Compared with Egypt, the Babylonian civilization, although also an agrarian civilization, was largely more prominently characterized by commercial civilization.
Looking at the documents recorded in that period, there are extremely prominent commercial economic colors. In these documents are countless accounts and contents of exchanges, loans, bequests, partnerships, commissions, sales and purchases, deeds, contracts, promissory notes, and promissory notes.
There are roughly two reasons why the economy and trade of Babylon can be prosperous: one is by roads, and at that time the whole city of Babylon was built on flat ground; The second is by river road, and the waterway of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers directly reaches the Persian Gulf.
All of this is due to Nebuchadnezzar II. The development of commerce in Babylon was also related to the financial system it adopted. But there was no money in those days, but even then, when Hammurabi was even earlier, gold and silver were the medium of exchange.
Gold and silver must be used in scales, the smallest unit being the sheckler. Sheckler gold is equivalent to half a tael of silver. Schekler is Mina, Mina is Taliente. Loans are generally divided into two categories, one in kind and the other in gold and silver.
Although there were no banks at that time, there were money houses run by wealthy tycoons. Most of the big money houses are large families with hereditary operations.
In addition to the money estate, priests also often carried out loan business. Most of the money borrowed by the priests were farmers. The peasants borrowed money from the priests, mostly when they were not receiving them. The law also applies protection policies to debtors.
For example, the law stipulates that if the peasants borrow money as collateral for the harvest, if the harvest is not harvested due to drought, flood and other force majeure, the interest for the current year will be automatically reduced.
However, this is not often the case, and generally speaking, the laws of Babylon protect mainly creditors. Babylonian law stated that debts must be paid. Thus, when the debtor is unable to pay the debt, the creditor may take the debtor or his children hostage and use them as slaves. However, the time limit for such seizure may not exceed one year.
Handicrafts in Babylon were quite developed. When Babylon would transport handmade products to the Greeks and Romans, they were full of praise for Babylonian goods. Local transportation in Babylon mainly used donkey carts, and horses were widely used by the Babylonians until the end of BC.
Since the use of horses, the means of transportation have been significantly different from the use of donkeys. Commerce in Babylon also moved from the domestic market to the international market.
Trade on the one hand increased the wealth of Babylon; On the other hand, making Babylon a center of trade in the Near East. Nebuchadnezzar II was well aware of the important role of roads for commercial development, and spared no effort to build roads during his reign. He instructed his men to expand the numerous sheep's intestine lanes into good roads.
In this way, merchants from all over the world could easily bring goods from all over the world into the Babylonian markets. Babylon became the center of trade between East and West at the time.
Religious thought: the pursuit of happiness in this world and the hope of eternal life in the next life
The ancient Mesopotamians, despite their belief in the afterlife, were very different from the Egyptians. The Egyptians yearned for the afterlife and wanted to go to the underworld; And the Mesopotamians did not like the underworld.
The Babylonians did not believe in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Their religion is full of snobbish or utilitarian preaching. The Babylonians also prayed, but they prayed for earthly happiness rather than eternal life.
For them, the other side of the world is terrifying and frightening. The underworld is a dark and dirty forbidden place, and no matter how good or bad people are after death, they will inevitably go down. That is to say, whether good or evil, you have to report to Hades. Mesopotamians had no heaven, hell, the Last Judgment, and eternal life.
Although it is said that Marduk can be brought back to life, in general, the Mesopotamians conceived of an afterlife similar to that of the later Greeks, that is, the only place to go after death is a gloomy hell. The only way to suffer less in Hades is to rely on children and grandchildren to make regular sacrifices in their cemeteries and pray to the gods.
As for heaven, it is dedicated to God. The reason why they pray to the gods is to pray for the well-being of this world. When Gilgamesh was about to enter the sea of death in the West, a goddess who lived on the seashore told him, "When the gods created mankind, they determined that the living would die."
The advice of the goddess made it possible to feel the attitude and social atmosphere of the Babylonians towards life. They were not as joyful and hopeful about the afterlife as the Egyptians. All joy is in this life and in this life.
The ancient Mesopotamian burial methods were also very different from those of the Egyptians, and in Sumerian, the people at the bottom were usually placed in the city after their deaths, either in the courtyard of their place of residence or under the floor of their dwelling, and the utensils containing their bodies were also very rudimentary.
Egyptians attached great importance to the power of religious morality. Myths, sculptures, murals and other artistic and literary works are important ways and carriers to instill religious ideas in people.
In ancient Egypt, everyone in Egypt, from pharaohs to ordinary people, was convinced that their life after death was exactly the same as their life before their death, and their present life and the next. They are also convinced of their religion. The sun god, who enjoys a venerable status, is considered the giver of life.
Egyptian religion is polytheistic. Although multi-god, the Egyptian gods also underwent a process of continuous differentiation and combination. From the earliest polytheistic worship to the worship of the main god, the naturalized god developed to the personified, and even socialized god. Let's take the famous Egyptian god Osiris as an example.
Osiris was originally the god of corn, then the Nile, and then the underworld. Egyptian mythology and the evolution of the gods are relatively clear and have clear contexts.
The divine realm emphasizes order and harmony, and although there are many gods, different gods perform their own duties and fight less often. The struggle between the gods that can be found is a myth about Osiris fighting with Seth for the throne.
According to legend, Osiris was a kind and benevolent ruler who was murdered by his evil and sinister brother Seth, leaving his body to pieces. Seth thus usurped the throne. Osiris' wife, Isis, put the fragments of his body back together and brought him back to life in the underworld.
Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, after being raised by his mother Isis, joined forces with his mother Isis to kill Seth, avenge his father, and reclaim the throne. The earthly monarch Pharaoh is Horus.
Although Osiris was resurrected in the underworld, he could not return to the yang realm, and he became the king of the underworld in the underworld. After this struggle, calm and order returned to the Divine Realm.
Polytheism was also practiced in the Babylonian region. In the god world, it is common for gods to fight each other and deceive each other. The gods are ordered by force. The God who can fight and is invincible is the Lord God.
Marduk, the main god of Babylon, was a warrior god who defeated all his opponents and established himself as the main god by force. His struggle with the great mother goddess Isidal is rife with Babylonian mythology. Influenced by religious mythology, it can be said that the Babylonians of the Two Rivers Valley were a martial people.
In real life, the national heroes worshiped by the Babylonians were monarchs who could fight good wars. For example, Hammurabi, the king of ancient Babylon, unified the two river valleys by force and established an "iron-blooded empire"; King Nebuchadnezzar II of Neo-Babylon, just came to power, launched years of war against Syria and Palestine.
In B.C., he led an army to conquer Jerusalem, destroy the Jewish kingdom, and take a large number of Jews back to Babylon as slaves, known as the "Babylonian prisoner." In B.C., Nebuchadnezzar attacked Egypt in a big way, sacked Egypt and returned victorious.
To distinguish the attitude of the Egyptians and the Babylonians to life, it can be summarized as follows: the ancient Egyptians enjoyed this life and pursued the afterlife; And the Babylonians only seek this life, not the afterlife.
Literary style: rich and changeable and the pursuit of permanence
The literature produced in different environments in the two places also has different characteristics. Ancient Egyptian literature, in terms of content, either praised the gods, or sang about love, or explored adventures, or pursued justice, in short, maintaining human ethics, and the victory of justice over evil is the literary theme.
In Egypt's relatively peaceful world, it is impossible to have such a ups and downs and imposing epic work in the field of literature.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most outstanding works in the literature of the Two Rivers Valley, and the entire epic is contained in a clay tablet, in total. From the structural point of view, it is divided into two parts: the preface and the main text.
The preface mainly describes the hero Gilgamesh and his deeds. Gilgamesh was king of Uruk, and the gods created his perfect body, endowed him with beauty, wisdom, bravery, and gave him all the perfect qualities of the world. The text can be divided into parts according to the development of the plot, telling the legendary story of the life of the hero Gilgamesh.
The epic reflects the impermanent changes of life in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians and Akkadians had a rich imagination and loved to tell stories of their gods and heroes.
In architecture, the pyramids, tombs, temples and statues of their gods and kings of the Egyptians were made of hard stone. These megalithic materials were not difficult to find in ancient Egypt.
Along the Nile, there are rich stones such as granite and limestone, so they can use megalithic culture to express their idea of pursuing eternity. The Egyptians carved the hieroglyphs they invented into stone with knives, because it was impossible for Egypt's desert environment to write words or drawings on sandy soil.
The boulder is hard and delicate, and can be polished into various stone tablets and statues with a chisel, and at the same time can be preserved for a long time, not afraid of wind and rain, suitable for expressing the Egyptians' desire for eternity. The stones that the Egyptians used to build pyramids and temples were called "benzene stones" and were produced in a quarry called Tula.
Egypt not only produced such hard boulders, but also the convenient transportation of the Nile and the giant solar boat invented by the Egyptians also created conditions for carrying such boulders. Governed by religious ideas, the Egyptians created a magnificent art and megalithic culture that has survived to this day.
Egyptians want the world to be orderly, and hope that the gods will bless the wind and rain and social justice. The Egyptian religion worships nature, and various animals, such as cattle, tigers, crocodiles, cats, etc., are the objects of worship.
The thinking of the Egyptians did not develop to the stage of abstract thinking, and the way of spreading religion had to adapt to the characteristics of the figurative thinking of the Egyptians, so the Egyptian pharaohs not only built magnificent pyramids and temple buildings, but also erected huge obelisks to promote theocracy and kingship, and carved colossi of pharaohs, animals and gods to spread religious ideas.
So the art of the Egyptians was not meant to display masterpieces of the artist's inspiration, but at the service of religion. Egyptian craftsmen, whether painters or architects, were reverent, proud of God's service, and threw themselves into their work. They consider their work sacred and proud of it.
Egyptian artists are working for eternity, and all Egyptians use the assumption that everything is unchanged as the basis of life.
The two river basins are different. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers do not rise and fall regularly and rhythmically like the Nile, but are "moody".
Babylonian architecture is not like Egypt's use of megaliths, due to the limited conditions, they mainly rely on bricks, Mesopotamians built temples with sun-dried mud bricks that resemble trapezoidal pyramids), temples and palaces, so their towers and temples could not have survived the storm and been preserved as well as the Egyptian pyramids.
The two river basins lacked stone and trees, so Sumerian buildings were built of mud bricks, with no mortar or cement connections between bricks. Mud brick buildings are easily destroyed over time, so Babylon left no great buildings.
Bricks are too fragile to be permanent and noble, but permanence and nobility are necessary conditions for great architecture. In terms of the level of craftsmanship of both sides, the level of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was comparable to that of their western neighbor, the Egyptians.