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Theirs was a difficult and sad afterlife and, in many ways, an insecure, nervous, and gloomy mythology. It is possible to understand this as a reflection of their lives: The ancient Sumerians and Akkadians lived with those fierce, difficult rivers, the constant tensions between ­ city-­states and raids from nomads and other peoples. It was even a difficult ­landscape—­flat, treeless, brutally hot and dry, punctuated by windstorms, floods, and drought. It was a culture whose natural resources were mud and ingenuity, and not much else.

The food that comes from an udder is the milk given to a baby. Milk made into butter or cheese was also a source of protein for the Mesopotamian people. Many things ­ could—­and ­ did—­go wrong with crops, animals, and people, including floods or droughts, illnesses that seemed to come from nowhere (other illnesses could be recognized and dealt with), plagues of locusts, and invasions. There simply were a lot of things that were not in human control. The Mesopotamians understood that there were ways in which they were not masters of their fate.

Tribal peoples have produced complex and beautiful artworks, as well as caring for people who could not collect food for themselves. So, although the concept of the “cradle of civilization” is exciting, we should not lose sight of how ­wrong—­or brutal—“civilized” peoples have been to tribal ones. Mesopotamia: “The Cradle of Civilization” wrote tell us about their history: a list of kings, laws, ­instructions on how to plan a battle, the poetry that was written when a city was invaded. The People and the Gods The history we need to know to understand Hammurabi and his world begins very early.