Ancient Mesopotamia

I'm breaking this up into two posts. The first is more general information on the time and social structure, the second post will be about the actual dress. I tried to highlight important facts about trade and agriculture to give you an idea of how all of this information affects the costume. I've started citations at the bottom of this post but further citations will be included in the next one.

Enjoy!

In the Beginning…

I’ve decided that the best place to start is with the dawn of civilization. The toughest period to research costume and I’m going to attempt to make the information as accessible as possible. To do this you’ll need to understand culture, historic context, and geography. I wish it were possible to start further back but before written language as communication there’s very little to go off of besides cave paintings…which don’t exactly give detailed depictions of the day to day dress of the average caveman.

Everything started in the Middle East as I’m sure you remember from history classes in grade school. Geographically speaking we’re talking the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, referred to as Messopotamia (which by definition means “between two rivers” in Ancient Greek). The civilizations that thrived in this fertile area were Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer. Today it consists of Iraq and Syria.

Now--It’s important to understand how much geography affects fashion. It relates directly to what resources are available—for instance what animals might thrive there, what metals and stones are available for jewelry, and most importantly the climate. If 100 degrees is a cool day then obviously heavy wool coats won’t be fashionable. On that note, Mesopotamia is specifically divided into two distinct areas. Northern Mesopotamia consists of hills and plains. The land is fertile—so of course we can expect to see more natural materials, and agriculture was therefore a big resource for the early settlers as well as metals and stones from the mountains. Southern Mesopotamia is marshy with barren plains. There irrigation was a necessity so that the waters from the rivers could aid their crops in growing. They did not have much in the way of natural resources so trade was important. This is also a hint of why warfare was a regular aspect of early cultures. What you can’t grow for yourself you can take from others, so to speak.

Culture

There were four classes of people in Ancient Sumeria and onward. These were nobility, free men, the poor—who had little personal property, and slaves who had no property at all. Free men were artisans, craftsmen and tradesmen, as well as lower public officials. The poor consisted of farmers. There were few slaves in the culture in Sumeria but in Babylonia they became vital to the scheme of things. Families were led by the father who could in a free man’s home sell his wife, children or even adopted children into slavery to cover his debts. He would marry, likely for economic reasons. He would have a principle wife and often would have concubines as well. The society was male oriented, but women were protected economically if their husbands died.

Mythology

The Mesopotamian mythology is a web of different myths mixing is way through each of the nations inhabiting the region over thousands of years. Each story has multiple versions. This is the sort of thing that immensely interests me but isn’t entirely applicable to the costume history story, so I’ll just recommend you view this site http://www.ancient-mythology.com/mesopotamian/ if you want to learn more. Also The Epic of Gilgamesh includes in it stories that allegedly inspired the stories in the Torah/Old Testament. Go my intellectuals, read! http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/

History

Now that we have an idea of where we are, I’ll give you an idea of when. Think six thousand plus years ago. This will be broken down by civilization. I’m going to expand on the history, and finally incorporate research on costume history. I’ll be brief so we can get onto the costume facts. The Sumerians (3500-2500 BCE) founded the first cities in Mesopotamia. They were considered city-states and while they were self-sufficient, they never gained much strength and were easily overtaken by the Akkadians from the north and then the Amorites from the west. These people established the Babylonian empire and created an autocratic state which cemented the stability of the government in the region for a thousand years. The power of Babylon soon waned and seeing their chance the Assyrians invaded. Their military technology was advanced with iron swords and a standing army of great proportion. For a short time the Chaldeans took over and ruled Babylon until the Persians took over in 539 BCE. This is when the famous hanging gardens were built.

Trade

I’m not going to get into everything trade related in this section. Instead I’ll focus on the costume-related resources. While parts of Mesopotamia are lush and fertile, crops and flocks were the limit of resources for the area. They traded their fabrics, oils and grain (all crop based) for shells, precious metals and stones. Among these items were lapis lazuli, a beautiful deep blue stone used in art and jewelry, an item considered more valuable than gold. This they got from trading with Egypt. They also gained red Carnelian beads, quartz and turquoise. As far as metals go, they traded for silver, gold, but until the Assyrians never got so far as bronze or iron.

Textiles

As your imagination has probably led you to believe, at the very beginning animal skins were the chief material in clothing. Sheep skins were used, the skin turned inside and the wooly side out and combed into tufts for decoration. Animal hairs and general wool later came into use for cloth fabrication. Cotton didn’t come into the picture until much later, about 700 BCE and silk shows up even later. Wool was in fact the chief fabric. The Bible and Torah’s consistent reference to the shepherds is based in the fact that this part of the world, allegedly the location of the dawn of humanity, is to this day a very pastoral country. The methods of weaving wool were so complicated that a weaver’s apprentice would study for five years. That’s practically a college degree! Women would spin and weave the wool and men would dye and finish the fabric. Women were trusted to oversee the production of fabric while men went away to trade. References to linen in first hand sources are few in comparison to the mention of wool. Among their crops could be found flax as well, the stem used for the production of cloth including linen, as well as net.

The British Museum.  Mesopotamia.  .  07-29-2011 .

.  Ancient Mesopotamians.  .  8-7-2011 .

Fodham University.  The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook.  .  8-7-2011 .