Download Ancient Mesopotamia Study Guide

Unit 2: Ancient Mesopotamia
Study Guide
Unit Vocabulary:
1. Mesopotamia - a Greek word meaning between the rivers; Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
2. Fertile Crescent - a large arc of rich, or fertile farmland from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea
3. Silt – a mixture of rich soil and tiny rocks
4. Irrigation – a way of supplying water to an area of land
5. Division of Labor – workers specialize in a particular task or job
6. Canals – human-made waterways
7. Surplus - more than needed
8. Urban - city
9. Rural - countryside
10. City-state – a city and all the countryside around it
11. Sargon – the world’s first emperor; the first ruler to have a permanent army
12. Empire - land with different territories and people under a single ruler
13. Priests – people who performed religious ceremonies
14. Polytheism – the worship of many gods
15. Social Hierarchy – the division of society by rank and/or class
16. Cuneiform – the world’s first system of writing
17. Scribe – a writer
18. Epic – long poems that tell stories of heroes
19. Architecture – the science of building
20. Hammurabi’s Code – a set of 282 laws that dealt with almost every part of daily life; the earliest known written
collection of laws
21. Alphabet – a set of letters than can be combined to form words
Unit Essential Questions:
1. What geographic features are beneficial to the formation of a civilization?
2. How was irrigation important to ancient human civilizations?
3. Why is agriculture important to civilizations?
4. What about the geography of Mesopotamia best explains why civilizations began in that area?
5. How did division of labor aid help Mesopotamian society to advance at a more rapid speed?
6. What tactics did Sargon use in order to successfully establish his empire in Mesopotamia?
7. Why did the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia value religion within their societies?
8. Identify examples of Mesopotamian inventions that would have allowed them to increase and be more successful at
trading with other cultures.
9. Identify examples of Mesopotamian inventions that would have aided them in improving their agricultural
production.
10. Why was Hammurabi’s Code important to the development of government within human societies?