Download Chapter 2 Section 3: The Legacy of Mesopotamia Study Guide

Chapter 2 Section 3: The Legacy of Mesopotamia
Study Guide
Section 2 Vocabulary
Code
an organized list of laws and rules
Hammurabi
The king of Babylon from about 1792 to 1750B.C.; creator of the Babylonian Empire
Cuneiform
groups of lines and wedges used to write several languages of the Fertile Crescent
Key Idea: Hammurabi created a written code of 282 laws that expressed both expectations and
punishments.
Hammurabi’s Code is the first known organized and recorded set of laws.
 Because the laws were written, all people could know the rules and punishments.
 Rules were organized into categories: trade, labor, property, family.
o There were rules for adopting children, practicing medicine, hiring wagons
and boats, and controlled dangerous animals.
Based on the idea of “an eye for an eye.”
 This means the punishment is similar to the crime.
o Example: If a son should strike his father, his hands shall be hewn (cut) off.
o Example: If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of the class of gentleman, they shall
destroy his eye.
The code did NOT apply equally to all people.
 The punishment depended on how important the victim or lawbreaker was.
o The penalty was harsher if the victim was important in society.
A person who accidentally broke a law was just as guilty as someone who did it on purpose.
 Example: If a person died while being treated by a doctor, the doctor was punished.
Key Idea: A system of writing developed over time.
Writing was developed to keep records.
 Records included trade and sales, tax payments, gifts for gods, and marriages/deaths.
 There were also military and government scribes.
Scribes wrote on clay tablets.
 Clay came from the rivers.
 The size and shape of the tablet depended on the purpose of the writing.
o Large tablets- reference materials kept in libraries
o Small tablets- personal messages to be transported
The first writing, developed in Sumer, was in the form of symbols to represent objects.
Cuneiform-groups of lines and wedges used to write several languages.
 a more flexible system of writing that could represent ideas and facts.
 could represent different languages with groups of wedges and lines.
Ancient writing influenced the writing system of today.
 Symbols set in rows
 Read left to right, top to bottom
 Similar purposes (record keeping, personal messages)