Download Mesopotamia - Mrs. Sullivan

Mesopotamia
Earliest Civilization
Mesopotamia
• Mesopotamia and Egypt are believed to be
the world’s first civilizations.
• Mesopotamia (between rivers) is the
territory located between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq.
A Civilization
• A large urban center with a population of
tens of thousands of people.
• These people had different jobs resulting in
specialized labor.
• Initially scholars believed a civilization had
to have a system of writing, but over time
this belief has changed.
Early Mesopotamia
• Land was harsh and hard to farm.
• Euphrates and Tigris rivers flooded often
during the early summer.
• Farmers developed an irrigation system
• Farmers settled into the lower
Mesopotamian plain between 6000 – 5000
BCE.
Early Mesopotamia Cont’d.
• Early villages were small.
• By 4000 BCE, villages grew to over 10,000
people.
• City states began to develop as well.
• A city-state had a ruler governed both urban
center and surrounding countryside.
King of City-State
• King of city-state was intermediary between
gods and people.
• King consulted with the gods, temple
priests, and people of prominent families.
• Sumerians were polytheistic – believing in
many gods.
• The gods managed the environment.
Ziggurat
• Located within a city-state.
• Ziggurat is a platform or terrace upon which
temples for the gods were placed.
Sumerians
• Sumer, the area of Southern Mesopotamia, is believed to
be where world’s first writing system originated.
• Initially, Sumerians wrote on clay tablets with a stylus.
• Around 3300, clay tablets had pictures on them
representing different animals.
• Next to animals would be tally markings
• Eventually, a writing system with over 700 signs emerged.
• By 700 BCE, a phonetic system had developed.
• Later Sumerian writing was known as cuneiform.
• Cuneiform is the Latin term for “wedge shaped.”