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WH9 Claussen
Mesopotamia and Gilgamesh
Mesopotamia
1. Use your textbook p. 30 to label the following:
Shade in the Fertile
Crescent
Persian Gulf
Tigris River
Nile River
Red Sea (Shade blue)
Caspian Sea (Shade blue)
Anatolia (Asia Minor)
Ur
Euphrates River
Egypt
Mediterranean Sea
(Shade blue)
Black Sea (Shade blue)
Arabian Desert
Persian Gulf (Shade blue)
Taurus Mountains
2. Use arrows to label the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
3. Through which present day countries do the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run?
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What were the geographic challenges faced by the civilizations that
developed in Mesopotamia?
In what ways was religion shaped by the geography of Mesopotamia?
Polytheism -
Excerpt from a Sumerian Psalm
Prayer was my rule, sacrificing my law,
The day of worship of my god my joy,
The day of devotion to my gods my
profit and gain.
What, however, seems good to one,
to a god may be displeasing;
What is spurned by oneself may find
favor with a god.
Who is there who can grasp the will
of the gods of heaven?
The plan of a god is full of mystery
– who can understand it?
How can mortals learn the ways of
a god?
He who is still alive at evening is
dead the next morning;
In an instant he is cast into grief, of a
sudden he is crushed;
This moment he sings and plays, in a
twinkling he wails like a mourner
1. According to the psalm, what kind of
relationship do the people of Sumer have
with their gods? Support your answer
with specific passages from the poem.
Excerpt from The Epic of Gilgamesh
In the selection below Enkidu, tells Gilgamesh of a vision he has had of “the land of no
return.”
There in the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat.
They are clothed like birds with wings for covering, they see no light, they sit in darkness…
What is the “land of no return”?
What does document tell us about “the land of no return?”
Standing Male Worshipper
Ziggurat of Ur
In what ways was religion shaped by the geography of Mesopotamia?
The Erosion of Equality: Hierarchies of Class
In what ways was social inequality expressed in early civilization?
Hammurabi’s Code -
excerpt from Hammurabi’s Code
PERSONAL INJURY
195. If a son strikes his father, his hands shall be cut off.
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
198. If he put out the eye of a peasant, or break the bone of a peasant, he shall pay one
gold mina.
199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall
pay one-half of its value.
MARRIGAGE AND THE FAMILY
129. If the wife of a man is found lying with another male, they shall be bound and
thrown into the water. If the husband lets his wife live, then the king shall let his
servant1 live.
148. If a man has married a wife, and sickness has seized her, and he has decided to
marry another, he may marry, but his wife whom the sickness has seized he shall not
divorce. She shall dwell in this house he has built, and he shall support her while she
lives.
What was the role of government in ancient Mesopotamia?