Download Essential Vocabulary - Mesopotamia – List One

Essential Vocabulary - Mesopotamia – List One
1.
Fertile Crescent
Large “arc” of rich fertile farmland that extended from the
Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. This area stretched
through the Tigris-Euphrates Valley (where the two rivers are).
2. Civilization
The society, culture and way of life for a particular area. The be a
civilization, a society has reached the advanced stages of
organization and development.
3. Mesopotamia
“The Land between the Rivers”
Mesopotamia was the world’s first civilization and is PART of the
Fertile Crescent. Mesopotamia is also referred to as the “cradle
of civilization”.
4. Fertile
Fertile soil or land is able to produce an abundant (or large)
amount of vegetation or crops.
5. Silt
Finely ground fertile soil that is good for growing crops. Land
along rivers have rich soil good for farming because of the
deposits of silt. Annual (yearly) flooding deposited silt from the
rivers to the riverbanks.
6. Expansion of Societies
The growth of a society in economics and culture.
7. Economics
A kind of “social science” that describes the production of goods
and services, the consumption of goods and services and how
these goods and services are distributed. Growth in economics
contributes to the wealth of a society.
8. Agricultural Revolution
Simply put, this means to live in more advanced ways by
producing your own food, using the land and the animals.
10,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia, the people began to
domesticate (or tame) animals to help them with living. Instead
of just hunting and gathering food from the wild, the people
raised sheep for wool and grew crops to sustain their lives.
9. Token System
A system developed in Mesopotamia to record trade and keep
accounts or records of things that were traded. Tokens were
usually made of clay, but some were stone. These clay tokens
were used to represent individual commodities (products that
were bought or sold). Eventually markings were used on the
tokens which led to pictographic writing.
10. Sumerian Civilization
The Sumerians were the first people to migrate to
Mesopotamia, they created a great civilization. Beginning
around 5,500 years ago, the Sumerians built cities along the
rivers in Lower Mesopotamia, specialized, cooperated, and
made many advances in technology. The wheel, plow, and
writing (a system which we call cuneiform) are examples of their
achievements.
11. ziggurat
The Sumerians had a common language and believed in the
same gods and goddesses. The belief in more than one god is
called polytheism. There were seven great city-states, each with
its own king and a building called a ziggurat, a large pyramid-
shaped building with a temple at the top, dedicated to a
Sumerian deity. Although the Sumerian city-states had much
in common, they fought for control of the river water, a valuable
resource. Each city-state needed an army to protect itself from
its neighbors
A typical Sumerian city-state, notice the ziggurat, the tallest building in the city.