Download Mesopotamian Civilization Section 2

Resources for Civilization, Achievements, and Empires
Tigris &
Euphrates
Rivers
 Boundaries of
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Mesopotamia
SE Asia
Inside the Fertile
Crescent
Unpredictable
flooding
water resource for
trade/transportation,
fishing, freshwater,
farming
irrigation
 Supplying dry land with
water
 Canals
 Ditches
 Dams
 Reservoirs
Mesopotamia
 “Land between the
rivers” in Greek language
 Very fertile
 Made up of many citystates
Sumer
 SE region of
Mesopotamia
 Flat land
 Many successful citystates located in this
region
 Sumerians invented
many things we still use
today.
City-state
 a city surrounded by
walls
 with farmland on the
outside
 ex. - Babylon, Ur, Uruk,
Nippur, Akkad
 had separate
governments
polytheism
 Belief in many gods
 Started as a way to
explain events in nature
Ziggurat
 Religious temple to city-
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
state’s most important
god
Multi-layered mudbrick
Located in center of citystate
People left offerings
Priests in charge
Cuneiform
 Wedge-shaped writing
system
 On clay with a stylus
 Written by scribes
 Invented to keep track of
records
 trade & government
 Sumerian achievement
Sargon
 Akkadian king (city of
Akkad)
 Conquered all of
Mesopotamia
 created world’s first
empire
 United all of Meso.
under one rule
Hammurabi
 Hammurabi’s Code of
Law
 282 laws
 Governed every aspect
of life
 “eye for an eye”
 Fair within same social
classes