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Mesopotamia Unit Name : _______________________________ Period: _____________ Slide: Where did human society begin? 1. 2. Slide: The Fertile Crescent How does your environment impact your life? All ___________________ ______________ are shaped in some way by the environment around them. The term Mesopotamia itself refers most often to a geographical area, that of the “Land Between the Rivers:” an area which covers modern ______________________ and the north and northeastern part of modern ______________________. Slide: People of Mesopotamia The term___________________ refers not only to a ___________________ area, but also to a period of history that lasted for more than ___________years. This region is part of the __________________ ____________________, a term describing the arc of fertile land stretching from the top of the Persian Gulf all the way to the Nile River of Egypt. Mesopotamia was a “___________________” of cultures, social structures, religious traditions, and at times, polities or political groups. Although we use these terms today, remember, the actual Mesopotamians didn’t. There was uniformity of things Mesopotamian *the long-time use of the same ____________________ _____________, the duration of the same city features, royal _____________________, mythology and literature, and so forth. Just like highways in America make towns pop up around off-ramps, two major rivers made _______________________ a booming area. “Mesopotamian” was a person who participated in Mesopotamian religions, __________________________, social organizations, _____________, and culture. Slide: Tigris and Euphrates The _______________ and ________________ rivers provided good land for crops and easy _________________________. The rivers started in the north of Mesopotamia in modern _____________________, flowing southward to the Persian Gulf. The rivers were vital for transporting _______________and ____________________ and remained so even after the ____________________________ of the camel. Slide: Canals and Irrigation The term Fertile Crescent makes one think this entire area was a ________________ _______________, but don’t forget that this was also a desert region with widely different environments. Southern Mesopotamia did not receive enough ___________________________for rain-fed agriculture and farming. The southern areas depended completely upon successful __________________________. Irrigation allowed southern Mesopotamia to become the agricultural center of the ancient Near East; some scholars have even called it a “_________________-_________________.” Using the rivers to the fullest, the southern Mesopotamians carved massive ____________________________ into the landscape to channel river waters into their huge farmlands. Slide: Farming the Desert Those who live near water, cringe when they hear the “F” word— Flooding. Even though this canal system allowed for the development of Mesopotamian civilization, it was not without big problems. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers could be _______________________and ________________________, causing surprise and disastrous floods. Another problem was ____________________, or the gradual deposit of ______________onto fields. Over time, fields became too saline and many types of crops would not be able to absorb _____________________, failing to grow. Fields had to be left __________________ if they were to recover. The result of these disasters could be devastating to communities and probably contributed to the generally ________________ (or negative) outlook that the Mesopotamians had. Slide: International Trade The _________________________and __________________________Rivers served as lifelines for Mesopotamia. They were vital for getting ____________________ in and out of the area. The most notable products of Mesopotamian economy were __________________ and ________________________. *Wool was made into _________________, which was often dyed and used as _____________________ and a selection of both practical and luxury items. *Grain was used for feeding ______________ and _____________________________, for whom it was made into breads and beer. Both textiles and grains were exported out of Mesopotamia to neighboring societies in exchange for the _____________________that Mesopotamia lacked: large, monumental ________________________, precious____________________, and large, sturdy ________________________. Precious stones and metals had to be imported to the ancient Mesopotamians. *They were considered symbols of royal __________________ and ________________. Name: _________________________________ Period: _________________ Notes 2 Slide: Cities Mesopotamian cities may not have had subways, but they had ___________________ _________________ that kept them thriving. In ancient Mesopotamia, cities were places of _____________________, ______________, and points of _______________________life. Cities had many ________________________ located near, or even, inside the city walls. They also housed craft _________________ and ______________________________. Slide: Mud Bricks Not only was there water, ________________ everywhere near Mesopotamian cities, but there was _______________ in abundance. Most cities had massive, mud-brick __________ with __________________________. The walls did not necessarily define the ____________________ of the city, they served a ___________________ and ___________________________purpose. It has long been pointed out that these walls symbolized the _____________________ __________________________among Mesopotamian cities and foreign enemies. As places of high _________________, gates were also places of _______________activity and sometimes markets. Instead of meeting friends at a particular building one might meet at a _____________or ____________________. The walls were ___________________, conspicuous ________________of the king’s _______________________ over the city, and they could be seen on the horizon from miles away. Slide: Ziggurats All Mesopotamian cities owe their _______________________ to the mud-brick. The marshy banks of the rivers in Mesopotamia provided ______________, which was used throughout Mesopotamian history to make ___________-________________. The bricks could be ___________________or ___________________, depending on their purpose Slide: Walls and Gates With loads of bricks laying around, Mesopotamian ___________________and ______________________could get creative. Walls and gates weren’t the only massive ____________________________ structures in town. In early Mesopotamia, monumental buildings __________________ the inner part of cities: _______________ sprawled the city centers while _________________ governed city skylines. Ziggurats were ____________________________ structures built of mudbrick, which would have been painted or glazed with bright colors. They were usually located in the center of the gods’ _____________________, and were perhaps meant to symbolize __________________, the birthplace of gods. Ziggurats were ________________in the center and did not contain interior rooms. What the Mesopotamians did atop ziggurats remains unclear, but they were certainly used for ___________________rituals of some kind. Slide: Palaces Palaces served as private spaces for the_________________ family, but were also housed ________________, _______________, and craft workshops. One of the most famous and better-preserved Mesopotamian _________________ comes from the city of Mari. It was a wonder of the world, decorated with murals, statues, and even palm trees. The palace had almost 300 rooms, including _________________, workshops, storerooms, ____________, archive rooms, private residential quarters, a _______________ room, and more. These rooms were oriented around two great ________________________, the larger of which served an audience hall for the king where he could __________________, ___________________, and impress his guests. The palace was in fact so __________________ that rival kings ordered their messengers to bring them reports about its splendor. Slide: Uruk Important in mythology and real life, the city of ___________________is one of the first cities in Mesopotamia. It was a huge city with two main areas or precincts. Uruk’s size is still recognizable today even though it’s in ruins and hidden by the desert. One precinct was called ________________, where there was a temple complex for the goddess ________________ (who was the chief goddess of Uruk) and a ziggurat. These buildings were beautifully decorated with painted ___________ _____________mosaics. The other precinct, __________, also contained large buildings and was named for the god____. Also, notice that the name Uruk sounds almost like the modern-day name ____________which makes some believe that the term “Iraq” may have come from “Uruk”. Slide: Nineveh Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik) is undoubtedly one of the most ___________________ ancient Mesopotamian cities. It was famous in the ancient world as well as today. It even appears in the _________ _____________ of the Bible. Assurbanipal, the ________________ of the great King Sennacherib, built the famous North Palace at Nineveh, which was decorated with a stone _______________ of a lion ___________ – a symbol of kingly ____________ and mastery over ______________________. Nineveh’s dominance and power was forever destroyed when the _________________ and _________________ conspired to end Assyrian domination of northern Mesopotamia in the late 600’s BCE. The impressive palace reliefs and reconstructed remains of the city’s walls still stand today. Name : )________________________________ Period: _____________ Cuneiform Slide: Writing Cuneiform By the first millennium BCE, the signs are so ______________________that they no longer _________________ objects or pictures. Thanks to the Mesopotamians, __________________________ was born. One of the most important __________________ to occur in ancient Mesopotamia, and in human history in general, is the invention of ___________________. Writing systems are means by which a__________________________is expressed. The Mesopotamian writing system, cuneiform, expressed language through signs from the Sumerian and Akkadin language. We have examples of the language in the form of coins, tokens and tablets made of clay. Slide: Writing Cuneiform #2 Cuneiform looks like a kind of ______________ ________________________ writing system. It was a writing system designed for _________________; throughout the 3000 years of its use, cuneiform was written on clay tablets with the use of a _____________ stylus. The earliest signs in cuneiform were ___________________; that is, they looked like the __________________ that they represented. They were in essence a form of _____________ figure artwork. Over time, the signs became more ____________________ and ______________, and at some point rotated 90 degrees on their sides. Slide: Early Accounting Texts Just as today, ____________________and _____________________ items in Mesopotamia required paperwork. The Mesopotamians invented writing to address that field of the economy: ________________________. Around 3300 BCE, people and institutions (such as governments and schools) required ways to ________________and________________ information. The first use of writing was for making _______________________, records of deliveries/accounts, ____________________, donations, and so forth. The numerical system that was used on these accounting texts was so _________________ that modern ___________________ and ____________________ still struggle to understand it completely. Slide: Literature Within a few hundred years of its invention, scribes began to develop other uses for writing, such as writing ______________________. Some of the earliest works in literature, such as stories about the legendary king _________________________. The Flood Story Stories could be saved and added to by each generation. The ________________________ of literature and ______________________ no longer depended on ______________ traditions. The “Babylonian map of the world” is probably the earliest known map in history. The scholarly text on the tablet explains that the map is supposed to be of the entire ___________________, with the city of Babylon as the ________________ and ______________ center of the world. Slide: Writing in Royal Inscriptions Kings understood the___________ writing had. It is likely that most Mesopotamian kings could not _____________or ___________themselves, but they nonetheless _____________________ writing for royal inscriptions. The kings treated writing as a marker of _________________, a means for expressing royal __________________, and even a venue through which they could _________________ with the gods. Writing on stone was strictly a _____________ prerogative in Mesopotamia, and many kings had stones inscribed for building dedications, such as Ur-Namma’s stone figurine and stone tablet. These objects were placed in the exposed foundations of ________________ that were being reconstructed. Since the writing would have been ___________________, to human eyes, it is clear that the _____________inscriptions were meant for the gods to read. Slide: Literacy Most people in ancient Mesopotamia were __________________________and scribal training was __________________exclusively for a small elite. The scribes were educated in ______________. “School” began for the scribes when they were ____________________. An instructor would make tablets with several vertical ____________________ and ______________ the first column with a series of cuneiform signs or phrases, the level of difficulty depending on the student’s degree of understanding and development. The students would then copy the instructor’s signs in the ________________, blank columns. After on completion of this exercise, the instructor _______________off the top layer of clay, thus creating a ______________ slate, and the student copied the signs again presumably until they were _________________________. When a student finished his _________________training, he could either work for everyday people in the ________________________ or for the _____________________.