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Mesopotamia Study Guide
Vocabulary Terms to Know
Mesopotamia
Floodplain
Silt
Semiarid
Drought
Surplus
Civilization
Sumer
City-State
Ziggurat
Polytheism
King
Bronze
Pictograph
Stylus
Cuneiform
Scribe
Empire
Emperor
Fertile Crescent
Hammurabi
Code of Law
Justice
Directions: Using all of your resources from class, respond to the following questions.
Use Chapter 3 and 4 of the textbook if needed.
1.
What were the two rivers surrounding Mesopotamia?
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2. Why was this land called the Fertile Crescent?
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3. Describe how Mesopotamians solve the problem of watering crops?
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4. Besides watering crops, what was another way the system in number 3 was helpful?
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5. What current day country is Mesopotamia located in?
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6. What two inventions did the Mesopotamians create to help move things? Why were these
inventions important and how do they impact our lives today?
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7. What is a ziggurat? What was the purpose of a ziggurat?
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8. What is a city-state?
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9. What does the word surplus mean?
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10. How did food surplus cause division of labor?
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11. What was the name of the Mesopotamian's writing system?
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12. Who did the writing?
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13. Name two tools used to create the writing?
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14. Describe the divisions in society (social classes). Draw the pyramid and then label it.
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15. Who was in charge of a city-state?
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16. Hammurabi was the monarch/king of what city-state?
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17. What was the Code of Hammurabi? Why was it an important landmark for the development of
civilizations?
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18. Why did Hammurabi develop the system of taxation?
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19. How might our understanding of the Sumerians be different if they had never developed writing?
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20. Who was Sargon? Why was he important?
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21. The Mesopotamians were polytheistic. What does polytheistic mean?
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22. What is silt and why was it so important to the Mesopotamians?
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23. What were the effects of extra food?
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24. How did the people of Mesopotamia benefit from the geography of the area?
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25. Be able to explain the empires of Mesopotamia and major achievements of each. (Empires Chart)
EMPIRE
Akkadians
Babylonians
Assyrians
NeoBabylonian
CAPITAL CITY
GREAT LEADER
ACCOMPLISHMENTS