Download Mesopotamia

Chapter 3, Part 1
Mrs. Thompson
8th Grade World History
Over thousands of years, some of the
early farming villages developed in
complex societies called civilizations
CIVILIZATIONS INCLUDE:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Cities
Organized governments
Art
Religion
Class divisions
Writing
Mesopotamian Civilization
What is civilization?
a complex society with cities, an
organized government, art, religion,
a system of writing, and class
divisions
The 1st civilizations arose in river valleys because:
1. Good farming conditions made it easy to
feed large numbers of people.
2. Rivers also made it easy to get from one
place to another and trade.
Trade provided a way for goods and idea
to move from place to place.
The growth of cities led to the
need for organization and the
formation of governments.
Leaders took charge of:
1. Organizing food supplies
2. Building projects
3. Assembling armies
4. Making laws to keep order
People in river valleys began to:
1. Develop religion and the arts
2. Invent ways of writing to pass on
information
3. Create calendars to keep track of planting
seasons
The earliest known
civilization arose in
the Tigris and
Euphrates River
Valley.
The area was called
Mesopotamia and
it was located
where southern
Iraq is today.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is Greek for
“the land between the rivers.”
The area between the Tigris and Euphrates is
also called the Fertile Crescent because
it is a curving strip of land that extends from
the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf
The Ancient Fertile Crescent
Area
The Middle East: “The Cradle of Civilization”
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia had a hot, dry climate and
depended on the flooding of the rivers to
provide water for farming.
The flooding was very unpredictable, so the
farmers believed they needed gods to help
them.
Eventually farmers learned to build dams
and channels for irrigation to water their
crops.
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/geography/challenge/cha_set.html
Try your luck at being a farmer in ancient
Mesopotamia!!
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/g
eography/challenge/cha_set.html
Mesopotamian Civilization
What effect did irrigation have on
the people of Mesopotamia?
Irrigation allowed farmers to grow
plenty of food. More food meant
more people could be fed, so the
population grew.
Sumerians
By 3000 B.C.
many cities had
formed in
Mesopotamia in
a region called
Sumer
What were CityStates?
Sumerian cities were
isolated from each
other by geography and
each had their own
government.
Sometimes the cities of
Sumer went to war with
one another.
What were City-States?
Sumerians built walls around their
cities from river mud mixed with
crushed reeds to form sun-dried bricks.
They also built homes, temples, and
public buildings from sun-dried bricks.
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/ziggurats/challenge/cha_set.html
Gods and Rulers
Sumerian Religion – Polytheistic or belief
in many gods or “deities”
Enki
Innana
The Annunaki
Gods and Rulers
Sumerians believed in many gods,
each thought to have power over a
natural force or human activity. This
is called polythetheism
For example: flooding
To please their gods, Sumerians
built grand temples called ziggurats
to the chief god.
Ziggurat at Ur
§ Temple
§ “Mountain
of
the Gods”
§ Ziggurat means
“mountain of gold” or
“hill of heaven.”
At the top of the ziggurat was a
shrine where priests and
priestesses could enter and pray
to the gods.
Priests and priestesses were
powerful, controlled much of
the land, and may have been
rulers.
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/challenge/cha_set.html
Eventually, war-hero kings took control
of the government and made their
position hereditary.
Hereditary means that the oldest male
inherits the right to rule.
Sumerian kings lived in large palaces
while the ordinary people lived in small
mud-brick houses.
Most people in Sumer
farmed but some were
artisans who made metal
products, cloth, or
pottery.
Sumerian traders and
merchants traded tools,
wheat, and barley to
other cities in exchange
for copper, tin, and
timber.
Mesopotamian Harp
Sophisticated Metallurgy
Skills
in Mesopotamia
Board Game From Ur
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/chall
enge/cha_set.html
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/c
hallenge/cha_set.html
People in Sumer were divided into
3 social classes:
1) The upper class included kings, priests, and
government officials.
2) The middle class included artisans, merchants,
farmers, and fishers. It was the largest group.
3) The lower class included enslaved people who
worked on farms or in the temples.
Enslaved people were forced to serve
others and were thought of as property.
People who were slaves usually were:
1. Prisoners of war
2. Criminals
3. Debtors
In Sumer, men and women had
separate roles:
Only men attended school and
they headed households.
Women had rights, could buy and
sell property, and could run
businesses.