Download Name_________________ Ancient Mesopotamia Directions: First

Name_____________________________________Date_______________Core___________
Ancient Mesopotamia
Directions: First read each paragraph using talk to the text.
Make your annotations on the page.
Remember to make connections, ask questions and be honest with what you do not know.
after you have read and talked to the text answer the questions in the right column.
The First Farmers
1. How did people live before
By 10,000 BC humans had settled on all the continents
except Antarctica.
Then
they learned to farm?
These early people were living as hunter-
gathers following the herds of animals from place to place.
Only groups of about 30 people could live together because it
was not possible to find enough food to feed more people.
They were never able to stay in the same place for very long
because they needed to keep moving to find enough food to
eat.
Their life was very hard and the lack of easily available
food meant the population of the world stayed low.
Around 9000 BC some people living in the Fertile
Crescent in the Middle East discovered they could save some
of the wild plant seeds they gathered and plant them to have
food to eat once the seeds matured.
2. How did people first learn to
farm?
These people learned to
stay to protect their crop instead of constantly moving in search
of food.
These were the first farmers in the world.
The very
first places in the world that we know people farmed and lived
in villages of about 1000 people are Jericho (in Palestine) and
Catal Huyuk (in Turkey.)
The first civilization we know about
began in an area in modern day Iraq along the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers.
This area came to be known as
Mesopotamia which means ‘land between the rivers.”
The
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin in Turkey and bring rich silt
to the river valley when they flood.
Mesopotamians to grow extra food.
This rich soil allowed the
This food surplus allowed
great changes in the way people lived.
3. Why was the Fertile Crescent
a good location for the first
farmers?
Sumerian Daily Life
4. What did Sumerians farm?
Many different groups settled in Mesopotamia, but the first group
to develop an advanced civilization were called the Sumerians
(from an area called Sumer.)
barley, wheat, lentils and peas.
and sheep for meat and milk.
Early Sumerian farmers grew
They learned to keep goats
By 4500 BC Sumerians invented
the plow and used oxen to pull their plows.
Sumerians had learned to use irrigation.
By 4000 BC the
They dug ditches to
use water from the rivers to help water their crops.
5. How did farming lead to the
development of villages?
The use
advanced methods of farming such as the plow and irrigation
along with the fertile soil allowed the Sumerians to grow a
surplus of food.
This surplus allowed the population to grow.
Since more food was available to farms than hunter-gatherers,
larger numbers of people could live together.
Villages
developed where people lived together and farmed the
surrounding land.
With extra food being grown and more people living together in
villages, people began to be able to specialize.
The craftsmen
6. How did farming and living in
villages lead to specialization?
who made the tools, warriors, and leaders could live in villages
but not have to farm to eat.
Specialization lead to social
classes that were based on the specialized jobs.
priests, and warriors became higher social classes.
Leaders,
Specialized
workers became more skilled because they could focus on one
certain job instead of having to do all the jobs.
Workers that
had certain skills came to be a higher social class than
laborers.
Sumerian workers made obsidian tools, pottery and
wheeled carts.
tools.
By 3500 BC Sumerians made the first Bronze
7. What tools did Sumerians
use?
Over time city-states led by kings developed in Sumer.
These
8. What is a city-state?
city states had certain laws and governed the area around the
city.
Sumerians began using silver as money.
Taxes were
paid to the government of each city-state to help build public
buildings, city walls, etc.
Each city had a temple called a
ziggurat built and run by the government of the city.
Taxes
also paid the government workers, warriors, and priests.
were used by city-states to work the farm fields.
Sumerian cities grew to 10,000 or more people.
Slaves
Early
Sumerian Achievements
One major achievement the Sumerians developed was writing.
Written records from as early as 3500 BC have been found.
9. What things did Sumerian citystate governments do?
The city-state governments needed to keep a record of how
much food was grown, who owned what property, and many
other things.
Early writing was mostly pictures stamped in wet
clay that was then allowed to dry and harden.
A seal, like a
stamp, was used to represent certain people or items.
Over
time, different language sounds became alphabets with letters to
write out words.
Sumerians used cut reeds (from plant stems)
shaped like a wedge to write.
tablets in a certain pattern.
cuneiform.
write.
The reed was pushed into clay
This type of writing is known as
Scribes went to special schools to learn how to
By 3500 BC Sumer was an advanced civilization with cities,
10. How do Mesopotamian
temples and homes.
show they were an advanced
governments, specialized jobs, and writing.
Art was found in
Statues of their gods and painted scenes
on walls were common.
Mesopotamians studies the movement
of the sun and stars to help them know when to plant and
harvest crops.
ago!
They charted constellations of stars 5000 years
Ancient Mesopotamian math is still found in some of the
numbers we use today.
The Mesopotamians used the same
numbers we do to describe time.
Their year had 12 months,
their hour had 60 minutes and their day had 24 hours.
used 360 to describe the number of degrees in a circle.
They
advances in art, science, and math
civilization?
Other Ancient Mesopotamians
11. How did Sargon I effect
Mesopotamia?
Around 2350 BC Sumer was conquered by a group called
the Akkadians.
in 2350 BC.
Sargon I from the city of Akkad conquered Sumer
He went on to conquer all of Mesopotamia and
created the world’s first empire.
When the Akkadian Empire fell
around 1800 BC two other groups called the Assyrians and the
Babylonians took over.
These two groups controlled Mesopotamia
for the next 1300 years until the Persians conquered in 529 BC.
12. How did Hammurabi improve
One important Babylonian king was named Hammurabi.
set up a government with laws, courts and judges.
laws were the first set of written laws in the world.
set of laws Hammurabi’s Code.
Hammurabi
Mesopotamian life?
Hammurabi’s
We call this
Hammurabi’s Code lists 282 things
people can do wrong and the punishments.
Hammurabi’s Code
also lists what justice will be offered to people who are hurt by
others.
Some of the punishments seem cruel to us today and the
punishments are different depending on whether the victim was a
man, woman, or slave which seems unfair to us today.
There
are even punishments for people who falsely accuse somebody of
a crime.
Hammurabi’s code was carved into stones called stele
which were put up all over his empire.
Use separate paper to do the following.
13. Create a timeline of the events mentioned in this reading.
14. Create a tree map describing the parts of Mesopotamian civilization
15. Pick one of the “firsts” mentioned in this reading.
written laws, etc.)
(bronze tools, the wheel. the plow, farming,
Create an advertisement or cartoon describing why this is an important “first.”