Download Geography of Ancient Mesopotamia

GEOGRAPHY OF
ANCIENT
MESOPOTAMIA
Ms. Berry
6th Grade
Social Studies
Essential Question:
• How does geography of an area affect where people lived
in the past and today?
Warm Up:
• What did early civilizations have to
have in order to survive?
Let’s Pretend…
• You are an archeologist, a person who studies past
human life based on items people leave behind.
• Your job is to excavate, uncover by digging a special site.
• If you are lucky, you will uncover artifacts, objects made
by humans.
Mesopotamia: The Land between Two
Rivers
• Fertile Crescent is shaped like a crescent moon.
• The land is very fertile; it has rich soil good for growing
food.
• Two rivers that cut through this land are the Tigris and the
Euphrates.
• The north is a plateau, a high flat area of land
• The south is an alluvial plain, low flat area of land formed
from fine soils deposited by rivers.
Working with Water
• The rivers played an important role in the development of
the civilizations.
• The climate is hot and dry and the rivers were
unpredictable and flooded often.
• Both rivers began in the Taurus Mountains and flow into
the Persian Gulf.
• The two rivers often flooded and left behind a layer of silt;
a rich fertile mixture of rocks and soil left after flood waters
go back down.
Benefits of Irrigation
• However, there were often droughts; long times with little
or no rain.
• Farmers were forced to develop a system of irrigation; a
system of canals, ditches, dams, and dykes to move
water to dry areas.
• Irrigation helped farmers prevent and control flooding.
• Early settlers would often lose entire crops to floods.
What made early settlement possible?
• Fertile soil or silt near rivers
• Water for drinking and growing crops
• Farmers were able to use irrigation systems to control
flooding of rivers
Geography: Map of Mesopotamia
• Label the following:
• Bodies of Water• Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Black Sea, Caspian
Sea
• Mountains• Taurus Mountains, Zagros Mountains
• Deserts• Syrian Desert
• Rivers• Tigris River, Euphrates River
• Cities• Ur and Babylon
Geography of Mesopotamia:
• Once you have finished labeling, and you have had your
map checked, you may color your map.
• Color lightly enough to read your labels and make sure
your work is neat.
• Rivers and bodies of water should be blue
• Desert should be yellow
• Mountains should be brown
• Fertile Crescent should be green
Questions?