Download Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

Mesopotamia
and Ancient
Egypt
Chapter 10.1
Mesopotamia
 Mesopotamia
= “between the rivers”
 Located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
 Est. roughly around 4500 B.C.
City States
 Each
city was considered to be an
independent country or nation
 Earliest city-states arose in an area called
Sumer (est. 4000 B.C.)
Trivia question: What
person from the Bible was
from the city of UR?
Religion and Government
 At
the center of each city was a ziggurat
 Their
religion was based on Polytheism
 Religious leaders were in charge of the
government (Theocracy)
Sumerians




Invented the wheel and sailboat
First people to keep records and write down laws
Writing system was called Cuneiform (3500B.C)
Believed to have written the first story, Epic of
Gilgamesh (2000 B.C.)
Akkad and Babylon
 Sumer
was taken over around 2300 by the
Akkad kingdom led by King Sargon
 Sargon was the first to create an empire
 Akkadian
empire was then taken over by
Babylon around 1800BC
Akkad and Babylon
 One
of Babylon’s greatest kings was
Hammurabi
 Hammurabi put together one set of laws
for the entire empire called Hammurabi’s
Code
Phoenicians
 Lived
in current day Lebanon (1200B.C.)
 Most important traders of their day

Helped to spread ideas and cultures
around the known world
They are known for
their alphabet
which led to the
Greek, Hebrew,
and Latin alphabet
Ancient Egypt
Chapter 10.1
Egypt
 Egyptian
Nile River
Civilization developed along the
 Originally
was split up into 2 kingdoms
(Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt)
Narmer, King of Upper Egypt,
Conquered Lower Egypt and
united the 2 Kingdoms
Government
 Egypt’s
government was a theocracy,
with the Pharaoh being the leader

Pharaoh was considered a god and
was the center of Egyptian Life
Religion
 Egyptians



believed in many gods
Re= god of the sun
Hapi= god of the Nile
Osiris= god of the harvest
Religion
 Egyptians
believed in the afterlife, and
that the soul could not live without the
body
 Egyptians embalmed and mummified
those who could afford it
Religion
 The
poor were buried in caves or in the
sand
 The
largest tombs belonged to Pharaoh
Great Pyramid of Khufu
Egyptians

Form of writing = hieroglyphics

Developed math based system on the #10

Developed geometry

First to use splints and bandages for wounds

Created clocks