Download mesopotamia study guide

Name ___________________________________________ Date _____________________ Period _____
MESOPOTAMIA STUDY GUIDE
1. What was it about the farmland and where was the water that made crops grow well in Mesopotamia?
2. Which two land features gave Mesopotamia its name?
3. How would you put these into a sequence of events? What happened 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
__ Villages and cities formed __ the population grew __ people settled where crops would grow
1ST _________________________________________
2ND _________________________________________
3RD _________________________________________
4. What is the difference between canals and rivers? (Hint: How are they made & by whom?)
5. Who was among the 1st leaders to have a permanent army?
6. What purpose did the wall around the city serve?
7. What was surplus food used for?
8. Scribes were important in the social classes but why did they have such power in Sumerian society?
9. Cuneiform form of writing used what type of symbols?
10. What would best describe Sumerian advances in medicine?
11. The Sumerian plow is most like what modern-day farm motorized machine?
12. What was most likely the reason that ziggurats were so tall?
13. In 1792 BC, Hammurabi became Babylon’s most powerful monarch. About how long ago was that?
14. Which very tall natural physical feature was an obstacle that led the Phoenicians to use the sea for
trade?
15. What factor and physical feature limited the growth of Sargon’s empire?
16. Name one technical advancement and tell how it made people’s lives easier?
17. What does the location of temples in Sumerian cities tell you about Sumerian culture?
18. Despite the growth of cities, was Mesopotamian society still based on warfare or agriculture?
19. What was the name of the people of Mesopotamia that developed the world’s 1 st civilization?
20. Whom did the Sumerians believe could bring a good harvest or a terrible flood?
21. What sharp tool that was easy to get, did the Sumerians use to make symbols on clay tablets?
22. What do you call the large arc of fertile farmland in Mesopotamia?
23. What is the name for the mixture of rich soil and small rocks that helped Mesopotamia’s crops to
thrive?
24. What do we call it when we have more goods than are needed? A _____________________.
25. The worship of many Gods is __________________________.
26. The world’s first writing system is ____________________________.
27. Long poems that tell the story of a hero are _________________________________.
28. The science of building is __________________________________________.
29. A Mesopotamian writer is called a __________________________.
30. A set of letters that can be combined to form words is an _______________________________.