Download File

Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
Chapter 2: The Fertile
Crescent
Chapter Notes
I.
Land Between Two Rivers
a. The first known schools were set up in the land of Sumer
i. Sumerian Boys and possibly girls were taught the new invention of
________________.
ii. Graduates of these schools became ______________or professional
writers.
b. The Geographic Setting
i. The Location of Mesopotamia
1. From the Greek words meaning
“__________________________________.”
2. Mesopotamia lies between the ___________ and
_____________________ rivers.
3. Mesopotamia is a part of the ____________________________, a
region in Southwest Asia that was the site of the world’s first
civilizations.
ii. Rivers of Life and Death
1
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
1. Spring flooding moved topsoil from the mountains to the plains
below.
2. _____________ sometimes left destruction. Racing down without
warning, they swept away people, animals, crops and houses.
c. The First Cities
i. Independent Cities Form
1. Cities in Mesopotamia shared a common culture and language,
they remained politically ______________________ city-state.
2. Each Sumerian acted as a separate state, with its own special god
or goddess, its own government, and eventually its own king.
ii. A Brief Tour of a Sumerian City
1. Merchants displayed goods in outdoor stalls. For a fee, scribes
would ____________or _______________ letters for those who
could not read or write.
2. Sumerian houses faced away from the crowded streets onto inner
___________________ where families ate and children played.
d. Sumerian Religion
i. A ____________________ was a large brick building in the middle of the
city with a temple to the main god or goddess of the city.
ii. Sumerian Temples
1. Religious, social, and economic activities took place at the temple
sites.
2
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
2. Ziggurats were pyramids made of terraces, one on top of the
other, linked by ____________ and _______________. Some
were more than seven stories high.
3. The top level was a shrine. They believed the gods
_________________ to Earth using the ziggurat as a stairway.
iii. Ancient Religious Beliefs
1. _____________________ is a belief in many gods and goddesses.
2. __________________ are stories about the gods.
iv. Honoring the Gods
1. Sumerians washed the statues of the gods before and after each
meal was offered.
2. Music sounded and incense burned as huge plates of food were
laid before them.
v. The Fall of Sumer
1. _______________became its downfall. Sumerian city-states
fought each other over land and the use of the river water.
2. Around 2300 B.C., Sumer was conquered by the armies of
neighboring __________________.
3. King _____________ united the Sumerian city-states and
improved Sumer’s government and its military.
4. Sumer fell to a northern rival, _______________, in the 1700s B.C.
Stop - End of Section
3
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
II. Babylonia and Assyria
a. The Two Empires of Mesopotamia
i. Mesopotamia is filled with stories of conquest. The army that could
conquer Mesopotamia gained great wealth from ____________ and
_______________________________.
ii. The biggest and most important Mesopotamia civilizations were the
empires of ___________________ and ____________________.
iii. An empire is an area of many territories and peoples that is
____________________ by one government.
iv. The beautiful city of _______________ was the center of the Babylonian
empire.
v. The Assyrians, named after the northern city of ___________, began
expanded their lands in 1300s B.C. By the 600s B.C. , they controlled a
large empire.
b. The Babylonian Empire
i. A Babylonian king named _____________________ created the
Babylonian Empire by uniting the cities of Sumer.
ii. A Crossroads of Trade
1. The Babylonians created a system of roads throughout the
empire. The roads made travel easier, improved communication
between cities and _________________trade.
4
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
2. ____________________, or groups of travelers, stopped in
Babylon on their way to and from Sumer and Assyria.
3. _____________ made Babylon rich.
iii. Wealth Through Conquest
1. 1760 B.C., Hammurabi conquered the city of Mari.
2. By 1600 B.C., the empire had shrunk and was finally destroyed.
c. The Empire of the Assyrians
i. Assyria lay in __________ ___________, making it easy for other
peoples to invade.
1. Since they were always defending, they became skilled
________________.
2. They decided the best defense was to ________________.
3. By 650 B.C. they had conquered a large empire.
ii. Assyria’s Contributions
1. They invented the _________________________, a powerful
weapon having a wooden beam mounted on wheels.
2. Other weapons included archers, slings, armor, helmets and
chariots.
3. Capitol was Nineveh.
a. Had a remarkable library that held thousands of clay
tablets with writings from Sumer and Babylon.
5
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
b. These writings helped us know a great deal about life in
Mesopotamia.
iii. Assyria Overthrown
1. Assyria was overthrown by the __________ and the
__________________ in 612 B.C.
d. Babylonia Rises Again
i. Under the Chaldeans, the Babylonian Empire rose again.
ii. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylonia
1. Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt ______________ which was destroyed
by the Assyrians.
2. His royal _____________was built on several terraces that rose to
the height of some 350 feet. It has a dazzling landscape of trees
and gardens. (See handout)
iii. Advances in Learning
1. The New Babylonian Empire became the center of learning and
science.
a. Charted paths of _________________
b. Measured the _____________ of the year
c. Raised _______________________
2. The New Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians in 539 B.C.
Stop - End of Section
III. The Legacy of Mesopotamia
6
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
a. Hammurabi’s Code
i. ________________ – and organized list of laws.
ii. Eye for an Eye – Punishment was _____________ to the crime
committed.
iii. Established a set of organized, “written” laws for people to follow. The
oldest found to date.
b. The Art of Writing
i. Writing invented around 3100 B.C. in Sumer
ii. Ancient Scribe recorded sales, taxes, gifts for the gods, marriages, deaths,
calculated food and equipment supplies, etc.
iii. Wrote on clay tablets.
iv. Invention of writing:
1. Started from using tokens with ______________ on them to keep
track of commerce. (Buying and selling)
2. First written words were just symbols representing specific
_________________________.
3. Scribes started combining the symbols to make groups of wedges
and lines know as ______________________.
Stop - End of Section
IV. Mediterranean Civilizations
a. Tyre – _______________ were used to make a purple dye used in dying cloth.
The dye made Tyre a wealthy city.
b. Phoenician Sea Power
7
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
i. Masters of Trade
1. They traded their dyed cloth and cedar lumber to neighboring
people.
2. From 1100 B.C. to 800 B.C. Phoenicia was a great _______ power.
3. They told stories of horrible _______________ in the ocean
depths to keep people from competing for trade in the Atlantic.
ii. Exotic Marketplaces
1. ________________ swelled with foods brought from other places
like figs, olives, honey, and spices.
2. They also sold strange animals like giraffes and warthogs from
Africa and bears from Europe.
c. The Phoenician Alphabet
i. They relied on _______________ to help them conduct trade.
ii. They developed a writing system that used just 22 symbols, known as the
Phoenician _____________________.
1. Alphabet is a set of symbols that represent the ____________ of
language.
2. The alphabet was easier to learn so many more people could
write using the new alphabet.
3. The Phoenician sea _____________ help spread the alphabet’s
use.
d. The Rise of the Israelites
8
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
i. Hebrews later became known as the ________________ settles in the
Jordan River valley south of Phoenicia.
ii. Abraham the Leader
1. Practiced and taught ____________________, the belief in one
god, to his people.
2. Abraham was told by God to leave Mesopotamia and settle
elsewhere.
iii. From Canaan to Egypt
1. Abraham settled in ____________________.
2. Famine, a time when there is so little food that many people
______________, caused them to move to Egypt.
3. An Egyptian King grew suspicious of their power and enslaved
them.
iv. In the Desert
1. An Israelite leader named ______________ led his people out of
Egypt in what was called the “Exodus.”
2. For 40 years, the Israelites wandered through the desert of
_____________ Peninsula.
3. The Torah states that at the time they were given the “Ten
Commandments,” a code of laws written by God.
4. They returned to Canaan.
v. Settlement in Canaan
9
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
1. They united under King ____________, who defended them
against their enemies.
2. The second king, ___________, established the capitol in
________________________.
vi. A Divided Kingdom
1. David’s son, _________________, inherited the kingdom.
2. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom split into two
a. The north was named Israel.
b. The south was named ______________.
3. The divided kingdom made it an easy target for invasion.
4. ________________ conquered the north and then the south.
vii. Sent into Exile
1. In 722 B.C. the Israelites revolted. They were sent into exile to
other parts of the empire.
2. King __________________________ destroyed the capital city of
Stop - End of Section
Jerusalem.
V. Judaism
a. The Beliefs of Judaism
i. A Promise to the Israelites
1. Believed that God was ___________________ instead of being
connected with a place or person.
2. They believe that God knows everything and has complete power.
10
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
3. Because of a covenant with Abraham, the Israelites consider
themselves God’s “_______________________________.”
4. Moses was the leader of the Israelites around 1200 B.C.
ii. The Ten Commandments
1. List of religious duties and correct behavior given to Moses by
God.
2. The Torah, the sacred text of Judaism, set out many other laws.
a. Also known as the Pentateuch.
b. First five books in the Old Testament in the Holy Bible
i. Genesis, Exodus Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy.
iii. Judaism and Women
1. Some laws protected women.
iv. Justice and Morality
1. Prophets, or religious teachers who are reguarded and speaking
for God.
b. The Effects of Judaism
i. The Romans drove the Jews out of their homeland in _______ A.D.
ii. They scattered to different parts of the world.
iii. New Settlements
1. They lived in close communities to preserve their heritage.
iv. Effects on Later Religions
11
Name: _________________________
Period:_________
(10 pts. OFF FOR NO NAME)
1. Christianity and Islam have their beginnings in Judaism.
a. They all attribute their beginnings to Abraham and Moses.
12