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Prime Time: Needs and Wants
What do we need to survive?
How is this different than what we want?
Prime Time: Needs and Wants
What do we need to survive?
How is this different than what we want?
Read about Economic Systems on page 22
What conclusions can you make?
How might an understanding of needs and
wants and economic systems help you
understand the causes of a war?
Geography Promotes Civilization
Fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers became site of world’s
first civilization
Fertile Crescent well suited for agriculture
Farming in Mesopotamia posed challenges:
If water levels too high, crops washed away
If water levels too low, crops died
People developed methods to control water:
Basins, canals, and dikes
Organization: assigning jobs, allocating resources
Summarize
What factors influenced the rise of
civilization in Mesopotamia?
Answer:
Summarize
What factors influenced the rise of
civilization in Mesopotamia?
Answer: fertile land; plentiful food; need to
organize people for jobs
Sumer
The Cities of Sumer
Religion and Government
• Large cities developed by 4000 BC
• Shaped life in city-states
• Structures made of mud bricks
• Polytheism Shaped life in citystates
• Ziggurat: pyramid-shaped temple
• Polytheism: worship of many gods
• Massive wall encircled each city
• Each city and its land formed a
city-state, with its own
government
• Priests had high status and were
the first rulers
• War chiefs began to rule as kings
• Dynasty: series of rulers from one
family
Sumerian Culture
Writing
Math and Sciences
• Cuneiform: Sumerian writing
• Scribes
•
•
•
•
•
The Arts
Trade and Society
• Arches, ramps, columns
• Traded for wood and metals
• Sculpture
• Social hierarchy
• Cylinder seals
• Distinct male/female roles
• Business accounts and records
• Law, grammar, literature
System based on number 60
Geometry
May have been the first to use the wheel
Invented the plow
Basic surgery
Draw Conclusions
Why was the Sumerians’ development
of cuneiform a major turning point in
history?
Answer(s):
Draw Conclusions
Why was the Sumerians’ development
of cuneiform a major turning point in
history?
Answer(s): After the development of cuneiform,
humankind moved from prehistory into the historical
age.
Empires in Mesopotamia
• Each conquering invader adapted aspects of Sumerian culture.
• Thus Sumerian civilization continued to influence life in Mesopotamia.
Sargon’s Empire
• Sargon I:
– Around 2330 BC, created first
permanent army
– Conquered Sumer and northern
Mesopotamia
– Established world’s first empire,
which lasted about 100 years
• Sumerian culture spread far beyond
Tigris and Euphrates valleys
The Babylonian Empire
• Hammurabi became king in 1792 BC
• United all of Mesopotamia
• Able ruler and administrator
• Hammurabi’s Code:
– 282 laws covering everything
from trade to murder
– Written for all to see
– Babylon became Mesopotamia’s
greatest city
LInk to Hammurabi's Code
Hammurabi’s code
Look on page 36 of your text
and answer the following
questions about each law
listed.
1.Is the law just?
2.Does the punishment fit the
crime?
3.Are there different
punishments for different
people? If so, why?
Check out new laws that have
just been passed!
• 1. If a person accuses another person of a
crime, the accused shall go to the river and
jump in. If he drowns, the person who
accused him may have the accused person's
house. If the accused doesn't drown, then the
River-God has decided that he is innocent.
The person who made the accusation is to be
put to death, and the accused shall take his
house.
• 2. If anyone opens his ditches to water his
crop, but is careless, and the water floods the
field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his
neighbor corn for his loss.
• 3. If he be not able to replace the corn, then
he and his possessions shall be divided among
the farmers whose corn he has flooded.
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• 4. If a physician kills a patient or cuts out a
patient's eye when trying to remove a tumor,
the physicians' hands will be cut off.
• 5. (233) If a builder builds a house and the
house collapses and kills the owner of the
house, the builder shall be put to death. If the
house collapses and kills the owner's son,
then the son of the builder shall be put to
death.
• 6. If a son hits his father, his hands shall be cut
off.
• 7. If a fire breaks out in a house and a person
who helps to put out the fire steals something
from the house, that person shall be thrown
into the fire.
• 8. If a man destroys the eye of another man,
his eye shall be destroyed. If he breaks the
bone of another, his bone shall be broken.
• 9. If a man's wife, who lives in his house,
wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to
ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is
found guilty: if her husband offer her release,
she may go on her way, and he gives her
nothing as a gift of release. If her husband
does not wish to release her, and if he take
another wife, she shall remain as a servant in
her husband's house.
• 10. If a man wishes to divorce his wife, he
must return her dowry and give her the use of
part of his field for farming and part of his
property so that she can provide for her
children.
• 11. If a man's wife becomes sick, the husband
may take a second wife, but must continue to
care for the sick wife as long as she lives.
• 12. If a person steals from a temple or takes
goods stolen from the temple, he shall be put
to death.