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MESOPOTAMIA
• What does
• The land between the rivers
Mesopotamia
(Tigris & Euphrates)
mean?
• What is a
civilization?
• Civilization refers to a group
of people who have
organized government,
religion, writing, job
specialization, and art.
• When did
this
civilization
exist?
• Where did
people
settle?
• About 6,000 years ago,
in Asia Minor, an area
that was called
Mesopotamia. Farmers
lived in rural areas,
while others started to
move to the growing
urban cities.
• In the Middle East people
settled between the rivers in
what was called the fertile
crescent.
• Why did
they settle
here?
• The Fertile Crescent was a
plain that frequently flooded
with melting snow from the
mountains. This left the soil
VERY fertile and provided
plenty of water, fish, and
good crop growing land.
• How did they
• In the city of Sumer, humans
keep the
used irrigation canals to grow
rivers from
massive crops. This
flooding their
eventually led to the
land and still
Sumerian civilization.
use the
water?
What was
the city of
Sumer
like?
• “Sumerians” built their
cities out of clay bricks.
Most government, trade
and religion took place in
the center of the city. It
was here that they built
their most important
building, the ziggurat.
What was a
ziggurat?
• A ziggurat was a temple,
which was the home of
the city’s chief god, they
believed in polytheism.
What is
• Polytheism is the belief in
polytheism? many gods. “Poly” =
many, and “theism” =
the belief in.
•
Often,
they
would
bring
How did they
offerings, or sacrifices to
worship
the temple. Many times
their gods?
statues of important gods
would be placed high up
on top of the ziggurat so
as to touch the sky, or
heavens. Each city had a
god as a protector.
What was
the role
of the
priests?
• The priests were to
interpret the wishes of
the gods. Because
their gods had
enormous power over
the people, everyone
was made to serve
and worship gods.
What were
some
important
Sumerian
inventions?
• The 12 month lunar calendar
• 360 degree circle
• Bronze (mixing copper and
tin)
• The wheel
• The plow
• Medicine
• Arts – architecture,
sculptures, etc.
Cuneiform
• Like an alphabet to us,
Sumerian scribes used
picture symbols
• To keep track of business
trade transactions. Only
boys could be scribes,
and it was a very difficult
job.
What is a
city-state?
• By about 3500 B.C.,
some Sumerian villages
had grown into large
cities. A city-state was
made up of a city plus
the farmlands and
villages around it. Each
city-state had its own
government, laws, and
leaders.
What were
some
examples of
these citystates?
• Ur, Eridu, and Uruk.
• What is a
monarchy?
• A monarchy is a form
of government where
a king is the ruler of a
kingdom or empire.
• Some Sumerian citystates called their
ruler a “Lugal-gal”
• Sargon
(23342279
B.C.)
He was Not Sumerian, but
Akkadian. Around 2300 B.C.,
he and his army defeated all
the city-states of Sumer and
northern Mesopotamia. He
established the world’s first
“empire,” or land with
different territories and
peoples under a single ruler.
He ruled for 50 years.
• Hammurabi
(1792-1750
B.C.)
Hammurabi’s greatest
achievement was his
code of laws. This
was a set of 282 laws
that dealt with almost
every part of daily
life. We have some of
the same ideas in
laws today.
Example: Eye for an
Eye or Ear for an ear.
• Not a Sumerian, but a
• Nebuchadnezzar Babylonian.
(612 -537 B.C.)
• Conquered city-states to
form empire of Babylon.
• Built the Hanging
Gardens.