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Mesopotamia PPT Script By Deni Djukic Class Introduction • Mr. Djukic: Good morning students, how are all of you today? • The Students: Good, Mr. Djukic! • Mr. Djukic: That’s great to hear, today is another day to expand our minds. Today, we will learn, by PowerPoint about a civilization or in this case, civilizations, that historians consider as “the cradle of civilization” which is the Mesopotamian civilizations. • Mr. Djukic: But first, let’s review what we learned yesterday to help us prepare us for this lesson. Review Prerequisites: The Agriculture Revolution and What is a Civilization? • Mr. Djukic: First of all, can anyone tell me what people were before they were planting and harvesting crops around 12,000 years ago (nationalgeographic.org, 2015)? • Janie (a student): They were either hunters or gatherers which means they were trying to get food (nationalgeographic.org, 2015). • Mr. Djukic: That’s right, Janie. Now, our good friend John Green said that there were positives and negative to agriculture (Green, youtube.com, 2012). The negatives of agriculture being that the environment dramatically changed because of it and farming can be a difficult endeavor (Green, youtube.com, 2012). John Green The Agriculture Revoluton Review Prerequisites: The Agriculture Revolution and What is a Civilization? Cont. • Mr. Djukic: The positives of agriculture is that humans would “control food supply” and humans would have a ‘food surplus’ which would sustain a civilization (Green, youtube.com, 2012). Name me one thing that makes up a civilization other than ‘food surplus’ (Green, youtube.com, 2012; Violatti, 2014). • Trey (another student): People who are not farmers (Violatti, 2014). • Mr. Djukic: That’s correct Trey, what else? • Dianna: “Writing” (Violatti, 2014). Review Prerequisites: The Agriculture Revolution and What is a Civilization? Cont. • Mr. Djukic: You’re right Dianna. Now, yesterday we learned about one of the first human civilizations which was the Indus River Valley Civilization. Do you guys remember what we learned about the ‘Indus Valley civilization’ (Green, youtube.com)? • Jude: They “traded with Mesopotamia” (Green, youtube.com). • Mr. Djukic: Awesome answer Jude, anything else? • Joe: Their “cities were built to have natural air conditioners and had good irrigation systems” (Green, youtube.com). • Mr. Djukic: That’s music to my ears, students. All of you look like are ready for the next lesson. John Green Indus Valley Civilization Mesopotamian Civilization and the Sumerians • Mr. Djukic: Now, we will move on Mesopotamia. It’s important to know that Mesopotamia isn’t a single civilization but a place that held many civilizations. Mesopotamia is located in present day Iraq. Before moving on with the lecture, we will first watch a video on Mesopotamia (located on the right side of this slide). • (after watching the video) Mr. Djukic: Okay, I hope you learned you learned something from the video. So let’s first learn about the first civilization in Mesopotamia which is the Sumerians. John Green’s Mesopotamia The Sumerians • Mr. Djukic: The Sumerians known for inventing the wheel and writing (Mark, 2009). The writing that Sumerians used is known as cuneiform which was “wedge-shaped style of writing” that used ‘pictograms’ (Mark, 2011; Lawrence Lo, 1996). This would allow the Sumerians to have some form of literature, as a matter of fact, the earliest literary work in the world was created by the Sumerians (Mark, 2009). The work is named the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was about a mythical king named Gilgamesh and his adventures (Mark, 2009). When looking at the political side of the Sumerians, they have written a document called “The Sumerian King List” “which lists all of the kings of the region and their accomplishments” (Mark, 2011). The Sumerians were later taken over by the Akkadians (Mark; 2009, 2011). Meet the Assyrians • Now, after the Akkadians, Amurrus, and Gutians had done their thing in the region (history-world.org; Mark, 2009), the Assyrians played a prominent role in Mesopotamia (Mark, 2009). “The Assyrians were a Semitic people who originally spoke and wrote Akkadian before [using the] Aramaic language became more popular” (Mark, 2014). It is best to discuss the Assyrians into three periods of their history: “the Old Kingdom, The Middle Empire, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Mark, 2014). Old Kingdom: • Mr. Djukic: In the Old Kingdom, Assyria was known as “a pastoral, rather than urban, community” (Mark, 2014). Meet the Assyrians cont. • Mr. Djukic: Plus, “The trade colony of Karum Kanesh was among the most lucrative centres for trade in the ancient Near East and definitely the most important for the [Akkadian] city of Ashur” (Mark, 2014). Do you have a question, Dante? • Dante: When you said ‘pastoral’, do you mean that a lot of people are farmers? • Mr. Djukic: In a way, yes. Early on the old kingdom, ancient historical records describes Assyrians living in tents, meaning that they did not have cities right away (Mark, 2014). However, they did have cities later on the old kingdom (Mark, 2014). Anyway, trade became important for the Assyrians, especially trade with Anatolia (present day Turkey) over iron (Mark, 2014) because iron was used for weapons (Mark, 2014). Meet the Assyrians cont. • Mr. Djukic: Between 1813-1791 BCE, “the Assyrian king Shamashi Adad I drove the Amorites out [of Mesopotamia] and secured the borders of Assyria, claiming Ashur as the capital of kingdom” (Mark, 2014). This would be the start of their empire (Mark, 2014). However, the ability to have an empire stopped for the Assyrian Old Kingdom when the Babylonians took over Assyria in 1792 BCE (Mark, 2014). Assyria tried to regain its empire in 1750 B.C. when Babylonia first lost power but Assyria was in a civil war until a king named Adasi was able to ‘secure the region’ but couldn’t get a new empire (Mark, 2014). What’s your question, Toni? • Toni: So were the Assyrians and Babylonians living together at the same time? Meet the Assyrians cont. • Mr. Djukic: Good question, yes, they were living together as separate city-states at the same time (Mark, 2009). I should have mentioned earlier on, that some of these Mesopotamian civilizations existed together as different city-states simultaneously and some of the Mesopotamian civilizations’ power over the region would overlap the power of the other (Mark, 2009). This is why I’m not doing this lecture on a strict chronological basis but instead I’m lecturing on what these civilizations did. Anyway, the Old Kingdom ended when the Mitanni and Hittites of eastern Anatolia took over Assyria (Mark, 2014). Middle Empire: • Mr. Djukic: Around 1353-1318 BCE, Assyria regained their independence from the Mitanni and the Hittites thanks to Assyrian king Ashur-Uballit I (Mark, 2014). Meet the Assyrians cont. • Mr. Djukic: Then, between 1307-1275 BCE, king Adad Nirari I “conquered major strongholds of the Hittite and Mitanni” (Mark, 2014). As a result, King Adad Nirari I had a deportation policy for the Mitanni, where they were replaced of their land with Assyrians (Mark, 2014). Could anyone tell me why he would do this? • Trenton: Um, “to prevent any future uprising” (Mark, 2014)? • Mr. Djukic: That’s correct Trenton. However, it should be noted that the Assyrians didn’t treat the Mitanni badly during this policy (Mark, 2014), “deportees were carefully chosen for their abilities and sent to regions which could make most of their talents. Not everyone in the conquered populace was chosen for deportation and families were never separated. The general populace became absorbed into the growing empire and were thought of as Assyrians” (Mark, 2014). Meet the Assyrians cont. • Mr. Djukic: In 1200 B.C. “the Bronze Age collapsed” and Assyria was in a stage where “it neither expand or declined” (Mark, 2014). However, during the reign of “Tiglath Pileser I, [he] revitalized the economy and the military through his campaigns, adding more resources and skilled populations to the Assyrian Empire. Literacy and the arts flourished, and the preservation initiative the king took regarding cuneiform tablets would serve as the model for the later ruler, Ashurbanipal’s, famous library of Nineveh” (Mark, 2014). During his son’s, Ashur-bel-kala’s reign, Assyria plunged into a civil war and it allowed for rebellions in different conquered lands of the Assyrians which made the Middle Empire fall (Mark, 2014). Meet the Assyrians cont. The Neo-Assyrian Empire: • Mr. Djukic: the Assyrians got their reputation for being cruel and ruthless during this period of their history (Mark, 2014). The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the largest empire of all the Assyrian Empire, which they controlled not only the whole Mesopotamia but ancient nation-states such as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt (Mark, 2009, 2011). Aside of military conquests, the Neo-Assyrians “made significant progress in medicine. [King] Ashurnasirpal II made the first systematic lists of plants and animals in the empire. [Plus], Schools were established throughout the empire but only were only for the sons of the wealthy and nobility” (Mark, 2014). The empire fell in 612 B.C. thanks to a coalition of “Babylonians, Persians, Medes, and Scythians, among others” (Mark, 2014). The Babylonians • Mr. Djukic: The city-state of Babylon was founded somewhere before the reign of the Akkadian king Sargon but Babylon became relevant in the ancient world because of the reign of King Hammurabi who was responsible for capturing Assyria the first time around (Mark, 2009, 2011). He also created a code of laws which can best be explained by having the saying of “eye for eye, tooth for a tooth” (Mark, 2014). These code of laws are called the Code of Hammurabi (Mark, 2014). • Yesinia: Could you explain more of this Code of Hammurabi? • Mr. Djukic: Of course, according to this law, if a person steals, their hand gets cut off. If a person kills someone, they get killed unless if the victim was a wife or child then the perpetrator’s wife or child gets killed. The Babylonians Continued • Mr. Djukic: After Hammurabi’s death and after being conquered by the Hittites, Kassites, and the Assyrians; the Babylonians regained power in the region in the reign of Nebopolassar and during the reign of his son, Nebuchadnezzar II, he was responsible for building “The Hanging Gardens” which is one of the ancient seven wonders of the world, the ‘Ishtar Gate’, and responsible for “the Babylonian Exile of the Jews” (Mark, 2011). Plus, “Babylonian mathematics, cosmology, and astronomy were highly respected and it is thought that Thales of Miletus (known as the first western philosopher) may have studied there and that Pythagoras developed his famous mathematical theorem based upon a Babylonian model” (Mark, 2011). Can you guys tell me what is this theorem called? The Babylonians Cont. and The End of the Lecture • Thomas: The Pythagorean Theorem or better known as A2 + B2 = C2 • Mr. Djukic: Good Job Thomas. So, the Babylonian civilization ended when the Persians and their king Cyrus defeated them in the Battle of Opis in 539 B.C. (Mark, 2011). That concludes the lecture part of the class, do you guys have any questions? • Randy: Yeah, what is the point of this information and why this stuff matter? • Mr. Djukic: The point of this information is to make sure we understand the past of the Middle East and we need to understand where some of the culture and laws of the Middle East originated from. For example, the Code of Hammurabi has glaring similarities to Islamic or Sharia law. The End of the Lecture • Mr. Djukic: Not only that, but knowing this information will make us appreciate the fact that these civilizations helped influence western civilization. Whether it is the Sumerians’ invention of writing and literature. For example, in the Sumerian literature Epic of Gilgamesh, it tells a story about a great flood caused by their gods and how a man has to build an ark to save himself and the rest of humanity (Mark, 2009). Does that sound familiar? Plus, without the Babylonians’ contribution to mathematics, maybe our knowledge of mathematics would be different (Mark, 2011). I hope I answered your question. So, now we are going to do a worksheet, there is also a scavenger hunt on those worksheets after the regular questions which I need you to do. You are going to use your classroom iPads to do the scavenger hunt and the directions on the worksheets should be clear. You may now begin. Worksheet and Quiz Time • Mr. Djukic: Hi Mario (the learning disabled student), you can use your laptop to do the worksheet so it would be easier for you. Here’s a flash drive that holds a copy of the assignment that you can edit in. • Mario: Okay, Thanks. (After 5 minutes of helping other students, I went back to Mario). • Mr. Djukic: Do you have a problem with the assignment? • Mario: Some of these questions are tough, do you think you can help me? • Mr. Djukic: Sure, I can help you with one or two. What questions do you need help with? • Mario: Questions six on the Mesopotamia worksheet, this one is hard. • Mr. Djukic: Okay, let’s do question six then. “Name the reason why trade was important to the Assyrians (Mark, 2014)?” So, what did the Assyrians needed to grow their empire? • Mario: Food and water? Worksheet and Quiz Time Continued • Mr. Djukic: Well, you’re not wrong, they needed food and water in order to do anything. But, they already had crops and were near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, so they didn’t need to trade their resources for that (Mark; 2009, 2014). I’m asking what the Assyrians needed to conquer new lands. • Mario: Weapons, right? • Mr. Djukic: Yes, you’re right. However, they needed some material to make the weapons. You played Minecraft right? (Mario nods his head). Ok, now tell me, what kind of ores players use to make swords? • Mario: There’s iron, gold, and diamond. • Mr. Djukic: Ok, let’s apply some of that knowledge to what we are doing here. The Assyrians can’t use gold and diamond because it is way too hard and difficult to find. So that means? Worksheet and Quiz Time Continued • Mario: They had to use iron. • Mr. Djukic: That is right. • Mario: So do I answer with: trade was important to the Assyrians because they needed iron to make their weapons (Mark, 2014)? • Mr. Djukic: That is affirmative. Okay, let’s see if you can do the rest this on your own. You can finish this at home and for homework, you can only do questions 1-5. (then I walk around the classroom). • Jade: Hey, Mr. Djukic? • Mr. Djukic: Yes, Jade? • Jade: Is the answer to question 3 the Akkadians? Worksheet and Quiz Time Continued • • • • • • • • • Mr. Djukic: Yes it is. Jade: Thanks. (I walk over to Trey’s desk). Mr. Djukic: Hi Trey, are you done with your worksheet? Trey: Yeah. (I take a look at his worksheet to see that it is completed). Mr. Djukic: Wow, good job! Do you think you can help Mario with his worksheet? Trey: Sure, no problem. (goes over Mario’s desk to help him). (Ten minutes goes by). Mr. Djukic: Hi Mario, are you finished with the worksheet? Mario: Almost. Mr. Djukic: Well, I wanted you to start this quiz early, you can finish the worksheet at home. (I pass a quiz to him and to Trey also since he is finished). Worksheet and Quiz Time Continued • (five minutes goes by). Mr. Djukic: Who is done with the worksheet? (All but one raises their hand). • Mr. Djukic: Ok well, since you guys are done with the worksheets, you guys can finally do the quiz, you have five minutes to complete it. (Five minutes later). Since we are done with the quiz, I will go over the homework that you need to do. First, you will go to ddjukiceducationportfolio.weebly.com. Then, you will go to ‘world history modules’ and click on “Week one: The First Civilization and The Fertile Crescent”. The directions on that page should be clear and that homework is due in two days. Plus, you will do a two page essay on what was the greatest civilization in Mesopotamia in your opinion, but you will do research on why you said your choice of a Mesopotamian civilization is the greatest out of all of them. You should use Times New Roman, a font space of 12, the essay should be double spaced, and should include a reference page. This essay is due in a week. The End of Class • Mr. Djukic: Now, I’m going to go over some of the questions from the worksheet. “1. What is the type of writing Sumerians used as wedged shaped pictograms (Mark, 2011; ancientscripts.com)?” • Students: Cuneiform (Mark, 2011; ancientscripts.com). • Mr. Djukic: Good job! Okay, “5. Give me the three periods that makes up Ancient Assyrian history (Mark, 2014)”. • Students: “The Old Kingdom, the Middle Empire, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire” (Mark, 2014). • Mr. Djukic: That’s music to my ears. (The bell rings). Ok, that’s it for today, class. Have a nice day and don’t smoke crack! (The students laugh as they are leaving the classroom). The class is over. Reference Page 1. National Geographic Society (2015). The Development of Agriculture. Retrieved from https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/development-ofagriculture/ 2. Green, J. (2012, January 26). The Agricultural Revolution: Crash Course World History #1. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I 3. Violatti. (2014, August 5). Neolithic. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/Neolithic/ 4. Green, J. (2012, February 2). Indus Valley Civilization: Crash Course World History #2. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ndRwqJYDM Reference Page 5. Lawrence Lo. (1996). Sumerian. Retrieved from http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html 6. Mark, J. (2009, September 2). Mesopotamia. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ 7. Mark, J. (2011, April 28). Sumer. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/sumer/ 8. history-world.org. (n.d.). The Akkadians. Retrieved from http://historyworld.org/akkadians.htm 9. Mark, J. (2014, June 12). Assyria. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/assyria/ 10. Mark, J. (2011, April 28). Babylon. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/babylon/