Download Unit 2 – Mesopotamia/Egypt study guide Mesopotamia What does

Unit 2 – Mesopotamia/Egypt study guide
Mesopotamia
1. What does Mesopotamia mean?
a. Between the rivers
2. What are the 2 rivers of Mesopotamia?
a. Tigris & Euphrates Rivers
3. What is a city-state? How were they defended?
a. A city & its surrounding farmlands, with its own leaders &
government; city walls
4. What were several geographic conditions of Mesopotamia?
a. Little rainfall; hot & dry; catastrophic flooding; little stone or
timber in the area
5. Why is Mesopotamia called the Fertile Crescent or “the cradle of
life”
a. It is where the first civilization was found with actual cities &
governments. First city in Sumer.
6. How old is the Mesopotamian’s form of writing & why did they
create it?
a. Around 3,000 BC
b. Cuneiform was created to keep records of trading goods
7. Gilgamesh – ancient Mesopotamian story, about a great king that
journeyed the world & fought gods & monsters. This story make
references to a great flood destroying cities
8. Each city-state was protected by a different god, where would you
find the temple for that god & what was it known as? Would you
be able to find similar things today? Explain your answer.
a. The center of the city-state; ziggurats
b. Centers of worship (churches) may not be found in the center
of the city.
9. What empire was Hammurabi part of? How did Mesopotamia
affect Mesopotamian law?
a. Mesopotamia
10.
Why was cuneiform created & where did they write this
language?
a. Cuneiform was created to keep records of trading goods
b. Clay tablets
11.
What inventions come out of Mesopotamia? How do we use
them today?
a. Wheel, sail boats, first to make a written story (Gilgamesh),
writing (cuneiform), calendar, recognize the concept of 0.
12.
Define the following: division of labor, irrigation, barter,
surplus, polytheism, monotheism, ziggurat, Hammurabi’s Code,
Cuneiform
a. Irrigation – way of supplying water to an area of land
b. Division of labor – a system in which members of a group
perform different tasks based on their abilities and the
needs of the group.
c. Barter – trading between two groups of resources or products
d. Surplus – the amount of something that is more then what is
needed.
e. Polytheism – belief in multiple gods
f. Monotheism – belief in one god
g. Ziggurat - a huge mud-brick temple built by the ancient
Sumerians to worship their gods & goddesses
h. Cuneiform- a system of writing developed in ancient Sumer
that used wedge-shaped symbols.
i. Code of Hammurabi- the world's first system of laws,
recorded by Hammurabi, king of Babylonia, about 1780 B.C.
“An Eye for an Eye”.
Egypt:
1. What is the difference between Upper & Lower Egypt? How does
this relate with the Nile river?
a. Upper Egypt – is the southern part of Egypt
b. Lower Egypt – the northern part of the Nile where it empties
into the Mediterranean Sea
2. What are the significant events found in each Egyptian Kingdom?
a. Old – construction of the pyramids
b. Middle – recovery & political stability
c. New – creation of Egyptian Empire
3. The Old Kingdom had a strong government because it was ruled
by a theocracy. What is a theocracy?
a. A government run by their religious leaders (priest)
4. Who was the Great Pyramid of Giza built for?
a. Pharaoh Khufu
5. Who in Egyptian society were normally mummified? Why were
they put through this procedure? List at least 2 things that were
done during the mummification process.
a. Removed the organs (stomach, intestines, liver, lungs), they
were then dried as well as the rest of the body, the organs
were placed into clay jars (each organ was protected by a
different god),
6. Why is Pharaoh Hatshepsut different from other Egyptian
pharaohs?
a. She ruled as a pharaoh, by pretending to be a man (while her
son was very young), she expanded the empire through trade
with its neighbors & not conquest
7. King Tutankhamen “King Tut” ruled from about 1333 BC – 1323
BC. He is often known as the boy king since he ruled from 8 – 18.
We know the most about him & Egyptian burial tombs through the
founding of his tomb.
8. Ramses II was the last powerful Pharaohs that created a strong
kingdom through conquering Egypt’s neighboring countries.
9. How were women treated in Egypt?
a. Women were given a level of freedom, they had more rights
than their counterparts
10.
How many gods & goddesses could be found in Egypt?
a. 2,000
11.
What is papyrus?
a. The Egyptians used river reeds to make paper
12.
How are hieroglyphics different from modern languages?
a. They are pictographs, pictures are used for letters & words
13.
How were archeologists able to translate hieroglyphics?
a. Rosetta stone
14.
How is the development of Egypt & Mesopotamia similar?
a. Both developed around the same time along the banks of a
river
15.
What 2 objects were normally found in front of temples?
Describe them.
a. Obelisk & sphinx (human head & lion body)
16.
Define the following: delta, pharaoh, afterlife, mummies,
engineering, trade route
a. Pharaoh – the “king” of the Egyptian kingdoms, translates as
“great house”. They were seen as gods.
b. Delta – the fan shaped landform at the end of the river, where
the silt from the river collects
c. Mummies – the bodies of pharaohs that were
prepared/preserved for the afterlife
d. Afterlife – the life after death where the pharaohs were
judged for their deeds during their life
e. Engineering – applying scientific knowledge to practical
purposes “building pyramids”
f. Trade routes – use of river and land routes to move goods
Study main points of the Mesopotamia & Egypt chapters in the
textbook
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
When Mesopotamians began to settle down, they began focusing on developing
a. Agriculture
b. Electricity
c. Educating all people to read & write
d. Following animals from place to place
Mesopotamia formed around which river
a. Euphrates
b. Tigris
c. Nile
d. A & B
These ancient religious structures that linked them to their gods where called what & where would they be
found?
a. Ziggurats & Egypt
b. Pyramids & Mesopotamia
c. Pyramids & Egypt
d. Ziggurats & Mesopotamia
An eye, for an eye. This a common phrase of a series of laws that outlined every crime & an appropriate
punishment. These laws were created in one of the ancient civilization.
a. Legalism & India
b. Hammurabi’s Code & Mesopotamia
c. Spartan Code & Greece
d. Confucianism & China
This civilization is known as the “land between two rivers”
a. China
b. Mesopotamia
c. Greece
d. Egypt
Which of the following would be found in a pyramid?
a. Mummy
b. Cell phone
c. An army of stone statues of soldiers
d.
Cuneiform tablets
7. Which of the following is NOT true about Mesopotamia?
a. They have a hot/dry climate
b. They have Ziggurats to pray to their gods
c. They have Pyramids to pray to their gods
d. They have little rainfall
8. Which of the following forms of religion would most likely find in these early
civilizations?
a. Polytheism
b. Monotheism
c. Christianity
9.
10.
You had to be able to read this language to use the Rosetta stone.
a. Sumerian
b. Latin
c. Greek
d. Egyptian