Study Sheet on Mesopotamia

Study Sheet on Mesopotamia The Fertile Crescent from the walls of the city when Civilization developed slowly in different under attack. parts of the world. People began to settle in The Sumerians were areas with abundant natural resources. A section polytheistic, which means they of the Middle East is called the Fertile Crescent. believed in many gods. They The Fertile Crescent is a rich food-growing area worshiped their gods at huge in a part of the world where most of the land is temples they called ziggurats. too dry for farming. The Fertile Crescent is a Each ziggurat was dedicated to a specific god, whom the boomerang shaped region that extends from the Sumerians believed ruled over their city. When one city eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to the was conquered, the invaders would force the conquered Persian Gulf. people to accept their gods. Most people in the Western Some of the best farmland of the Fertile Hemisphere today practice monotheism, which means Crescent is on a narrow strip of land between the they believe in only one God. Christianity, Islam, and Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The Greeks later Judaism are all monotheistic faiths. called this area Mesopotamia, which means Civilization “between the rivers.” Many different There are many ways to define a civilization, but most civilizations developed in this small region. scholars agree that when a society begins to form cities, it First came the Sumerians, who were replaced in becomes a civilization. Most civilizations have the turn by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. following elements: Today this land is known as Iraq.  A surplus of food. When people have enough food, The Sumerians Waterfront living they begin to develop other needs. The Sumerians moved to the Most people live near water.  Division of Labor. When people Tigris and Euphrates Rivers If you look at any large city, have one job, they tend to do that job about 3500BC, but we do not you'll probably find water very well. They are also more likely know where they came from. nearby. People need the water to choose a job in a field they enjoy. They were probably nomads who for drink, cooking, cleaning and  Organized government and discovered the fertile land transportation. religion. When people have the between the rivers. Nomads same laws, it is easier to trade. travel in small groups until they Mesopotamia, the "land People living under the same have eaten the food that grows between the rivers" is an obvious government, or having the same wild and hunted the animals in place for a civilization. Ancient religious beliefs are likely to have the area. When food is no longer Egypt developed along the Nile the same values. plentiful, they move to a new River. In America, New York area. Some people continue to City has a harbor, Chicago grew  Writing. This allowed societies to live like this in remote parts of alongside Lake Michigan and keep records and communicate. Los Angeles is on the Pacific the world to this day. Numbering Years Eventually the Sumerians Ocean. In ancient calendars, years were developed a civilization. They learned that by generally numbered according to the year of a ruler's planting seeds and plowing their land, they were reign, for example, the third year of Hammurabi’s rule. able to grow crops. They learned to About AD525, a monk named Dionysius suggested that domesticate, or tame animals to help them plow years be counted from the birth of Christ. Today we live their lands. The Sumerians learned to use in 2006, which is sometimes written AD2006. AD refers to irrigation. Irrigation is a system of watering the term anno Domini, or “the year of the Lord.” The crops to grow more food. The Sumerians also years before the birth of Christ are numbered backward made a very important invention--the wheel. from his birth. The The invention of the wheel made it possible to year before AD1 was 1 pull heavy loads. BC, or one year Sumeria was composed of several city- “before Christ.” states, or nations the size of cities. Walls around When referring to each city-state protected the citizens from dates before the birth outside invaders. Farmland was usually outside Ziggurat the city walls, and people would seek protection 1999-2006 Mike Dowling, www.mrdowling.com, All rights reserved. of Christ, the higher the number the earlier the animal. English, French, Spanish, German and Russian year. are examples of phonetic languages. Non-Christians often use the term CE in Phonetic languages make small typewriters place of AD. CE refers to “Common Era” or and computer keyboards possible. Imagine a “Christian Era.” They mark the era preceding different key for every single word! the Common Era as BCE, which can either mean Writing allowed civilization to “Before the Common Era,” or “Before the Christian Era.” Since years are marked from a develop set point known as 1 (there is no year 0), 3500BC  Writing allowed people to keep records was about 5500 years ago. of their transactions. There are ten years in a decade, one hundred  Writing made it possible for people to years in a century, and 1000 years in a send messages with couriers to far millenium. This is considered the twenty-first away lands without traveling. century of the Common Era. On December 31,  Writing allowed people to pass on their 1999, many people celebrated the coming of the accumulated knowledge to future new millenium, but the millenium did not end generations. until December 31, 2000. This is because the calendar we use does Hammurabi not have a year called Gilgamesh Hammurabi was the king of 0. Gilgamesh is an ancient poem written in the city-state of Babylon. About Writing Mesopotamia more than four thousand years ago. 1800BC, Hammurabi conquered The poem tells of a great flood that covers the earth the nearby city-states and created Ancient Sumerian many years earlier, making it similar to the story of the kingdom of Babylonia. He record keepers marked Noah in the Old Testament of the Jewish and recorded a system of laws called pictographic symbols Christian holy books. the Code of Hammurabi. The in soft pieces of clay Modern science has discovered that there was a 282 laws were engraved in stone with a pointed reed. marked increase in the sea levels about 6,000 years and placed in a public location The clay tablets were ago as the last ice age ended. The melting ice for everyone to see. Hammurabi then baked to make drained to the oceans causing the sea level to rise required that people be them hard. We call the more than ten feet in one century. responsible for their actions. Sumerian writing Some of Hammurabi’s laws were system cuneiform. Cuneiform means wedged based on the principle “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a shaped, because the marks in the clay were tooth.” This means that whoever commits an injury should wedges. be punished in the same manner as that injury. If someone The first pictographs were simple. A writer put out another person’s eye, their eye would be put out in would draw an object like a fish or a broom to return. Hammurabi’s Code may seem cruel today, but it communicate to others. was an early attempt at law. This system worked well in a simple society, but it The Assyrians would be difficult to The Assyrians lived upstream on the Tigris River describe abstract concepts from the Babylonians. The people of the region did not such as justice or liberty in know how to read, but about 1350BC, they managed to pictographs. Many conquer all of Mesopotamia and build an empire that Chinese people continue reached as far as Egypt. The Assyrians developed to use a pictographic powerful armies with iron weapons. They dammed the system today, but the rivers leading into Babylon. This deprived the government has endorsed the Pinyin system of Babylonians of water. The Assyrians also used chariots, phonetic writing. which allowed them to move quickly, and battering rams, Eventually, most cultures developed heavy logs carried by many men to break down city walls. phonetic writing systems where a In time, the Medes and the Persians symbol represents a sound rather conquered the Assyrians, The Medes than an object. English speaking and the Persians were two powerful people, agree that the civilizations east of Mesopotamia in symbols D-O-G refer to an land we now call Iran.