Mesopotamian Civilization

1
Mesopotamian Civilization
2
Mesopotamias Geography

• All early civilizations started in river valleys.
  Flooding made the valleys fertile. Irrigation,
  travel and trade were easier near rivers.
• Mesopotamia (Greek for land between the rivers)
  has two major rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates.
• Floods here were frequent and unpredictable. Over
  time, farmers learned to try to control the river
  with dams, levees, and irrigation projects.

3
Mesopotamian City-States

• First cities developed in Southern Mesopotamia, a
  land called Sumer.
• Each city had its own government and controlled
  surrounding villages and farmland. Each city had
  a protective wall. They also sometimes fought
  other city-states.

4
Sumerian Religion

• Sumerians believed in many gods. Each city-state
  had a ziggurat (temple) to honor a favored god or
  goddess.

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Sumerian Society
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Mesopotamia The Cradle of Civilization?

• Sumerian ideas had great influence in world
  history. Ideas and inventions were copied.
  (wheel and cart, bronze tools and weapons, levees
  and irrigation, etc.)
• Writing was a big reason why they were so
  successful. Their wedge shaped writing system is
  called Cuneiform.

7
The Epic of Gilgamesh

• Not all cuneiform discovered is record keeping.
  One set of clay tablets tells the oldest epic
  poem ever discovered.

8
Sumerian Technology

• Inventions Sailboat, wagon and wheel, plow,
  number system based on 60, a 12 month calendar.

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Sumer city-states conquered!

• Led by King Sargon of Akkadia, a land in northern
  Mesopotamia, conquered the Sumerian city states
  around 2340 B.C.
• His empire lasted 200 years.
• Later, around 1800 B.C., the city of Babylon in
  central Mesopotamia began creating its own
  empire. King Hammurabi led the way.

10
Hammurabis Code

• It was a unified collection of laws written down
  and distributed throughout the empire.
• Most of the laws had been around, but never
  collected on one set of tablets before.
• Laws covered crime, marriage, business, and
  farming.
• Laws were fair, but sometimes cruel.
• Turn to page 24 and 25 to see fair vs. cruel laws.