Unit 1 Chapter 2 Section 1

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Unit 1 Chapter 2 Section 1

• Civilization Begins in Mesopotamia

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Pastoral Nomads

• Similar to Neolithic people
• More settled
• Utilized farming and domestication
• Still traveled
• Brought different technologies to different
  groups
• More regional problems and conflicts

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Terms to know

• Mesopotamia
• Land between the rivers
• Tigris and the Euphrates
• Fertile Crescent

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Irrigation

• Diversion of water from its source to a new
  desired location.
• Why?
• Mesopotamian soil
• Flooding

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Religion

• Polytheism
• Belief in multiple Gods
• Monotheism
• Belief in one God
• Religion established to attempt to give people
  justification and answers for why things happen.

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The Ziggurat

• The religious center of the Mesopotamian
  settlements.
• Inhabited by Priests who spoke to the Gods for
  the people.
• Served as the center of town politically,
  socially and economically.

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Who lives in the region?

• The Sumerians (more than 5,000 years old)
• Gave us early refined social class system
  (Nobles, Commoners and Slaves)
• City walls to defend the cities from outside
  groups
• Scribe schools and the written language of
  CUNEIFORM
• One of the earliest pieces of Literature
• THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

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Who lives in the region?

• The Akkadians (approx. 4300 years ago)
• Leader/Emperor SARGON
• One of the earliest empires

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Who lives in the region?

• The Assyrians (about 2000 BCE)
• Believed to have invented the first battering ram
• Also devised an early form of relaying messages
  through the empire

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Who lives in the region?

• The Babylonians (roughly 3700 years ago)
• Leader HAMMURABI
• Gave us one of the earliest sets of laws (THE
  CODE OF HAMMURABI)

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The Code of Hammurabi

• Developed by the Babylonians
• Oldest known system of codified law
• Written in Cuneiform, the written language of
  Mesopotamia
• Origin of Eye for an Eye
• Different punishments for different social
  classes.
• If any one steal the property of a temple or of
  the court, he shall be put to death, and also the
  one who receives the stolen thing from him shall
  be put to death.
• If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or
  a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the
  court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold if they
  belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay
  tenfold if the thief has nothing with which to
  pay he shall be put to death.

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Activity 3

• Answer the following question using your notes.
• Who was the leader of the Akkadians?
• Oh yeah, I forgot, answer it in Cuneiform

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The Approximate Cuneiform Alphabet
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Some of the Sumerian Innovations