KimMesopotamia

Kim's Home


 *  __MESOPOTAMIA__ **

    __**GEOGRAPHY/CLIMATE AND AGRICULTURE **__    __**DAILY LIFE/CHALLENGES**__   __**S.C.I.R.T.**__ __Specialization __ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Some people who specialized in their jobs in Mesopotamia were: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Cities__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="color: #f2791c; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Some important cities in Mesopotamia are: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Institutions__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Record-Keeping__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Technology__ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> __**<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif; text-align: center;">CULTURE **__ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif; text-align: left;">
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> <span style="color: #991a1a; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamia is a plain between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, Mesopotamia means "land between the rivers".
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamia has a curved shape & swampy land.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> <span style="color: #991a1a; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">It is called the "Fertile Crescent"because it has rich soil that was good for crops.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> <span style="color: #991a1a; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamia has a desert-like climate with lots of disadvantages such as flooding and droughts, no defense/protection for Sumerian villages, and low amount of natural resources.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamia has the best farming land in Southwest Asia. They grew barley in the rich soil from the flooded silt of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Although flooding can be good for silt, it can be bad for crops and life. Mesopotamians solved the flooding problem by digging ditches.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">They built city walls and barriers out of mud bricks for protection and traded tools, food, etc. for building materials such as stone, wood, and metal, that they didn't have.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamians developed a number system in base 60 to solve arithmatic problems.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">They used architecture such as arches, columns, ramps, and pyramids when building temples.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamians also used cuniform (a type of writing) when making maps, and written records of experiments in astronomy, chemistry, and medicine.
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Priests
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Merchants
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Farmers
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Potters
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Scribes
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Artists
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Kings/Queens
 * <span style="color: #22ff00; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">War Leaders
 * <span style="color: #f2791c; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Sumer
 * <span style="color: #f2791c; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Babylon
 * <span style="color: #f2791c; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Iraq
 * <span style="color: #f2791c; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Turkey
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Problem-solving created cooperation and leadership which was the start of government and a civilization.
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Sumerians ended up having many city-states (cities with their own government, one ruler, but the same daily life).
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">The main building in the city was called a "ziggarat". It consisted of many layers such as the bottom layer storing grain, the middle layer being the government building, and the top layer being a temple.
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamians believed in polytheism-the belief in more than one god.
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Examples of gods Sumerians believed in were Enlil (the god of storms and air) and Ugallu (the god of protecting from demons).
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamians believed gods were like humans, but immortal. They also thought that humans were gods' servants who had to keep them happy with temples and sacrifices.
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">They thought that gods controlled nature so farmers would go to priests thinking that the priests would tell the gods to bless their crops.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"><span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Sumerians thought that after you died you went to a horrible place called the "land of no return".
 * <span style="color: #dd16df; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">City-states started long-distance trading which made them prosperous. This was the start of an economy.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace; background-color: #118341;">   <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Code of Hammurabi was a uniform code of laws that would help to unify diverse groups within an empire.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace; background-color: #118341;">   <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Cuniform was the main type of writing.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace; background-color: #118341;">   <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamians wrote on clay tablets.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace; background-color: #118341;">    <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Cunifrom means "wedge shape".
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Sumerians were first to use bronze
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">They invented the wheel, plow, and sail.
 * <span style="color: #46ff1a; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Mesopotamians soon started exchanging products and ideas such as living in cities and having neighboing cities. This was the start of cultural diffusion (process in which a new idea or a product spreads from one culture to another).

**__SOCIAL CLASSES__** __High__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Medium__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Low__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">__Women__
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> Kings
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> Landholders
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Priests
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Merchants
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Slaves (by debt or war)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> Women could work as merchants, farmers, or artisans.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> They could join the priesthood.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> Some learned to read and write.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Women could earn property, too.

**__<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">WAR __**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">During war, cities chose leaders to lead their army.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> The leaders of war soon became permanent and this is how dynasties were formed (leadership passed down from generation to generation).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">From 3000-2000 BC, Sumer's city-states were constantly at war.


 * __ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">EMPIRE __**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> In 2350 BC, Sargon took over Mesopotamia and created the first empire (brings together nations, people, etc. under 1 leader).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> But Sargon's dynasty only lasted 200 years due to fighting and invasions.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> In 2000 BC, Amorites invaded and made capital Babylon.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">  <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;"> **__<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">IMPORTANT PEOPLE __**
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">LITERATURE __ **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">The Epic Of Gilgamesh gives us information on how the Mesopotamians might have lived. This story about a flood is similar to the Noah's Ark legend we have today.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">The people of Sumeria were called Sumerians.  <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Sargon created the first empire when he took over and ruled Mesopotamia.  <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;">Hammurabi reigned over Babylon and took it to its peak. He also created the Code Of Hammurabi (a uniform code of laws that would help to unify diverse groups within his empire).