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    Mesopotamia

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    Mesopotamia

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    Mesopotamia

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    htd9t8w8nz

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    of 20

    Mesopotamia

    3500 BC – 1700 BC
    The Rise of Sumer
    Section 1
    The Sumerians

    • Sumer = area of Mesopotamia

    • Sumerians: Earliest civilization on Earth

    • Controlled Tigris and Euphrates

    • Rivers flooded then went down: Levees


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_47JRsHNkk
    The Sumerians

    • During summer they poked the levees and used canals to irrigate crops.

    • Wheat, sesame, flax, fruit trees, date palms, and vegetables

    • Government: laws about agriculture

    • More food = more people = building cities


    The Sumerians

    • Little timber and stone = building material?


    The Sumerians

    • Bricks from mud and crushed reeds


    The Sumerians

    One great city


    of Sumer was Ur
    City-States

    • Farmland and walls around each one

    • Center: Two stories high with balconies for priests and merchants

    • Behind: Middle class = government officials; shopkeepers; artisans

    • Farther: Lower class = farmers; unskilled workers; fishermen

    • They fought over boundary lines and to prove which city-state was stronger
    Religious and Family Life

    • Temple at the center: ziggurat (mountain of god)

    • Top: home of city’s main god

    • Only priests could enter


    Religious and Family Life

    • Courts around ziggurats (everything there)

    • More than 3,000 Sumerian gods (all forces of nature they could not control)

    • First, male gods. Then female gods.


    Men needed to help serve female gods: created from mud.
    Religious and Family Life

    • Men existed to serve the gods

    • Priests knew the will of the gods: Powerful


    They ran schools and took care of the land

    • Schools were for rich (tablet houses)

    • Poor worked in fields or learned a trade

    • Cuneiform (markings shaped like wedges)


    Religious and Family Life

    • Wrote for business and trade; learners became scribes

    • Only men went to school


    Women had rights: Own and sell land and enslaved people; run businesses

    • Husbands had the right to sell their wives and kids as slaves for 3 years

    • All family was to obey the gods and the priests


    Priests and Kings

    • Priest-king; Gilgamesh (tales written about 1700 BC)

    • Read P. 59

    • Took advice from free men; took charge of army when war

    • Later: Stayed in role even in peace; became kings (hereditary = parent to child)

    • P. 59 n. 1, 2, and 3.
    Later Mesopotamian
    Empires
    Section 2
    Sargon I

    • Sargon I: Ruler from Akkad. Conquered Sumer about 2300 BC.


    • Group of states under one ruler = first empire.
    • Akkadian became language of people, Sumerian only in religion.
    • Akkadians worshipped Sumerian gods and wrote in cuneiform.
    • Sargon I ruled for 50+ years. Empire fell after him.
    Hammurabi of Babylon

    • Babylon built by the Amorites about 1800 BC.


    • Its king, Hammurabi, conquered Akkad and Sumer => ruler of a new empire.
    • Babylonians took the culture and gods but named them Babylonian names.
    • Hammurabi made many changes
    • Improved irrigation
    • Made people worship Babylonian god more => united
    • Reorganized tax system & began a government housing program
    Hammurabi of Babylon

    • His best reform was his Code of law (wanted everyone to live fairly and justly).
    • Appointed honest judges. Read p. 63.
    • Trade
    • He ruled for 40+ years: Golden Age of Babylon.
    • After his death, it got divided.
    Contributions
    Section 3
    Contributions

    • Sumerians was called the “cradle of civilizations”


    • Oldest written records
    • First to write down laws
    • Cuneiform became model for other writing
    • Invented the wheel, the plow, and the sailboat
    • 12-months calendar based on moon cycles
    • Mathematics: system based on 60
    Classwork: P. 65 n. 1 to 4.

    Homework: P. 65 n. 5, 6, 7 and 8 from “Understanding Main Ideas”,


    and n. 2 from “Critical Thinking”.

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