HIS 101: Writing Project #1
DUE DATE: Friday, February 18, 2005
Choose one of the following projects and answer the questions in a well-organized and
well written 2-4 page essay. Read and re-read the passage you select and make sure you
use specific examples (properly cited and footnoted) from the passage to support your
arguments.
I.
Mesopotamian and Egyptian Scribes: “A Sumerian Essay for Schoolboys,”
Spielvogel, p. 15 and “Egyptian Scribal Exercise Book” (Handout)
Sumerian Essay for Schoolboys:
1. What do the daily activities of a schoolboy reveal about the nature of Sumerian
society?
2. What can we learn about everyday life in Sumer from this text?
Egyptian Scribal Exercise Book:
3. What specific examples does the teacher give of a scribe’s place in Egypt’s
political, religious, and economic life?
4. What sets the scribe apart from the other trades and professions identified in the
document?
5. What does this document reveal about the structure of both the Egyptian economy
and society at the time? What does the text suggest about the lives of Egyptian
peasants?
Comparative question:
6. How does the fact that both of these texts were copied by students as a way to
learn to write affect our interpretation of any “hidden messages” in the texts?
II.
Flood Stories from Mesopotamia (exerpt from The Epic of Gilgamesh) and
the Old Testament (excerpt from Genesis)
The Epic of Gilgamesh (excerpt):
1. Consider the story of Utnapishtim. What do the various actions of the gods and
goddesses allow us to infer about how the Mesopotamians viewed their deities?
2. According to the epic, what are the respective roles of the gods and humans?
Comparative questions:
3. Why does God destroy all humanity except Noah and his family? How does
God’s reasoning compare with the Mesopotamian gods’ reason for wanting to
destroy humans and Ea’s decision to warn Utnapishtim?
4. What do the Mesopotamian gods demand of humans? What does Noah’s God
demand?
5. From these comparisons, what picture emerges of the god of the Hebrews? In
what ways is their deity similar to the gods of Mesopotamia? In what ways does
their god differ?
6. Speculate on why both the Mesopotamians and the Hebrews has flood stories as
part of their mythology.
III.
1.
2.
3.
4.
IV.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Inscription honoring Cyrus, King of Persia
According to the inscription, why did Cyrus conquer Babylon? What does this
reveal about the relationship between political and religious beliefs at the time?
How did the residents of the city and the neighboring regions respond to the
Persian conquest, and why?
What specific examples does the inscription provide of Cyrus’s religious
tolerance?
What might have been the purpose of this inscription, and who was its intended
audience?
Pericles Funeral Oration (from Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian
War, (in Archer, pp. 31-34)
According to Pericles, what sets Athens apart from its neighbors and adversaries?
As described here, what are the guiding principles of Athenian democracy?
How does Pericles characterize his fellow Athenians and their contributions to the
city’s glory?
What obligations does Pericles believe Athenian citizens have to the state?
In his idealized portrait of Athens, Pericles contrasts Athens's spirit with that of
Sparta (the Lacedaemonians). According to him, how do the Spartans live? As
Pericles sees it, what is wrong with the Spartan way of life?