By: Maria Laura Inope and Chiara Montoya
Grade: 6C
Courses: W.H.G and I.T., 2014
Life in Sumer
Mesopotamian
Empires
The First
Civilization
The Geography
of
Mesopotamia
Sources
Mesopotamia
(3500 B.C.)
The Legacy of
Mesopotamia
The Geography of
Mesopotamia
• Mesopotamia means "Land between rivers"( Tigris and
Euphrates).These rivers provided water, a means of travel, and
food. There was fertile soil because of silt, fine soil deposited by
a river. This silt was brought by the rivers onto the floodplains
the flat land bordering the banks. Climate: Semiarid ( half
dry/semi deco).Water: Controlled by irrigation and dams.
Unpredictable floods/ Unpredictable droughts.
• They lacked stone wood and metal. They surplus, Grain more
grain than needed,(used for trade).Buildings made with mud.
The First Civilization
•
•
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Over time, villages grew larger and became cities. Society and culture grew more
complex, developing into an advanced form of culture called... Civilization.
The first civilization rose in the region of Sumer, Mesopotamia(3300b.c).
Five traits of characteristics of an civilization:
Advanced cities
Specialized workers
Complex institutions
Record keeping
Advanced technology
City state, a city and its nearby farmlands. Most of them where near the mouth of the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Sumer had at least 12 self-ruled city-state.
Cities: centers of trade, learning and religions with walls, narrow (“angosto”), winding (zigzag) streets & mud houses.
Sumerians believed in many gods and goddesses. This is called Polytheism.
The largest and most important structure in a Sumerian city was a temple: Ziggurat.
Leaders:1st priest 2nd judges 3rd kings (the highest-ranked leader of a group).
Life in Sumer
• Sumerian Society: King priest, landowners, government
officials, rich merchants, free people (many artisans and
farmers), slaves.
• Plow, wheel, potter`s wheel, bronze (copper + tin).
• Development of Mathematics: Arithmetic, to keep records of
crops and trade goods, number 60 & geometric shapes.
• 1st Pictures of objects, 2nd Pictographs (picture writing) which
were symbols for these objects,3 rd Cuneifrom or wedge
writing (600 symbols for objects & ideas).
• Record keepers: Scribes, people who specialized in writing,
wrote with a stylus, a sharpened reed.
Mesopotamian Empires
•
King Sargon of Akkad: Creator of the 1st Empire (a form of government that
brings together many different people and lands under the control of one
ruler). Sargon was also an emperor , (person who rules an empire).
•
He ruled in the Fertile crescent (lands that stretched in a curve from the
Mediterranean sea though Mesopotamia, a Persian Gulf).
Empires are important: they change the way people live. Empires bring peace
to the people there. They encourage trade. Empires spread ideas, technology,
and customs.
•
•
•
•
•
King Hammurabi of Babylonian Empire, also he ruled it. He created the first
code of laws, a set of written rules for people to obey .
Hammurabi's code was written in cuneiform and the goal of this goal was to
justice, fail treatment of people plus protection to all, women and men.
Hammurabi's code set out the belief that society should be run bye the code
of law.
Hammurabi's code of laws sometimes called eye for an eye code, and
includes 282 laws converging bussing, property to conduct toward other
people.
The Legacy of
Mesopotamia
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1st Writing
1st Code of laws “Hammurabi”
Wheel
1st Library
1st Empire
Irrigation System (Dike, Canals)
Hanging Gardens
1st Calendar (Months and Weeks)
1st Civilization
Plow
Wagons
Potter’s Wheel
Bronze Items
Mathematics (Arithmetic and Shapes)
Stylus
Board Games
Wheel Chariot
Sources in M.L.A. Format
• NEWSPAPER
"Mesopotamia: La primera civilización de la humanidad".
Expreso. 18 de mayo 2014: Enciclopedia Escolar. Impreso.
•
BOOK
Carnine, Douglas. et al. World History Ancient Civilization.
Primera Edición. Evanston: McDougal Litell,2006.Impreso.