Section 1: The Land Between Two Rivers

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Mesopotamia Journal Table of Contents
Circle Map ....................................................2
Key Terms - Sec. 1........................................3
Geography.....................................................4
Early Cities.....................................................5
Sumerian Religion.........................................6
Key Terms - Sec. 2........................................7
Double Bubble Map.......................................8
Babylon..........................................................9
Assyria...........................................................10
Key Terms - Sec. 3........................................11
Hammurabi's Code........................................12
Cuneiform......................................................13/14
Key Terms - Sec. 4........................................15
Phoenician Alphabet.....................................16
Double Bubble Map........................................17
The Israelites..................................................18
Key Terms - Sec 5.........................................19
Multi-flow Map...............................................20
Circle Map.....................................................21/22
Reflection......................................................back cover

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Mesopotamia Circle Map
What do you know about Mesopotamia as we begin this unit?
Mesopotamia

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Ancient Mesopotamia was located in a piece of The Fertile Crescent, in what is now southern Iraq. It covered an area about 300 miles long and about 150 miles wide. The word Mesopotamia actually means
(in Greek) “the land between the rivers.” The two rivers referred to by the ancient Greeks are the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers.
Explore other types of maps of Mesopotamia here.

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Use your textbook to create a map of Mesopotamia. On page 31 of your book, you will find a map that you should add to page 4 of your
Mesopotamia Journal.

In Northern Mesopotamia, the land is fertile. There is seasonal rain. The rivers and streams are fed from the hills and mountains of the region.
In Southern Mesopotamia, the land is mostly flat and barren. Temperatures can rise over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. There is very little rainfall, however, storms do blow in from the Persian Gulf.
The area has a climate similar to Arizona and can get quite cool at certain times of the year.
Many thousands of years ago, early settlers wandered into the land between two rivers. Natural vegetation and wildlife kept the people well fed. The rivers provided fresh drinking water, and a place to bathe. These early people settled down, invented a system of irrigation, and began to farm the land.

Many thousands of years ago, early settlers began to build cities along the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.
Natural wildlife and vegetation kept these early people fed while they began to build their new world.
It did not rain much, but the early settlers soon learned that if you irrigated the land, crops grew quickly. These early people built canals to bring water to the land from the rivers. They planted wheat, barley, dates, and vegetables including cucumbers, onions, apples, and spices.
They raised sheep, goats, and cows. They hunted wild game birds and other animals, and enjoyed fish, cheese, eggs, roasted duck, pork, and deer. They wove sturdy baskets from the weeds that grew along the riverbanks and made pottery from the wet clay.

A city-state is a city that is also a separate, independent state. Each city has it's own special god or goddess, own government, and it's own king. Having a king in each city-state was the eventual downfall of this civilization because the city-states were almost at a constant state of war with each other over land and water rights.
City-states had busy marketplaces filled with musicians, beggars, water sellers and scribes.
Sumerian houses faced away from the street with courtyards in their center where children could play. On hot nights, Sumerians would sleep on the flat roofs of their homes for better ventilation.

The Sumerian civilization probably began around 5000 BCE. In the beginning, they were an agricultural
(farming) community. They grew crops and stored food for times of need.
The ancient Sumerians were very smart. They invented the wheel, the sailboat, the first written language, frying pans, razors, shepherd’s pipes, harps, kilns to cook bricks and pottery, bronze hand tools like hammers and axes, the plow, the plow seeder, and the first superhero, Gilgamesh. They invented a system of mathematics based on the number 60. Today, we divide an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds thanks to their early mathematicians.
Sumerian houses faced away from the street with courtyards in their center where children could play. On hot nights, Sumerians would sleep on the flat roofs of their homes for better ventilation.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/2000sumer-proverbs.html

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Use your textbook to create a page on the first cities of Mesopotamia, such as Sumer. On page 33 of your book, read about first cities and add a summary of what you have read to page 5 of your Mesopotamia Journal.
Beneath your summary, draw a picture of city life in ancient Mesopotamia.

Ziggurats were temples. The Sumerians believed that powerful gods lived in the sky. They built huge structures, called ziggurats, with steps climbing up to the top. Religious ceremonies were held at the very top. People left offerings of food and wine. The priests enjoyed these offerings, as the gods could not eat for themselves.
The Ziggurat was built in the center of town and was the center of daily life. Except for festivals, which were typically somber occasions, the Ziggurat courtyard was happy and lively. From the top of the Ziggurat, a person could see over the protective wall made from mud-clay that was built about the entire town.

The ancient Sumerians believed in many gods, in other words, they were polytheistic. They believed that everything that happened to them - be it good or bad - was the result of a god's pleasure or displeasure.
Because of their beliefs, much of their daily life was spent seeking ways to please and appease their gods. In spite of all their efforts, many of their gods remained gloomy anyway.

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Use your textbook to create a page on Sumerian Religion. On pages 35-36 of your textbook, read about ziggurats and religion, then add a summary of what you have read to page 6 of your Mesopotamia Journal. Beneath your summary, draw a ziggurat.

Section 2: Babylonia & Assyria

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About a thousand years after the ancient Sumerians settled in the land between two rivers, two new civilizations arose. One was the warrior civilization of the Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia. The other was the ancient civilization of Babylonia. Babylonia was located in southern Mesopotamia, near the Persian
Gulf.

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You will use what you learn about Babylonia and Assyria to create a double bubble map comparing/contrasting the two. It should be placed vertically on the page to allow as much space as possible. You may add as many ideas as possible but it should look like this to begin with:
Assyria
Babylonia

The capital of Babylonia was the city of Babylon, created to honor the old Sumerian god, Marduk. Around 3500 years ago, Babylon was an impressive place with an impressive king named Hammurabi. Babylon was a massive walled city, with a network of canals and vivid green crops. Even from a distance, visitors could see the top of the 300-foot high ziggurat long before they reached the huge city gates.
Hammurabi developed a system of roads of encourage trade. Babylon then became a trading hub with caravans coming from the south towards the cities of the north. Bazaars in Babylon sold cotton from India and spices from Egypt.
Eventually, Babylon conquered the city-state of Mari and took the best chariots, weapons, and tools in the world.

Despite the fact that the capital city of Nineveh was known for it's remarkable library, Assyrians were best known for being skilled warriors who had to fight to protect their land as well as to conquer others. They were experts at waging war and developed the battering ram, had expert archers and used armed charioteers. They were very successful at defeating city-states to the east and west but Babylon proved difficult for them to overtake.
Around 1200 BCE, the Assyrians finally conquered Babylon. Babylon was the greatest city of the age but rather than take over the city for their own use, the Assyrians leveled it. The Assyrians hated the Babylonians. Before they destroyed the town, they forced all the people to move to various places in Assyria which is what the
Assyrians always did when they conquered a new people. They moved them around, different people in different places, so the conquered people would find it difficult to revolt.

King Nebuchadnezzar II was a Chaldean ruler who rebuilt Babylon after the Assyrians destroyed it.
Nebuchadnezzar restored old religious monuments and improved canals, but Nebuchadnezzar is best known for his legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Hanging Gardens were on a terrace supported by brick arches. Nebuchadnezzar's building projects included surrounding his capital city with a double wall 10-miles long with an elaborate entry called the
Ishtar Gate. He also built a port on the Persian Gulf.
Under the rule of the Chaldeans, Babylon became a center of learning and science. Their astronomers charted the stars and measured the length of a year. They were so good that they were only a few minutes off of what modern scientists found.

Legend says ... The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built by King Nebuchadnezzar so that the queen, his wife, would have a lovely, private, terraced garden to enjoy.
The gardens were rumored to be about 400 feet wide, 400 feet long, and over 80 feet high. Some historians believe the gardens were built in a series of platforms that all together were 320 feet high. There were paths and steps and fountains and gorgeous flowers, all build to make a homesick queen feel welcomed and loved.
It was supposedly built around 600 BCE, along the bank of the Euphrates River (south of the modern day city of
Baghdad, Iraq.)
No one knows if the gardens actually existed, or if they did, if they existed in Babylon, but the legend is a lovely one.

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Use your textbook to create a page on Babylonia. On page 40 of your textbook, read about Babylonia, then add a summary of what you have read to page 9 of your Mesopotamia Journal. Beneath your summary, you may illustrate the page in whatever way you wish.

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Use your textbook to create a page on Assyria. On page 41 of your textbook, read about Assyria, then add a summary of what you have read to page 10 of your Mesopotamia Journal. Beneath your summary, you may illustrate the page in whatever way you wish.

Section 3: The Legacy of Mesopotamia

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Hammurabi (c. 1792-1750 BC) united all of
Mesopotamia under his 43 year reign of Babylon.
Although his code is not the first code of laws (the first dates to centuries earlier), Hammurabi's Code is the best preserved legal document reflecting the social structure of Babylon during his rule.
In Hammurabi's court, it did not matter whether a person was rich or poor. If he or she broke the law and was found guilty, they were punished. Since laws were clearly written down, people were expected to follow them.
Two hundred eighty-two laws, concerning a wide variety of abuses, justify Hammurabi's claim of having acted "like a real father to his people . . . [who] has established prosperity . . . and (gave) good government to the land."

Some examples of the Code:
·If anyone steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death
·If anyone committing a robbery is caught, he shall be put to death
·If anyone open his ditches to water his crops but is careless, and the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his neighbor grain for his loss
·If a man adopt a child as his own son, and rear him, this grown son cannot be demanded back again
·If a son strike his father, his hands shall be cut off

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Use your textbook to create a page on Hammurabi's Code. On pages 44-45 of your textbook, read about the code, then add a summary of what you have read to page
12 of your Mesopotamia Journal. Beneath your summary, create at least 2 examples of new laws you would include.

The ancient Sumerians believed in education. Record keeping was very important to them. They wanted their sons to learn how to read and write. Their written language began as pictographs, pictures of things that acted as words. Pictographs worked, but they were rather cumbersome. Soon, the clever ancient Sumerians started to use wedge-shaped symbols for objects and ideas instead of pictures. Today, we call this written language of wedge-shaped symbols cuneiform .
We know a great deal about the ancient Sumerian civilization from the written records they left behind in stone and clay. The ancient Sumerians kept excellent records and lists of things. They listed their household goods. They listed their court activity.
They listed their sales and purchases. They even kept a list of their kings that was updated from time to time, as new kings came to power.
One of the best things the ancient Sumerians wrote down was a great story called The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of
Gilgamesh is perhaps the oldest recorded story in the world. It tells about the adventures of a king of Uruk, one of the city-states in ancient Sumer. King Gilgamesh may actually have existed. His name is on the list of Sumerian kings, a list we know about because the ancient Sumerians wrote it down.

·Writing first developed in about 3100 BC
·Scribes held positions of great respect in Mesopotamia
·Scribes recorded sales and trades, tax payments, gifts for the gods, marriages and deaths
·Scribes kept notes and records on clay tablets
·The first written words represented objects such as oxen or grain or water
·Later, written symbols represented ideas
·Scribes used a series of lines and wedges known as cuneiform

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Use your textbook to create a page on Cuneiform. On pages 45-47 of your textbook, read about cuneiform, then add a summary of what you have read to page 13 of your
Mesopotamia Journal. On page 14 copy down the Development of Writing Chart from page 47.

Section 4: Mediterranean Civilizations

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·The Phoenicians traded dyes and wood (cedar)
·Sea-faring traders who travelled all over the Mediterranean Sea
·Trade helped build the Phoenician's wealth and created amazing marketplaces
·The Phoenicians developed an alphabet of 22 symbols, each representing a consonant sound
·This alphabet is the basis of the alphabets of many of today's languages
·The Phoenician alphabet was easy for many to use and simplified trade between people who spoke different languages and their sea trade routes helped spread the alphabet

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Use your textbook to create a page on the Phoenician Alphabet. On page 50 of your textbook, read about the Phoenician Alphabet, then copy down the Phoenician
Alphabet from page 50 onto page 16 of your Mesopotamia Journal.

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You will use what you learn about Monotheism and Polytheism to create a double bubble map comparing/contrasting the two. It should be placed vertically on the page to allow as much space as possible. You may add as many ideas as possible but it should look like this to begin with:
Monotheism Polytheism

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·First called the Hebrews in the Torah (the Hebrew Bible) which tells much of the Israelites early history
·Their first leader, Abraham, led them into Canaan
·After a famine, they fled to Egypt
·An Egyptian king enslaved the Israelites for several hundred years
·Moses led them out of Egypt in the Exodus and they wandered the Sinai desert for 40 years
·The Torah says they received the Ten Commandments
·They resettle in Canaan and build a Temple under King Saul
·King Saul's son, King David, establishes Jerusalem
·The Kingdom splits into two halves: the northern half known as Israel, the southern half known as Judah
·The Israelites are exiled again after the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem

Section 5: Judaism

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·Israelites believed that history and religion are tied together - everything that happened was part of
God's plan
·Many ancient people thought that their gods were tied to places or people but the Israelites believed that God is present everywhere
·According to the Torah, God made a promise or covenant to Abraham that the Israelites would become kings and build nations
·Moses renewed that covenant when he told them God would lead them to the "Promised Land" if in return the Israelites would obey God
·The Israelites believed Moses received the Ten Commandments and they became the heart of Judaism and set expectations for behavior (laws)

·The Torah also provided laws similar to Hammurabi's Code
·Laws were taught to be carried out with justice and mercy
·Some laws protected women but women were considered to be a lower social status than men
·Women could not be leaders officially, but some won respect
·Prophets said they were speaking for God and tried to warn people not to disobey God

·Because the Jews (Israelites) were exiled to many different parts of the world, their faith spread as well
·The Diaspora (scattering of people) forced Jews to settle in many places but they preserved their heritage by doing the following things:
·living together in close communities
·obeying religious laws
·worshipping at their temples
·following traditions (such as Passover)

Judaism influenced Christianity and Islam:
Both have their beginnings in Judaism
Both center in the same geographical area
Both are monotheistic
All three religions honor Moses, Abraham and the prophets
All share the same moral values as the Israelites

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10 Commandments
Justice and
Mercy
Covenant with God
(Abraham and then
Moses)
The Torah
Monotheism
Women were respected but held no official power
Traditions
Prophets
J udaism
D iaspora
S pread Religion around
Mesopotamia
L ived in small communities
P reserved their heritage by following Traditions
(Passover)
F oundation of Christianity and Islam

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Mesopotamia

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WIIFM Reflection
What was the one thing you learned about in Mesopotamia that you will never forget? Why did it have such an impact on you?

Mesopotamia Journal Table of Contents
Circle Map ....................................................2
Key Terms - Sec. 1........................................3
Geography.....................................................4
Early Cities.....................................................5
Sumerian Religion.........................................6
Key Terms - Sec. 2........................................7
Double Bubble Map.......................................8
Babylon..........................................................9
Assyria...........................................................10
Key Terms - Sec. 3........................................11
Hammurabi's Code........................................12
Cuneiform......................................................13/14
Key Terms - Sec. 4........................................15
Phoenician Alphabet.....................................16
Key Terms - Sec. 5........................................17
Double Bubble Map.......................................18
The Israelites.................................................19
Multi-flow Map...............................................20
Circle Map.....................................................21/22
Reflection......................................................back cover