Mesopotamia
One of the first civilizations, a
culturally developed or advanced
state of human society with a
political, economic and social
system and a developed method
of writing, that grew in the fertile
crescent of land between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers.
The site was one of the first
permanent human settlements.
The area where Mesopotamia
was located is now present day
Syria and Iraq.
Mesopotamia
Circa, about the time of,
4500 B.C. wandering people
settled in large numbers in
the area and began farming.
They created a 12 month
calendar based on the
phases of the moon and the
plow, an instrument used for
farming.
Mesopotamia
Some of the villages
and towns became
city-states, which
were made up of the
city and farmland
surrounding it.
The city-state was a
theocracy, a government ruled
by an individual who was both
the king and religious leader.
Mesopotamia
The earliest of the city-states
rose in an area called Sumer.
The Sumerians created a
system of writing known as
cuneiform.
Circa 2300 B.C. the warlike
kingdom of Akkad conquered
Sumer and several other citystates to create the first empire,
a group of states or territory
under one ruler with sole
authority.
Mesopotamia
King of Babylon, King
Hammurabi created a code
called Hammurabi’s Code, it
contained the first written law,
an attempt to bring some justice
and fairness to the idea of law.
Mesopotamia
The people in Mesopotamia were polytheistic,
the worship of or belief in more than one god , like
the sun, moon, and the air. Pyramid shaped
temples were built to house the statues of their
gods.
Apkallu fish
Usmu (Isimud)
Adad (Ishkur)
Gula
Lama
Ishtar (Inanna)
Mesopotamia
They were great traders and left many
gifts to society such as the potter’s
wheel, carts, chariots, cuneiform
writing, and musical notation.
Mesopotamians also left other
gifts like instruments to
measure time, the 60 minute
hour, the 60 second minute,
which we still use today, and
the calendar. Astronomy, the
study of stars and the night sky.
Ancient Egypt
Like Mesopotamia, Egyptian civilization, grew out
of a river valley, the Nile River, the longest river in
the world. Egypt expanded as far as Mesopotamia
in the north and southward to present day Sudan.
Ancient Egypt
The two kingdoms
of Upper Egypt and
Lower Egypt were
united circa 3100
B.C. under a
pharaoh, a great
ruler.
Ancient Egypt
Egyptians had a polytheistic religion, meaning
they worshipped many gods.
Ancient Egypt
Egyptians believed in life after
death. They embalmed their
dead to preserve the body for
their next life. They would
preserve the body immediately
after death as a mummy.
Ancient Egypt
The Egyptians would bury their dead in tombs.
The largest tombs belonged to the pharaohs
and were called pyramids.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/launch_gms_mummy_maker.shtml
Ancient Egypt
Hieroglyphics is a form of picture
writing with about 800 signs. In
1820, the Rosetta Stone provided the
key that cracked the code for
hieroglyphics.
Ancient Egypt
The Egyptians were famous for trading goods
such as hard woods, incense, and ivory.
Their greatest gift were the pyramids. Many have
wondered how they were built, but today
archaeologists, people who study human
cultures, believe it took about 20,000 workers and
about 20 years to build a pyramid.