Unit 2 - Mesopotamia
Achievements
Please copy this.
Question
How did
technology
and culture
influence
future
civilizations?
Mesopotamian
Accomplishments
Impact on today
Visual
Writing
The Sumerians
invented the
world’s first
system of writing Cuneiform.
Cuneiform
• 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 (difficult to work with).
• 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 wedgeshaped symbols cuneiform.
Writing
• 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:
– household goods
– court activity
– sales and purchases
– list of their kings that was updated from time to
time, as new kings came to power.
Words
• Some Mesopotamian
words are still in use
today.
• Words like:
– crocus, which is a flower,
and
– saffron, which is a spice,
are words borrowed
from the ancient
Mesopotamians.
Does any of this
impact your
society?
Gilgamesh
• One of the best things the ancient Sumerians
wrote down was a great story called The Epic
of Gilgamesh. The Epic (long poem) 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.
Gilgamesh
• According to the
story, Gilgamesh
was not just a
hero. He was the
first superhero!
• He was part god
and part human.
He had many
special powers.
Do you have
super heros in
your society?
Advances & Inventions
– Advances and Inventions –
Mesopotamians achieved
in many forms of
technology!
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•
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•
•
•
•
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Wheel
Sailboat
Plow
Sewers
Bronze tools and weapons
Glass and Jewelry
Math
Science
– Astronomers and the
Lunar Calendar
• Medicine
•
•
•
•
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Frying pans
Razors
Cosmetic sets
Shepherd’s pipes
Harps
Kilns to cook bricks and
pottery
• Bronze hand tools like
hammers and axes
• Plow seeder
Math and Science
Sumerian Calendar
• 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.
• Circles divided into 360
degrees.
• Year into 12 months.
Science
Calendars
were created
to keep track
of the
seasons – and
more
importantly –
the Floods!
Are any of these
accomplishments
in your society
today?
Art
Lyre – plays music
– The Arts – the
Mesopotamians designed
great building and numerous
works of art!
• Architecture – the study of
building
– Arch
•
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•
•
•
•
Ziggurat
Music
Instruments
Sculptures
Jewelry
Cylinders
Ziggurat – with arches as doorways
Cylinders
• A cylinder seal is a
cylinder engraved with a
'picture story', used in
ancient times to roll an
impression onto a twodimensional surface,
generally wet clay.
Cylinder seals were
invented around 3500 BC.
• Cylinder seals are
important to historians as
they often tell a story
about a specific timeline
and civilization. Images
depicted on cylinder seals
were mostly themedriven, often sociological
or religious
Seals and Cylinders
Is anything you just
read about
influencing your
society?