1.
Advanced Cities
◦ Large group living
together
◦ Trading center
2.
Specialized Workers
◦ Develop skills in a specific
kind of work
(trader or priest)
◦ Why?
Abundant food
Complex Institutions
3.
◦ Long-lasting pattern of
organization in a community
◦ Examples:



Religion
Government
Economy
4.
Record Keeping
◦ System of writing
◦ Taxes, laws, religious
rituals
◦ Scribes – professional
keepers
5.
Advanced Technology
◦ Anything that makes life
easier
Complex
Institutions:
formal governments
(laws and officials),
priests w/ religious
power
Specialized Workers:
soldiers, merchants,
teachers, priests, etc.
Advanced cities:
Uruk – 50,000
Lagash – 10,000 -50,000
Sumer
Record Keeping:
Cuneiform writing
system
Advanced
Technology:
3000 BCE wheel,
plow, sailboat; bronze
weapons and armor
 Tigris
Rivers
& Euphrates
 Annual
flooding
◦ Silt – rich layer of soil
deposited by a river (good
for growing crops)
◦ Alluvial Plain – flat
landform created by
deposit of silt from rivers
coming from highlands
 Unpredictable
flooding &
little rain
irrigation ditches
 No
natural barriers for
protection
built city walls
 Limited
natural resources
traded grain & cloth for
stone & wood
 City-state:
city & surrounding
area functioning as a country
does today
 Priests
head government
3,000 BCE
 Kings
head government
2,500 BCE
◦ Create Dynasties - series of
rulers under one family
Ziggurat – walled temple



Akkadian – Sargon of Akkad
(2350 - 2150 BCE) defeated
city-states of Sumer
1st empire: brings together
several independent
peoples, nations, or states
Babylonian – Babylon
(2000 - 539 BCE)

Hammurabi’s Code
◦ Hammurabi
(Babylonian King)
◦ 1792-1750 BCE
◦ Unified code of laws
◦ Oldest known legal system
◦ Stressed justice &
punishment based on social
class

Polytheism: belief in

Human-like, but
immortal & powerful

Humans were
servants

two or more gods
(kings representatives
of gods)
Built ziggurats &
offered sacrifices to
please gods
Sumerian
Social
Hierarchy
Kings, Priests,
Landholders
Merchants
Farmers
Slaves

Arithmetic, Geometry
◦ Helped in building
projects

Architecture

Cuneiform
◦ Arches, columns,
ramps, pyramid shape
◦ Writing system
◦ Pictograph – symbols
stand for words