“Necessity is the mother of invention.” --Plato
By Zoe Januszewski and Lexie Silverman
Mesopotamia
How did the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers support agriculture?
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Geography- the two rivers are located in the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent going
from the pedestrian gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
 Fertile soil- the soil around the rivers are good for crops and fertile, but unfortunately
parts of the land further away from the river were dry and very hard to be inhabited in
 Semiarid climate-Mesopotamia is a semiarid climate, so it is usually hot and has lots of
droughts. The temperature was often over 110 degrees Farenhieght; also they have less
than 10 inches of rainfall every year.
 Rivers- the Tigris River flows 1100 miles to the Persian coast; the Euphrates River flows
1700. The other rivers being the Jordan River and the Nile.
How did climate affect farmers?
Unpredictable floods-the land of Mesopotamia was so flat and plain and easy to food or get
flooded; so the people of ancient Mesopotamia built irrigation systems to water their food.
Additionally, the land had silts, or fine soil at the bottom of a lake, so it would have nutrients.
The floods were sometime between April and June and farmers didn’t know when to plant their
crops, or how big he seasonal flood would be.
Unpredictable droughts- the ancient Mesopotamia region would suffer a time without enough
rain or water, and it lowered river levels, made it hard to water crops and keep the vegetation
alive, so people starved because their crops and food were dyeing.
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Irrigation-even though the soil around the rivers are good for crops and fertile parts of
the land further away from the river were dry and very hard to be inhabited in. This is
why irrigation systems are very important in Mesopotamia; they would bring water to
farmer in a dry part of Mesopotamia that needed to water crops or drink fresh water.
How did Mesopotamians cope with a lack of resources?
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Mud houses and walls-Mesopotamians would use the adobe style because the mud is
plentiful, and water was nearby. So it made sense to build the adobe style homes made
with mud and grass, and dried in the sun to make had bricks.
Trade- the Mesopotamians would trade grain because they had a surplus of it. Also
because the Mesopotamia region did not have much natural recourse, they would trade
their surplus of grain with the trade routes nearby.
Basic Traits
Examples from Sumer
of Civilization
Advanced
The advanced cities offered many advantages such as: places to store food, trade,
cities
and surplus of grain. And later many jobs and temples.
In ancient Mesopotamia, specialization and developing skills would improve the
quality of their work; also the people of Mesopotamia were supposed to help on
Specialized
projects, and organize their society; additionally, in early Sumerian cities, the
workers
priests and or organized society, acted as judges their society; additionally, in
early Sumerian cities, the priests and or organized society, acted as judges
Some institutions were religion and government; also groups of people that have
Complex
the same propose help the society have what it needs; the institutions also were
institutions
schools and armies
Their societies must keep records of things like food. It was usually written in
Record
numbers, but the early Mesopotamians would use counting sticks. Also in later
keeping
years the Mesopotamians invented and used the worlds first system of writing.
One of the most important inventions that contributed to technology that was
done by the Sumerians was how they were able to control their two main rivers,
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Sumerians learned to build levees. So they
were no longer depending on yearly floods, and also had a good and stable all
year
Advanced technology -One of the most important inventions that contributed to
technology that was done by the Sumerians was how they were able to control
their two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Sumerians learned to
build levees. So they were no longer depending on yearly floods, and also had a
good and stable all year round food supply. Soon this resulted in he first
unnomadic civilisations, where people could be static, and live in the same
place for a long period of time.
What type of community developed in Sumer?
City states-the worlds first civilizations, Mesopotamia, was established around
about 3500 B.C. this civilization was established by the Sumerians who lived in
a place called Sumeria
Ziggurats-ziggurats were a form of temple most commonly built in ancient
Mesopotamia for the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
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Polytheism-the prefix, poly, meaning many, and the suffix, theism,
meaning religion, custom, and beliefs. Meaning the Sumerian religion
had many different customs.
Ziggurat-ziggurats in ancient Mesopotamia were used as “a place for the
gods”, and only priests were allowed in. It was their responsibility to take
care of the god and attend their needs. This resulted that priests were very
powerful in the Sumerian society. Sumerian society
Roles of women- most girls were trained as a child for the usual roles of a
wife, mother, and or housekeeper. The women or girls would be taught to
grind grain, spin and weave cloth for clothing, and cook and make
beverages (especially beer that would be hand made). She might sell the
beer or even become a tavern keeper.
Sumerian science and technology
Early inventions- writing or cuneiform written with a stylus made from reeds on
wet clay around this was developed around the time of 3200 B.C.
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Mathematics- the Sumerians of Mesopotamia created a very complex and
difficult system of metrology, or the science of measurement. They
developed this from 3000 B.C to 2600 B.C then used it after it was
completed. They would write multiplication symbols on clay tablets and
did geometrical exercises.
Creation of Written language-education was very important in the
Sumerian culture. With the written language they created they would
record stuff like what they gave the gods, if they had an extremely big
surplus of grain, or if they had a drought and many died. But this all
started with drawings on cave walls, but the pictures became more
intercut. And evolved into more symbol looking things. They would write
with many characters, and it would take a very long time to learn all of
the many different symbols.
Picture writing-in the more modern ancient Sumerian, they wrote in
symbols that represented letter that spelled a word. But in the earlier
years, they wrote in bigger pictures that looked real, unlike the letters that
didn’t look like any thing but a bunch of random lines.
Cuneiform- cuneiform is their style of writing. They would write this on
wet clay tablets with “styluses” or reeds.
Literature- Epic of Gilgamesh- a man who goes on a quest for
immortality and fails.
Akkadian Empire
its name coming from the sumerian word, "agade"
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Sargon-sargon was a leader for the worlds first empire. And it is ledgend
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that he was abandoned by his mother in a river when he was a child.
Created world’s first empire (group of many different lands under one
ruler)
Lasted 200 years-it lasted 200 years and was started by the leader, sargon, but the
empire soon fell only 200 years later, making room for the next empire.
Babylonians
the name coming from the akkadian word, "babu" meaning gateway for the gods.
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Hammurabi- he was the 6th leader and created the very long code of
laws, the first real rules and guide lines.
◦ Code of Laws- hummurabi created a very long and intricate code of laws this
cod e told what was right and what the consiquenses were for doing something
bad.
◦ Rights to people- the code told what rights the people had and what to do.
These rules were mostly fair.
Assyrians
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Ferocious army- they wer known for being ferosious and dangerious.
they also had a famous leader, nebuchadrezzar 11 he was an active
military leader and led his colony to a very violent lifestyle.
Set fire to buildings-they had many enemies, and if they set fito their
buildings, it would warn away or kill them.
Iron tipped weaponry from Hittites- they were known for their skills in
wepontry.
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Punishment, taxes, moved people to foreign territories once captured
(exiled)
First libraries by Ashura- nipal in Nineveh 20,000 tablets: dictionaries,
myths, stories, science, geography, medicine, religion
They made many enemies, two enemies( being Chaldeans and Medes) joined
forces to defeat them
these amazing empires live on......