Ancient Mesopotamia

1. Ancient Mesopotamia Grade 7 Project By Chaya Blue November 15, 2011

2. What is Mesopotamia? • Mesopotamia means “Land between the two rivers.” in Greek. When it says Mesopotamian civilization, it really means the four civilizations that existed on Mesopotamian plain: Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, and Chaldea.-pg 67 of my Text book

3. Geography • The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin in the mountains of Turkey. Water rushed down to the hills below, picking up fertile silt and carrying it to the valley floor.- pg 66 of my Text book

4. Geography (cont.) • Except for Springtime floods, Mesopotamia was a dry land. After the flood waters flowed away, the people were left with sun-baked lands. The biggest challenge for the farmers was to find away to control the water to flow so that it won’t flood nor bake. Only this way could they make sure their crops would survive. They found a way to irrigate the land. At first the people dug away parts of the river banks so that the water would flood onto their land. They built dams to make pools and dipped water out of them with buckets tied to poles. They built dikes ( a low earthen wall) to direct the flow of water. – pg 70 of my Text book

5. Geography (cont.) • The early farmers of Mesopotamia found the hot, dry climate on the region both a blessing and a curse. It provided the heat that many need to thrive but not the rain fall. In spring, fields flooded after the snow melted in the mountains. When the water was gone in late summer, fields baked in the hot sun.-pg 68 of my text book

6. Geography (cont.) • The people of Mesopotamia invented many tools and techniques to make tier farming work easier and more productive. They harnessed animals to pull ploughs. They placed a shoulder yoke on the oxen to make them easier to guide. They altered the plough so that it would turn the soil and crop into freshly ploughed rows. –pg 81 of my text book

7. Geography (cont.) • Uruk stayed an important city for thousands of years. The people who lived there are known as Sumerians, and it was with them that Mesopotamia civilization really took off.- pg 17 of the Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (E.A.W.)

8. Daily Life • The Sumerians prayed to hundreds of different gods and goddesses. But each city had its own special ones and the temple was known as gods home to the people. Priests lived in the temple performing ceremonies, reciting hymns, and prayers. Temples were also great employers. Dozens of cooks, craft men, and cleaners worked there looking after the priests.-pg 21 of E.A.W.

9. Daily Life (cont.) • The Sumerians believe their land belonged to gods not to them. So farmers produce was donated to the temple and the priests were put in-charge of collecting, storing, and distributing it to everyone. To organize this huge task small army of scribes and officials was on hand.-pg 21 of E.A.W.

10. Economy and trade • The Mesopotamian woman enjoyed several freedoms they could own property and slaves, run businesses and take part in trading. The communities thrived partly because of all the hard work of the slaves. Some people were made slaves after being trapped in battle. Others sold themselves or their children into slavery to cover their depts.-pg 72 of my Text book

11. Daily Life (cont.) • the Assyrian kings were great warriors, and led their armies onto the battle field. But they also knew now to enjoy themselves. Several of the kings had zoos of exotic animals. They also hunted animals to prove their skills and bravery.- pg 37 of E.A.W.

12. Economy and trade (cont.) • Because there was plenty of food in Mesopotamia, some people could make a living by creating goods or selling their services in exchange for surplus food. People began to develop skills in leather work, carpentry, pottery, metalwork, and weaving. They learned to make gold rings, statuettes with lapis lazuli and shell containers. By trading these goods, people make a good living and the economy thrived.-pg 72 of me Text book

13. Economy and trade (cont.) • Caravans and long ships powered by square sails and oars carried building stone from Africa, copper from Cyprus, gold from Egypt, and cedar from Lebanon. In trade, the Sumerian offered wool, cloth, jewelry, oil, and grains.- page 72 of my Text book

14. Economy and Trade (cont.) • Babylon thrived as a trading centre because it lays in the middle of the main trade routes. Babylonians caravans traveled to Persia and Asia minor. Their ships traded along the rivers and along the coasts of Arabia and India.-pg 72 of my Test book

15. Economy and Trade (cont.) • Trade with nearby lands brought more than goods. People also learned about one another's languages, religion, and inventions. For example, new ways of making pottery and tools for farming, spread quickly through Mediterranean area after they appeared in Mesopotamia. This “trade” in ideas helped the Mesopotamian society.-pg 72 of my text book

16. Economy and trade (cont.) • The Babylonians were one of the first peoples to exchange money for goods. The shekel was a silver, copper, or gold coins that weighed the same as 180 grains of barley. A mina was worth 60 shekels, an a talent was worth 60 minas.- pg 73 of my text book

17. Economy and trade (cont.) • The Sumerians used a barter system to buy and sell goods. Goods were exchanged for their value in sacks of grain. Scribes, people who sell their writing skills for a living, kept records and accounts on clay tablets. Mesopotamia’s vast net work or irrigation canals made it easy for traders to travel.-pg 73 of my text book

18. Economy and trade (cont.) • Trade and other peaceful contact enriched the civilization of Mesopotamia. But other contact led to warfare. When civilization traded regularly with its neighbors, it usually flourished. But if it had many strong enemies it was usually doomed.-pg 76 of my text book

19. Economy and trade (cont.) • The Mesopotamians were the first people to develop written language. Writing was mostly used for trade. Education, laws, history, and literature all became possible after humans could record their ideas. The Sumerians developed a form of writing called Cunieform.-pg 82 of my text book

20. Art and Architecture(cont.) • The Sumerians were wonderful craftsmen. They made jewelry of precious gold and lapis, fancy chairs, and unglazed vases they kept water cool. They were not very good at huge stone sculptures because their artists did not have stone to work with. But they made beautiful things with materials on hand. One of the things they did very well was to create colorful mosaics in intricate and beautiful patterns using little pieces of painted clay. Archeologists have found remains of mosaics, helmets, harps, jewelry, pottery and decorated tablets.- from http://mesopotamia.mrdonn.org/art.html

21. Art and Architecture (cont.) • They made such beautiful pottery that it became a form of wealth. The pottery was exchanged for food, clothing, and jewelry. they had many musical instruments, including the harp, reed pipes, drums, and the lyre.- from http://mesopotamia.mrdonn.org/art.html

22. Art and Architecture (cont.) • Sumerian architecture is probably the oldest serious architecture in the world. People living in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, began to build really big, substantial buildings about 3500 BC. Because there's practically no building stone in this area, but there's lots of clay, Sumerian architects built their buildings out of mud-brick or fired brick. This was so early that the architects didn't know how to make a big building stay up if it was hollow inside, so the first big buildings are solid rather than really useful as buildings. They're more like artificial hills. This is the same as the Egyptian pyramids, which were built just a little later and are also pretty much solid inside. Mostly what they built was huge staircases of mud-brick which are called ziggurats. Each little city-state would build its own ziggurat, partly to please the gods and partly to show how powerful the town was. On top of each ziggurat, there was a small temple to Ishtar or Anu or another Mesopotamian god.- from http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/westasia/architecture/sumerian.htm

23. Art and Architecture (cont.) • The Sumerians also built town walls around their towns, which were also built mainly out of mud-brick, and which could also be solid. (In fact fortification walls pretty much have to be solid!). The Sumerians in each city-state built palaces for their kings, too. These palaces weren't just to live in; they were also storehouses for wheat and barley and cloth and all kinds of things that the kings collected as taxes. And of course not only the king but also his whole family and many slaves lived in these palaces. The palaces were also made out of mud-brick. Mud-brick buildings like these would look pretty boring if they just had straight walls, all brown. So the builders made them look more interesting by creating areas of dark and light on their walls - the walls went in and out at regular intervals, making a sort of pattern of shadows.- from http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/westasia/architecture/sumerian.htm

24. Government • With the development of writing, the Mesopotamians began to write down laws. The best-known set of laws to the ancient Mesopotamians is the code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was a king of Babylon. He brought prosperity and peace to the city-states he ruled throughout Mesopotamia. He claimed the gods had told him to write down laws to make sure the “the strong may not oppress the weak.” Hammurabi’s code was an important step toward creating a society in which everybody’s rights are recognized. The code lists 282 laws. They cover all aspects of peoples daily life, including family, labor, buying and selling land, possessions, and trade. Each law has a punishment.-from my text book.

25. Government (cont.) • Early Sumerian towns had been governed by elected officials. But, as towns grew into cities, the small local organizations that had looked after daily life grew into huge governments, with hundreds of officials. These began to be appointed directly by powerful men, without consulting anyone.-pg 20 of E.A.W

26. Government (cont.) • City-states squabbled with each other over valuable farmland, and petty disputes sometimes grew into full-blown wars. So walls for protection, and a warlord, or lugal, was chosen to lead the fighting. As wars grew more frequent, lugals stayed in power for longer. Eventually, they were recognized as kings and when they died there sons took over.- pg 20 of E.A.W.