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Mesopotamia 2017
Mesopotamia 2017
Mesopotamia
The Fertile
Crescent
• Mesopotamia
means “between
the rivers”
3. Priests 4. Priests
2. Frequent
and Kings controlled
1. Had an wars led to
had power religious and
early form warriors
because they economic life.
become
of leaders and
“spoke” with Kings
democracy the chosen controlled
eventually
god of the political and
kings
City-State military life.
The Rise of Sumer
Complete the fill-in-the-blank notes
using chapter 5 section 2) pg122
• Individual city-states Uruk and Ur power over time. The city state Kish had
become powerful. Over the next 1000 years Uruk and Ur fought. One of
Urak’s Kings, known as Gilgamesh became a legendary Sumerian figure.
The Rise of Sumer
continued…
Mesopotamian gods
• Enlil & Utu - supreme god; god
of rain & sun
• Ishtar- goddess of fertility & life
• Inanna - goddess of love & war
• Enki- god of water & underworld
• Shamash- god of sun and giver
of law
Sumerian: Social hierarchy
Kings,
Priests and
wealthy
property owners
Skilled workers,
merchants and
farmers
• Education was usually reserved for Men but some upper class
Women were educated. Some of them became priestesses in
Sumer’s temples.
Check Point
True or False
Invention of Writing
• Cuneiform: the world’s first system of writing
• Sumerians used sharp tools called a stylus to
make symbols on clay tablets
• Sumerians first used cuneiform to keep
business records. In time they put their writing
skills to new uses they wrote works on history,
law, grammar and math. They also created
works of literature.
• Later, people used some of these poems to
create the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Epic of Gilgamesh
• Gilgamesh is an ancient story or
epic poem written in
Mesopotamia more than 4000
thousand years ago.
Art
1. Sculpture 3. Jewelry
2. Pottery 4. Cylinder seals
Later Peoples of the fertile Crescent
Take your own notes using chapter 5 section 4 (pg132-137)
• Babylon
• Hammurabi
• Hittites & Kassites
• Assyrians
• Chaldeans
• Phoenecians
The Code of Hammurabi
• To enforce his rule, Hammurabi collected all the
laws of Babylon in a code
• These laws would apply everywhere in the land
• He build new walls to protect the city and new canals and
dikes to improve crops