THEME 2 WRITING AND THE CITY LIFE CLASS IX

Suggested Activities
 Seminar Presentation on the following topics-
a) Life in the city
b) The Legacy of writing
 Action and Attractive Classroom
a) Making own tablet – using your own symbols
 Audio Visual Class/story Telling session
a) The Epic of Gilgamesh (YouTube- The Epic of Gilgamesh: Crash course world mythology # 26)
Different Names used for the same civilization
• Mesopotamian civilization - The name Mesopotamia is derived from the Greek words mesos, meaning
middle, and potamos, meaning river. Mesopotamia means the land between the (Euphrates and the
Tigris) rivers.
• Sumerian Civilization- The first known language of Mesopotamia was Sumerian. That is why this
civilization is otherwise called as Sumerian Civilization
• Babylonian Civilization- After 2000 BCE, when Babylon became an important city of this civilization it is
called as Babylonian Civilisation.
• Akkadian Civilisation -Around 2400 BCE when Akkadian speakers arrived and established their rule in
southern part of Mesopotamia it was called as Akkadian civilisation.
• Assyrians Civilisation - when Assyrians speakers arrived and established their rule in southern part of
Mesopotamia it was called as Assyrians civilisation
Features of Mesopotamian civilisation
• Mesopotamian civilisation is known for its prosperity, city life, voluminous and rich literature, its
mathematics and astronomy.
• Mesopotamia’s writing system and literature spread to the eastern Mediterranean, northern Syria,
and Turkey.
Sources to understand Mesopotamian civilization
• We study hundreds of Mesopotamian buildings, statues, ornaments, graves, tools and seals as
sources.
• There are thousands of written documents as well to study Mesopotamian Civilisation.
Mesopotamia and its Geography
• Mesopotamia is a land of diverse environments.
• In the north, there is a stretch of upland called a steppe, where animal herding offers people a better
livelihood than agriculture – after the winter rains, sheep and goats feed on the grasses and low shrubs
that grow here.
• In the east, tributaries of the Tigris provide routes of communication into the mountains of Iran.
• The south is a desert – and this is where the first cities and writing emerged. This desert could support
cities because the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, which rise in the northern mountains, carry loads of silt.
The Significance of Urbanism in Mesopotamia
• Urban centres involve in various economic activities such as food production, trade, manufactures and
services.
• City people, thus, cease to be self-sufficient and depend on the products or services of other people.
• There is continuous interaction among them.
• There must be a social organization in Cities.
• Thus, organized trade, storage, deliveries of grain and other food items from the village to the city
were controlled and supervised by the rulers.
Movement of Goods into Cities and communication
• Mesopotamians could have traded their abundant textiles and agricultural produce for wood, copper,
tin, silver, gold, shell and various stones from Turkey and Iran, or across the Gulf.
• Regular exchange was possible only when there was a social organization to equip foreign expeditions
and exchanges of goods.
• The canals and natural channels of ancient Mesopotamia were in fact routes of goods transport
between large and small settlements.
The Development of Writing in Mesopotamia
• The first Mesopotamian tablets were written around 3200 BCE, which contained picture-like signs and
numbers.
 These were about 5,000 lists of oxen, fish, bread loaves, etc. – lists of goods that were brought
into or distributed from the temples of Uruk.
• Mesopotamians wrote on tablets of clay. A scribe would wet clay and pat it into a size he could hold
comfortably in one hand. He would carefully smoothen its surface. With the sharp end of a reed, he
would press wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs on to the smoothened surface while it
was still moist.
• Once dried in the sun, the clay tablet would harden and tablets would be almost as indestructible as
pottery.
• By 2600 BCE, the letters became cuneiform, and the language was Sumerian.
• Sumerian, the earliest known language of Mesopotamia, was gradually replaced after 2400 BCE by the
Acadian language.
The System of Writing in cuneiform
• Cuneiform sign did not represent a single consonant or vowel but syllable.
• Thus, the signs that a Mesopotamian scribe had to learn ran into hundreds.
• Writing was a skilled craft but, more important, it was an enormous intellectual achievement,
conveying in visual form the system of sounds of a particular language.
Literacy in Mesopotamia
• Very few Mesopotamians could read and write. Not only there were hundreds of signs to learn but
many of these were complex.
Construction and maintenance of temples in Mesopotamia
• As the archaeological record shows, villages were periodically relocated in Mesopotamian history
because of flood in the river and change in the course of the river.
• When there was continuous warfare in a region, those chiefs who had been successful in war could
oblige their followers by distributing the loot, and could take prisoners from the defeated groups to
employ in the temple for various works.
• In time, victorious chiefs began to offer precious booty to the gods and thus beautify the community’s
temples.
• War captives and local people were put to work for the temple, or directly for the ruler.
• With rulers commanding people to fetch stones or metal ores, to come and make bricks or lay the
bricks for a temple, or else to go to a distant country to fetch suitable materials.
Life in the City of Ur
• In Mesopotamian society the nuclear family was the norm, although a married son and his family often
resided with his parents. The father was the head of the family.
• Narrow winding streets indicate that wheeled carts could not have reached many of the houses.
• There were no street drains of the kind we find in contemporary Mohenjodaro. Drains and clay pipes
were instead found in the inner courtyards of the Ur houses and it is thought that house roofs sloped
inwards and rainwater was channeled via the drainpipes into sumps in the inner courtyards.
• There were superstitions about houses, recorded in omen tablets at Ur.
A Trading Town in a Pastoral Zone( Life in the city of Mari)
• After 2000 BCE the royal capital of Mari flourished. Mari stands not on the southern plain with its
highly productive agriculture but much further upstream on the Euphrates.
• Such groups would come in as herders, harvest labourers or hired soldiers, occasionally become
prosperous, and settle down.
• A few gained the power to establish their own rule. These included.
• Located on the Euphrates in a prime position for trade – in wood, copper, tin, oil, wine, and various
other goods that were carried in boats along the Euphrates – between the south and the mineral rich
uplands of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
• Boats carrying grinding stones, wood, and wine and oil jars, would stop at Mari on their way to the
southern cities.
• Officers of this town would go aboard, inspect the cargo and levy a charge of about one-tenth the
value of the goods before allowing the boat to continue downstream.
• Thus, although the kingdom of Mari was not militarily strong, but it was exceptionally prosperous.
The Legacy of Writing (Science and Technology) in Mesopotamia
• The greatest legacy of Mesopotamia to the world is its scholarly tradition of time reckoning and
mathematics.
• Dating around 1800 BCE are tablets with multiplication and division tables, square- and square-root
tables, and tables of compound interest.
• The division of the year into 12 months according to the revolution of the moon around the earth, the
division of the month into four weeks, the day into 24 hours, and the hour into 60 minutes .
• Solar and lunar eclipses were observed.
PRACTICE SHEET
THEME 2 WRITING AND THE CITY LIFE CLASS-XI
General Instructions:
i. The Practice sheets had been designed on the basis of CBSE latest Syllabus 2019-20.
ii. There are FOUR SECTIONS and each section had assigned with marks with word limits
iii. Please write the answers in the NOTE COPY
iv. SECTION-I - Objective type questions. Each question carries one mark. Answer them as
instructed.
v. SECTION-II -3 marks questions. Answer of these questions should not exceed 100 words
each. Write the answers in the points (ATLEAST GIVE THREE POINTS KEEPING THE WORD
LIMITS IN MIND)
vi. SECTION-III-8 marks questions. Answer of these questions should not exceed 350 words
each. (ATLEAST GIVE FIVE POINTS KEEPING THE WORD LIMITS IN MIND)
vii. SECTION-IV- are SOURCE BASED QUESTIONS carrying 5 Marks each
viii. SECTION-V- 4 marks- On the political map of World locate the place with pencil mentioned in
the question.

SECTION- I OBJECTIVE TYPE QUESTIONS (1 MARK)

1. Match column A with B

A B
a) Mesopotamia i) Utnapishtim
b) Story of the Flood ii) Gilgamesh
c) Ruler of Uruk iii) Cuneiform
d) Wedge shaped iv) Mesos and Potamas
2. The earliest known language of Mesopotamia
a) Akkadian b) Assyrian c) Sumerian d) Aramaic
3 .Royal capital city of Mesopotamia
a) Uruk b) Mari c) Ur d) Susa
4. The Book of Genesis of the Old Testament refers to 'Shimar' as a land of brick built city. Identify this
city.
a) Sumer b) Nineveh c) Babylon d) Lagash
5. The Mesopotamian Goddess of love and war
a) Dagan b) Gilgamesh c) Inanna d) Enmerkar
6. The Mesopotamian tablet refer to copper from ……..island of Cyprus as an item of trade.
a) Alashiya b) Syria c) Lebanon d) Turkey
7. Mention two important components of Civilization.
8. List the different Names used for the Mesopotamian civilization?
9. What are the features of Mesopotamian civilization?
10. What are the different Sources to understanding Mesopotamian Civilization?
11. Mention two major necessities of Urbanism.
12. Name the two major cities of Mesopotamia.
13. Mention the two major Mesopotamian Legacy.
14. Describe in brief the geographical condition of Uruk.
15. Name the chief deity worshipped in the city of Ur.
SECTION-II SHORT ANSWER (3 MARKS)

1. Describe the significance of Urbanism in Mesopotamia?

2. Explain the Development and system of Writing in Mesopotamia.
3. How did people construct and maintain temples in Mesopotamia?
4. Write the meaning of Mesopotamia and its importance in world history.
5. “Mari is a good example of an urban centre prospering on trade.” Explain.
6. Explain the Legacy of Writing (Science and Technology) in Mesopotamia.
7. After 2000 BCE the royal capital of Mari flourished. Comment.
8. How did the archaeological work attempt to prove the literal truth of the Old Testament?
9. How did a pastoral zone become a Trading Town in the northern part of Mesopotamia?
10. What were the technical advances at Uruk around 3000 BCE? List them.

SECTION-III LONG ANSWER (8 MARKS)

1. Mesopotamia was a land with a lot to offer. Its location and natural resources encouraged people to
settle there. Explain the validity of the statement by drawing the map (HINTS- See the Map on page-30-
31)
2. ‘Cities and towns are not just places with large populations’. Evaluate the statement on the light of
significance of Urbanism in Mesopotamia
3. Mesopotamian writing was a skilled craft. Do you agree with the statement? Substantiate.
4. The Mesopotamian temples were not only centres of worship but also centres of economic activities.
Examine the validity of the statement.
5. Imagine you are a trader from the Mesopotamia. Prepare a Tablet, keeping the following points:
a) The development of writing b) Steps to prepare a Tablet c) Use of symbols
6. Mesopotamians valued city life. Many communities and cultures lived side by side. On the basis of this
statement analyse the features of the cities of Mesopotamia with reference to Ur, Uruk and Mari.
7. ‘The people of Mesopotamia were indebted to the system of writing for their achievements in the
field of science’. Do you agree with the statement? Why? Elucidate.

8. Draw the plan of the Palace of Mari and trace the route from the entrance to the inner court. What
do you think would have been kept in the storerooms? How was the kitchen been identified? (HINTS-
Page -43-43)

9. Draw the plan of the city of Ur describing the settlement pattern. (HINTS-Page 40)

SECTION-IV SOURCE BASED QUESTION (5 MARKS)

PAGE SOURCE BASED QUESTION

32 Where was the woman head sculpture discovered? What was it called?
How old was this? 2
Describe the unique characteristics of the sculpture. 2
Why is it a world famous sculpture? 1
What makes you to understand to conclude that this sculpture is a world
famous? 2
39 Describe the type of materials which were used to make seals? 2
What were the various types of seals? 1
Mention two features of these seals. 2
What were the purposes of such seal in Mesopotamian Civilization? 2
44 Explain in brief the procedure adopted to discover Abu Salabikh? 2
Why Mesopotamian excavators had much higher standard of accuracy? 1
What do you understand by Abu Salabikh? 2
What do you conclude with the presence of pick bones along with buried
sites? 2
46 Who were the Assyrians? Give the location of their Empire 2
Mention the significance of Babylonia? 1
Why did Assurbanibal made efforts to gather tablets? What were his other
collections? 2
Why were the copies of some tablets made? 2

SECTION V MAP WORK (4 MARKS)

On the Political Map of the world, locate the following places
1. Ur
2. Uruk
3. Babylon
4. Persian Gulf
5. Red Sea
6. Black Sea
7. Rivers Tigris and Euphrates
8. Mari
9. Assur
10. Baghdad
.