Empires Simulation What? So What? Now What?

What?

What does it mean to be civilized in ancient Mesopotamia? For two months we as a class

were in a simulation that helped our understanding of daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, along

with navigating problems that would have been relevant during the time Mesopotamia was on

the map. Each day for two months my group, Babylon, would assign a role to each person, which

included a leader, scribe, general, and a priest, to give us our tasks for that given day. These roles

were designed to help us see what roles and responsibilities these people would take on each day.

It taught us how important each role was to keep a civilization running smoothly. The leader

would oversee the tasks going on that day and have the final say on items like attacking other

groups, fate decisions each day, and more. The scribe was responsible for keeping track of our

budget. This budget helped to keep track of how much income our group was bringing in and

how many expenses we had day to day, making sure we did not go into debt. We would earn

money from each of the squares on the map we concurred that day and the territories we

controlled already. The money we earned would then be used to feed our armies and purchase

irrigation systems, ziggurats, city walls, schools, and more armies. The priest was in charge of

keeping everyone in the group in line and honest, and the general was in charge of moving our

armies on a map that all the other tribes were on. They were in charge of figuring out what would

be the most logical spot to move to without causing too many attacks. Each day as a group we

would discuss and move on a map. This map was a piece of the simulation that every group was

on as a class, and each day we as a group would have to critically think about what would be the

smartest move that day given the amount of moves we had earned the previous day. Would it be
to attack a different group, or would it be to move out of the way as we predict another group

would attack us? Maybe it would just expand our territory to receive more resource squares that

were randomly placed on the map. Three of the days while we were doing this simulation we had

a trade day. On this day we would travel around to collect the other necessary resources to

survive that we did not have. We would communicate with not only our own group but also the

other groups to come to a reasonable trade for resources we need and give them the extra

resources we had been collecting throughout the simulation in return. During the whole course of

this Mesopotamia simulation we were given mini projects, also known as tasks, to work on to be

able to advance from a tribe to a village to a city-state, and eventually an empire. Each level

consisted of five different tasks we had to complete; a centralized government task, an organized

religion task, a job specialization and social class task, an arts, architecture, and public works

task, along with a writing task. As our group progressed throughout the different levels of a

civilization the tasks would become more difficult and require you to do more research on that

specific characteristic of a civilization. For example, one of the mini projects was to answer the

question “What did the temples and palaces of ancient civilizations attempt to reflect?” for an

arts, and architecture task by creating a model of an ancient temple or palace. For said task, I

decided to create a model of the Ishtar Gate from ancient Babylon. All of this research that we

put into these projects helped to prepare us for combining all our knowledge on another project:

a visual essay. For this visual essay, my group created a documentary explaining what it meant to

be civilized in ancient Mesopotamia. This documentary had to not only include enough

information to answer the essential question without making the video drag on, but we also had

to make sure that the video was visually appealing. We had to write a script, film the audio, along

with editing the video on how all seven characteristics of a civilization; stable food supply,
technology, government, religion, written language, arts and architecture, and social structure,

relate to how ancient Mesopotamia was the first civilization in our world. This project helped

my partners and I gather and combine the information needed to create our documentary.

Throughout this project, we had to answer the essential question of: What does it mean to be

civilized in ancient Mesopotamia? All the mini projects, the simulation, and the visual essay

were to help us answer this question.

So What?

So what was the purpose of creating this simulation? Was it to teach us how cuneiform

was the first written language of the world, and how having a written language helped to more

easily communicate with people within Mesopotamia but also keep an accurate tally of not only

taxes, but the population, laws, and day to day events? Was it to teach us how technology is

considered one of the seven characteristics of a civilization because it shows how the people of

Mesopotamia were progressing in their knowledge and creating a more efficient lifestyle for

everyone due to technology? Creating inventions like the plow to help cut holes in soil to make it

easier to plant seeds for farmers. Maybe this project was to teach us about how having a

centralized government made Mesopotamia civilized. Without someone to write laws, collect

taxes, provide a stable food supply, and maintain defense, people would not only have to rely on

unwritten laws to survive but there would also not be a way to fund irrigation systems and the

army without someone mandating the collection of taxes. This simulation could have also been

to prove that because the people of Mesopotamia had the resources, time, and people to build

ziggurats, gift their gods and goddesses with food and clothing, and even have a dedicated

person to teach religion. This shows why religion is considered one of the seven characteristics
of a civilization. Another reason for creating this project was to learn why and how having a

stable food supply was considered one of the seven characteristics of a civilization. The people

of Mesopotamia started to farm which helped to create a stable food supply by providing a

year-round source of food that could be kept for a longer period of time without rotting like meat

would. Having a stable food supply also helped to create a civilization because all civilizations

need resources to survive and grow and farming helped to create this stable food supply. Another

part of the seven characteristics of a civilization we learned about was the arts and architecture in

ancient Mesopotamia. We learned that the citizens in each city-state/ empire would try to build

the grandest palaces and temples to show off the power, strength, and wealth that city-state has

compared to other civilizations. Finally, we learned how social classes helped to specialize jobs

in Mesopotamia making it so not everyone was hunting and gathering food like the nomads had.

In doing so the people of Mesopotamia were able to form jobs like a priest, farmers, soldiers,

artisans, a king, and more. Not only did this project help us to answer the question “What does it

mean to be civilized in ancient Mesopotamia?”, but important skills like collaboration,

communication, problem-solving, delivery, organization, and responsibility were applied during

the course of this simulation. Responsibility was a major skill used in this project. As an

individual you had to be self-disciplined in order to get your individual tasks done to help your

group progress through the different levels, and as a group we had to be responsible for making

the smart and logical decisions on where to move on the map and not just try and attack everyone

else’s groups. As a group we used a lot of communication to not only make sure everyone in the

group knew what they were doing that day and what they had to complete, but to be able to

collaborate with each other smoothly; problem-solving issues that could have arised. These

problems could have ranged from minor disagreements about how many armies we wanted to
buy that day to major disagreements about where we thought would have been a logical spot to

move to on the map, risking many armies and possible alliances with neighboring tribes. While

communicating with each other we had to keep the way we delivered our ideas in mind. While

we had to make sure we were expressing our own ideas, we also had to make sure we were not

shutting someone else's idea down in the process. Giving our feedback in a mindful way, always

keeping the person's feelings in mind. Our organizational skills were also used in this project as

we had to keep track of our budget, making sure we made all the correct calculations. We also

had to organize all of the tasks we performed during this time period, making sure each

individual knew what task they were in charge of and when we needed it to be done. Overall

these are just a few skills that we used each and every day during this simulation to make sure

our group was running smoothly with as few hiccups as possible.

Now What?

Now that I know and understand what it means to be civilized in ancient Mesopotamia

and why the skills that were applied in this simulation were important, now what? While life

skills like collaboration, communication, problem-solving, delivery, organization, and

responsibility are commonly used in everyday life, understanding what it means to be civilized

can help me to understand my role and importance in society. Learning about just how complex a

civilization is made me come to the realization that each individual has a role to play in keeping

the civilization running. Without each citizen doing their role in contributing to society a

civilization would not be able to function and advance in any way.