The Ancient Mesopotamians

What:

In humanities class we have been learning about about the ancient mesopotamians. During this

project we have been trying to answer one essential question. What does is it mean to be

civilized? The purpose of this project was to teach us how to make and grow our own civilization

as if we were in the mesopotamians shoes. In the process of this project there were many steps

including; moving and building our civilization day by day. While we were moving around on

the map there were challenges that could lead to setback if you did it wrong, but if you did it

correctly then you would gain something like civilization points or a amount of moves or coins.

Two of the challenges my group had to complete was ranking the different tools and resources

the ancient mesopotamians had in most to least important or useful, or when we had to read a

essay and memorize the most you could from it and fill out the answers to complete the

information needed.Not only were there challenges but there were certain tasks you had to

complete for every different element of a civilization. For every level you had to had to complete

different tasks to move from a different stage.The tasks each covered a different element of what

makes up a civilization. These elements are stable food supply, technology, government, religion,

written language, arts and architexture, and social structure. There were multiple stages including

tribe, village, city state, and empire. Another element of the map was fate. Fate was a decision

we had to make almost everyday and that would either benefit us or deviate us. A fate we had to

face was wheather or not to build a ziggurat which would store our food and resources. We also

had trade days which is where you would trade your different resources for others since each

group had different resources at some point. To get these resources you had to be on a certain

square, a resource square and those were rarely left available so you would have to battle for

them. In the end if you had a certain amount of resources packets you could turn them in for a
amount civilization points. During this project each person in your group would have a job and

you would rotate jobs each day. These jobs were known as the scribes, priest, rulers, and generals

. The scribes kept a wealth tally sheet to keep track of the expenses and income during this

project, this included armies we had to hire, the armies we had to feed, or if we bought certain

structures like ziggurats or irritation systems. To get income certain territory squares had certain

amounts of money you could earn but you only got half of the amount listed on the square. The

priest ensured if workers from other civilizations were honest. The general planned armies

Bmovement and how many armies were needed. Moving days were days you could buy armies,

structures, and gain territory. Depending on how well you did in the previous challenges pretty

much defines how many moves your group would get. The rulers made the final decisions in

fate, what structures were needed to be bought, and would finalize the generals decisions. The

last part was a visual essay, we had many different choices to choose for this project including,

making a youtube video, a tiktok video, google slides, and whatever else you could come up

with. My group created a youtube video that was more like a news report. The purpose of this

project was to briefly cover over all the seven characteristics that make up a civilization. During

this project we had to use a lot of our free time to finish this project on time as well as makie it

look professional. While doing this project my group members and met up after school multiple

times for filming and working on this project. This project wasn’t only about filming though. We

had to write scripts, edit the scripts, edit the videos, make an outro, set up props, and make it

visually pleasing for the audience. This project altogether took over a month. I would say

altogether it was pretty fun working on this project, the outtakes made it even better.`

So What:
The purpose of this project was to answer the essential question, What does it mean to be

civilized? During this project I learned many new things that I hadn’t known before like how

hard it was to make a growing civilization and all the different characteristics that make up one

single growing civilization. These characteristics are having a stable food supply, a government,

technology, religion, written language, arts and architecture, and social structure. A stable food

supply is having enough food to distribute amongst everyone in the civilization. Government is

having written laws and a rulers and government officials to enforce those laws. Technology is

the development of ways of doing tasks over a period of time and how it changes. Religion

iscultural beliefs that a civilization worships and follows. Written language is a way for the

people to keep track of things like trading, and food supply. Arts and architecture are things

made by people like artisans and traders that make many different pieces of art like vases and

bowles. Social structures are the different places that people can be in the civilization including

ruler which is at the top.A priest which holds religious rituals usually including a sacrifice. A

scribe which was usually hired because they were the only ones that could read and write.

Farmers are up next on this in this social class they grew crops and raised animals. Merchants

and artisans are up next they were lower class because they mainly just make and trade items.

Finally slaves, they are at the bottom of the social class they are forced work and aren’t fed

much.During this project we had to use a variety of different skills. These include collaboration,

communication, organization, responsibility, and problem solving. For collaboration we had to

work in a group and make decisions to help benefit the group. A lot of communication was

needed for this project to work because we had many decisions to make and to be able to film the

video we needed communication. Our project was organized into eight different parts, the first

part was the map that was explained in the very beginning, the other seven parts was the video

which was also explained in the other beginning it each characteristic of a civilization was one
part. For this project we were responsible for finishing the whole task by a certain date making

us responsible to find time to record and finish all of the needed requirements. Problem solving

was more important than for the map part of this project because we had to work on the

challenges and make decisions for fate. When we first started this project I didn’t know anything

significant about any of the civilizations. I think the biggest thing I learn during this project was

how hard it was to actually have a thriving civilization with all seven needed characteristics.

Now What:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzAvwCZR8wE

Now that I have finished this project completely I can say that this can be applied to the real

world in many different ways but mainly focusing on the skills we used. Say you were to get a

job in the business area like a assistant or lawyer someone whos constantly answering the phone,

your going to constantly going to have to know how to collaborate and communicate with clients

sufficiently and casually. Thats not always the case though if you work in the teaching industry

have a science related career your constantly going to be using you problem solving skills on the

daily bases. Not only can this project be used in careers but also just as a hobby of something

someone is interested in like the study of ancient civilizations. If someone is interested in a

subject they will devote time to understanding it and our project can help people get the basic

ideas of the ancient mesopotamians. Personally this project is interesting to me because I enjoy

learning about history and the way that the different civilizations grow and differ. The thing I
find most interesting about these civilizations is their religions and mythology beliefs.