Ancient Times

People were concerned with transportation and

navigation, communication and record keeping,
mass production, security and protection,
health, aesthetics and architecture
Mesopotamia
Cradle of Civilization
 Fertile Crescent vs. Mesopotamia
Fertile Crescent is a fertile area in the Middle East that
stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
Shaped like a crescent moon
Mesopotamia is a region within the Fertile Crescent
The Land Between the Rivers
Tigris & Euphrates Rivers made it possible for
farming due to flooding
Mesopotamia
Geographic area-
In modern day country of Iraq
The name means “land between
2 rivers”
2 Rivers- Tigris River and
Euphrates River
 Why Were People Drawn to This Region?

1. Rich soil
2. Life-giving rivers
o Fish
o Clay for building
o Strong reeds to make boats
o Fertile soil left behind from the
floods
Mesopotamia
 Area was first settled around 3300-750 B.C.
 These people were originally farmers, herders, and fishermen.
 They made tools, bricks, clay figures, and pottery.
The Many People of Mesopotamia

1. Sumerians (3000 B.C. - 1800 B.C.)

2. Babylonians (1800 B.C. - 1200 B.C.)
3. Assyrians (1200 B.C. - 539 B.C.)
4. Persians (539 B.C. - 330 B.C.)
Sumer
 The people who lived there were called Sumerians or “the black-
headed people”
 The first known civilization now modern-day Iraq
 Sumerians were great inventors.
 The wheel (around 3500 BCE) used for pottery and later for transportation in
chariots
 The Plow for digging and breaking hard soil to make planting easy
 The Sailboat essential for transportation and trading replaced muscle power
with wind power
 First Writing system
 Cuneiform
 Clay tablets with reed for a stylus
 This writing was adopted by their conquerors and used for about
2000 years.
 Earliest literature
 World’s oldest poetry
 The Epic of Gilgamesh
I am the great king Gilgamesh…read the
handout about my epic tale!
Sumer
Known for being the first astronomers; observed the
phases of the moon & movements of the planets & the
stars
Developed a lunar calendar that became the basis for
having 12 lunar months in a year
Developed their own number system that used the main
base 60 and the auxiliary base 10 which they used in
their conduct of trade
Religion
 Sumerians constructed shrines or temples called Ziggurats.
 Great Ziggurat of Ur was also called the mountain of god
was a sacred place of their chief god, where only their
priests were allowed to enter.
 The structure was constructed using sunbaked bricks
  First true city in the world
 Built the city using only mud or clay from
the river, which they mixed with reeds,
Uruk City producing sun-baked bricks
 They used the bricks to make houses
that protected them from the harsh
weather and to build a wall around the
city that prevented wild animals and
neighboring raiders from entering
 Irrigation and Dikes
 Developed agricultural
processes such as irrigation
 The construction of high
levees or flood banks to
collect floodwaters coming
from the Tigris & Euphrates
 Through the dikes and
canals, the Sumerians were
able to enjoy year-long
farming and harvesting,
which increased their food
production
 Babylon was the
capital of the
Babylonian
Empire.
 The ancient city
of Babylon
served as the
center of
Mesopotamian
civilization for
nearly two
millennia
 Babylon
 Derived from bav-il or bav-ilim meaning “Gates of the Gods”
 Its ruins lie in modern-day Iraq
 Genesis 10, Noah’s son Ham became the father of Cush, who
became the father of Nimrod, who became a great warrior
and built a kingdom that included the city of Babylon.
 Genesis 11 tells the story of the Tower of Babel, a structure
that the Babylonians wanted to build “with its tops in the
heavens” to make a name for themselves
 Since Babylon were in the biblical books of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezequiel, Daniel, and the Revelations, Robert Koldewey
directed the excavation of Babylon in 1899
 Archaeologists were able to unearth the “Temple of
Etemenanki” that is believed to have inspired the biblical
story of the Tower of Babel and Nebuchadnezzar’s palaces
 Hanging Gardens of
Babylon

Built by Nebuchadnezzar
Beautifully decorated
Roof-top tropical gardens
In the middle of the desert
1 of 7 Wonders of the
Ancient World
King Nebuchadnezzar II
Hammurabi of Babylon

 Hammurabi was king of Babylon who conquered Akkad and Sumer

 Babylonia’s most powerful and memorable king rules from 1792 to 1750 B.C.E.
 The Babylonians took on the language and religion of the people they
conquered
 Hammurabi improved irrigation systems and changed the religion
 Developed his own set of laws called the Code of Hammurabi
 During Hammurabi’s rule, Babylon became a trade center
 Hammurabi’s reign is known as the Golden Age of Babylon
 They also devised a lunar calendar similar to that by the Sumerians
Also invented sundials and water clocks to determine time
and cuneiform tablet containing their number system
 Africa
 They excel in the field of agriculture; various African plants including
coffee, palm oil, cotton, African rice , & sorghum were adopted for
planting in different parts of the world
 They also used plants for medicinal purposes such as analgesics,
antidotes, antimicrobials, pain killers
 Astronomy was famous in the African region; documents show that
Africans used 3 types of calendars: lunar, solar, and stellar
 Advancements in metallurgy and tool making were made across the
entirety of ancient Africa and was used for hunting and defense by
local craftsmen
 Mathematics was also prominent; The Lebombo Bone from the
mountains between Swaziland and South Africa, which may have
been a tool for multiplication, division, and simple mathematical
calculation or a six month lunar calendar, is considered to be the
oldest known mathematical artifact dated from 35,000 BCE