Transcript MESOPOTAMIA AND SUMER

 Mesopotamia is the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers
 Also known as the Fertile Crescent due to an abundance of
crops
 There are three main areas:
 Assyria
 Akkad
 Sumer
 The city-state of Babylon is also found in Mesopotamia
 By 3000 BC independent city-states had been established
 City-state = a city that has political and economic control over
the surrounding countryside
 Cities
 Surrounded by walls and defensive towers
 Building made from sun-dried bricks
 Sumerians invented the arch and the dome
 The most prominent building was the ziggurat (a pyramid-
shaped structure), the temple dedicated to the chief god or
goddess of the city
 Rulers and Religion
 Believed that gods and goddesses owned the cities
 Polytheistic
 Monotheistic = belief in one God
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 Polytheistic = belief in many gods
Much wealth was given to build the temples
 Worked hard to please the gods
Priests and priestesses had a great deal of power
Started off as a theocracy, but eventually power passed into
the hands of kings
Kingship was seen as divine, kings believed to get their power
to rule from the gods and served as the gods’ chief
representative
 Society
 Economy based mainly on farming, also did some
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trading
Known for their metalwork
major social groups:
 Kings, priests, nobles
 Large landowners and wealthy merchants
 Artisans and farmers
 slaves
Society was patriarchal = dominated by men
Scribes also held very important positions
 Few people could read and write, took years of
schooling
 Advancements
 Created a system of writing called cuneiform
 Made wedge-shaped impressions on clay tablets
and then baked them in the sun
 Paid scribes (writers) to create written documents
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The Epic of Gilgamesh – famous epic poem
Developed the wagon wheel
Were the first to make bronze out of copper and tin
Invented the plow and performed basic surgery
Used geometry to measure fields and erect buildings
Developed a math system based on the number 6
 Hour divided into 60 min., circle into 360 degrees