Transcript WHCH_21 - Teacherpage

World History Ch. 2
Section 1
City-States of Ancient Sumer
Geography’s Impact
• Fertile Crescent- fertile area in the Middle
East known for its rich soils – around the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers
• Mesopotamia – inside the Fertile Crescent
• “Between the Rivers” – area of land between
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
• Flows from Turkey, through present day Iraq
into the Persian Gulf
Sumer
• 3300 B.C. – Worlds first civilization developed in
South East Mesopotamia
• Sumer = Sumerians
• The Epic of Gilgamesh – first told orally in Sumer
• Describes great flood that destroyed the world
• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers often flooded
washing away everything around – seemed like
the flood waters washed away the world.
• Does this remind you of another story you have
heard of?
Sumer
• Problem: Flood Waters
• Solution: build dikes to hold back flood waters and
irrigation ditches to divert water into fields
• Sumerians – not many natural resources available to them
– no timber or stone
• They did have a lot of clay – used it to make pottery and
bricks
• Used the bricks to make buildings – City of Ur
• Trade helped to make Sumerians wealthy
• Sumer thrived and in a few hundred years included 12 citystates
Sumerian Government
• Ruler is responsible to people for:
1.Maintaining Walls
2.Maintaining Irrigation
3.Enforcing laws
4.Collect Taxes - used Scribes for this
5.Keep Records – used Scribes for this
Ruler was seen as chief servant of the gods
Sumer Social Structure
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Hierarchy – system of ranking groups
Social Hierarchy Top: Ruling family, Officials, High Priests
Middle: Lesser Priests, Scribes, Merchants,
Artisans
• Bottom:
• Peasant Farmers – worked other peoples land
• Slaves – most captured in war, some were sold to
pay off debts
Religion
• Polytheistic – belief in many gods
• Gods thought to control daily life
• Believed gods and goddesses behaved like people –
ate, drank, married, families,
• Believed it was their duty to keep gods happy
– Worship them in temples
• Ziggurat – large, stepped platform topped by a temple
dedicated to the city’s chief god or goddess
• Afterlife – people lived in a grim world in which there
was no release
Sumer Writing
• 3200 B.C.
• Cuneiform – wrote by making wedge shaped
marks on tablets
• Grew out of a pictograph system
• Scribe were trained very strictly
• If they talked or were messy with their
copying they were caned!!
Legacy of Sumer
• 2500 B.C.
• Armies came in and conquered Sumer
• By 1900 B.C., Sumerian civilization had been replaced by
other civilizations and Empires
• Left behind cuneiform and it was used by the Akkadians,
Babylonians and Assyrians
• Sumer Scholars – developed astronomy and math
• Established a number system based on dividing the hour
into 60 minutes, and they divided the circle into 360”
• Babylonians built upon this and created Algebra and
geometry in order to create accurate calendars
HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES
• CITY-STATE CREATION. Using posterboard and colored
pencils, the student designs a Sumerian city-state based
on the description in the textbook. Items that should be
on the map include: a title, compass rose, scale of miles,
legend, a ziggurat, city wall, farmland, irrigation system,
narrow winding streets, government buildings,
courtyards, and homes of the different social classes.
• http://hypermedia.educ.psu.edu/k12/edpgs/su96/meso/mesopotamia.html#fun
• http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/SUMER.HTM