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Chapter 5 – History of the Fertile Crescent
Section Notes
Video
Geography of the Fertile
Crescent
The Rise of Sumer
Sumerian Achievements
Later Peoples of the Fertile
Crescent
Impact of a System of Laws
Close-up
The City-State of Ur
Quick Facts
Chapter 5 Visual Summary
Maps
The Fertile Crescent, 7000-500 BC
The Fertile Crescent
Sargon’s Empire, c. 2330 BC
Babylonian and Assyrian Empires
Phoenicia, c. 800 BC
Assessment Map
Mesopotamia
Images
Fishing in the Euphrates
Sumerian Society
Development of Writing
Assyrian Army
Geography of the Fertile Crescent
The Big Idea
The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were
the site of the world’s first civilizations.
Main Ideas
• The rivers of Southwest Asia supported the growth of
civilization.
• New farming techniques led to the growth of cities.
Main Idea 1:
The rivers of Southwest Asia supported
the growth of civilization.
• The area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is known as
Mesopotamia.
• Mesopotamia is part of the Fertile Crescent, a large arc of
rich, or fertile, farmland.
• The Fertile Crescent extends from the Persian Gulf to the
Mediterranean Sea.
• Mesopotamia was first settled by hunter-gatherers more than
12,000 years ago.
• The first farm settlements formed in Mesopotamia about 7000
BC.
– Yearly floods brought silt, a mixture of rich soil and tiny rocks, to
the land. Fertile silt made the land ideal for farming.
– Farmers grew wheat, barley, and other types of grain.
– Livestock, birds, and fish were also good sources of food.
Main Idea 2:
New farming techniques led to the
growth of cities.
Fertile soil did not mean easy farming.
Region received little rain.
Flooding could destroy crops, kill livestock, and wash away
homes.
Farmers knew they needed ways to control the rivers’ flow.
Farming and Cities
Controlling Water
• Used irrigation, a
way of supplying
water to an area of
land
–Dug out large
storage basins
to collect rain
–Dug canals,
human-made
waterways, to
connect the
basins to
irrigation ditches
• Built up the rivers’
banks to prevent
flooding
Food Surpluses
Appearance of
Cities
• Irrigation increased
amount farmers
could grow.
• Settlements grew
both in size and
complexity.
• Produced food
surplus, or more
than they needed
• Developed cities
between 4000 and
3000 BC
• Fewer needed to
farm
• Society still based
on agriculture
• New occupations
developed.
• Cities became
important trading
centers and power
bases for
government.
• Division of labor–
each worker
specialized in a
particular task or
job
• Developed laws and
government
• Cities were the
political, religious,
cultural, and
economic centers.
The Rise of Sumer
The Big Idea
The Sumerians developed the first civilization
in Mesopotamia.
Main Ideas
• The Sumerians created the world’s first advanced society.
• Religion played a major role in Sumerian society.
Main Idea 1:
The Sumerians created the world’s first
advanced society.
• No one knows where the Sumerians came from.
• By 3000 BC several hundred thousand had settled in a part of
Mesopotamia they called Sumer.
• They developed an advanced society and the world’s first
civilization.
• Most Sumerians were farmers.
• Society centers were the urban, or city, areas.
• The basic political unit of Sumer was the city-state, which
consisted of a central city and all the countryside around it,
combining the rural and urban parts.
– Fought each other to gain more farmland
– Built strong armies and thick walls around cities
Rise of the Akkadian Empire and Sargon
Another society, the Akkadian, developed just north of Sumer,
and for many years they lived in peace.
In 2300s BC Sargon sought to extend Akkadian territory.
Built new capital of Akkad on the Euphrates River
Launched a series of wars against neighboring kingdoms
First ruler with a permanent army
Defeated all the city-states of Sumer and conquered northern
Mesopotamia
Established world’s first empire, or land with different
territories and peoples under a single rule
End of the Akkadian Empire
• 2200s BC: hostile tribes from the east captured Akkad
• 2100s BC: Ur rebuilt and conquered Mesopotamia
• Political stability restored
• Sumerians again the most powerful civilization in the
region
Main Idea 2:
Religion played a major role in Sumerian
society.
•
Religion played a role in nearly every aspect of Sumerian life.
•
Sumerians practiced polytheism, the worship of many gods.
•
Sumerians believed that their gods had enormous powers.
•
Every Sumerian had to serve and worship the gods.
•
Priests, people who performed or led religious ceremonies, had
great status in Sumer.
•
Priests made offerings to the gods in temples, special buildings
where priests performed their religious ceremonies.
Sumerian Social Order
Kings of Sumer claimed that they had been chosen by the gods
to rule.
Priests were just below kings in Sumer’s social hierarchy, the
division of society by rank or class.
Next were Sumer’s skilled craftspeople, merchants, and
traders. Trade had a great impact on Sumerian society.
Below traders, farmers and laborers made up the large working
class.
Slaves were at the bottom of the social order.
Men and Women in Sumer
Men
• Held political power
• Made laws
• Were educated
Women
• Took care of home and
children
• Some in upper-class
were educated
• Some educated women
were priestesses and
helped shape Sumerian
culture.
• One priestess, a
daughter of Sargon,
Enheduanna, was the
first known female
writer in history.
Sumerian Achievements
The Big Idea
The Sumerians made many advances
that helped their society develop.
Main Ideas
• The Sumerians invented the world’s first writing system.
• Advances and inventions changed Sumerian lives.
• Many types of art developed in Sumer.
Main Idea 1:
The Sumerians invented the
world’s first writing system.
Sumerians developed cuneiform, the world’s first
system of writing.
They used sharp tools called styluses to make wedgeshaped symbols on clay tablets.
Earlier written communication had used pictographs, or
picture symbols.
Sumerian writers could combine multiple symbols to
express more complex ideas.
Uses of Writing
• First used to keep business records
• Scribes, or writers, were hired by people, government,
and temples to keep track of items traded.
• Wrote works on history, law, grammar, and math
• Wrote stories, proverbs, songs, poems, and epics, long
poems that tell the stories of heroes
Main Idea 2:
Advances and inventions changed
Sumerian lives.
Wheel
• Used for wheeled vehicles and a potter’s wheel
to spin clay as a craftsperson shapes it into
bowls
Plow
• Pulled by oxen to prepare soil for planting
Clock
• Used falling water to measure time
Sewers
• Built under city streets to carry waste away
Bronze
• Used to make strong tools and weapons
Makeup and • For personal ornamentation
Glass Jewelry
Math and Science
• Developed math system based on the number 60
• Divided a circle into 360 degrees
• Divided a year into 12 months
• Calculated areas of rectangles and triangles
• Studied the natural world
• Wrote long lists of names of animals, plants, and minerals
• Produced many healing drugs
• Catalogued medical knowledge, listing treatments
Main Idea 3:
Many types of art developed in Sumer.
Architecture: The science of building
Most Sumerian
rulers lived in
large palaces.
Other rich
Sumerians had
two-story
homes with as
many as a
dozen rooms.
Most people
lived in smaller,
one-story
houses. Six or
seven rooms
were arranged
around a small
courtyard.
City centers
were dominated
by temples.
Each city had a
ziggurat, a
pyramid-shaped
temple.
Other Arts
Sculpture
Jewelry
•
Statues of gods were created for temples. Small
objects were also created out of ivory and rare
woods.
•
Beautiful works were created with advanced methods
using imported gold, silver, and gems.
•
Cylinder seals were stone cylinders engraved with
designs. When rolled over clay, the designs leave
behind an imprint. They were used to show ownership
of containers, to sign documents, and to decorate
other clay objects.
•
Music and dance provided entertainment in
marketplaces, homes, palaces, and temples. People
sang and played instruments such as reed pipes,
drums, tambourines, and harplike stringed
instruments called lyres.
Cylinder
Seals
Music and
Dance
Later Peoples of the Fertile Crescent
The Big Idea
After the Sumerians, many cultures ruled
parts of the Fertile Crescent.
Main Ideas
• The Babylonians conquered Mesopotamia and created a
code of law.
• Invasions of Mesopotamia changed the region’s culture.
• The Phoenicians built a trading society in the eastern
Mediterranean region.
Main Idea 1:
The Babylonians conquered Mesopotamia
and created a code of law.
• Babylon was located on the Euphrates near what is now
Baghdad, Iraq. It had once been Sumerian.
• By 1800 BC it was home to a powerful government of its own.
• In 1792 BC Hammurabi became Babylon’s king, and would
become the city’s greatest ruler.
• His most important accomplishment was Hammurabi’s Code.
– Set of 282 laws that dealt with almost every part of daily life
– Some ideas in the Code are still found in laws today.
– Each crime brought a specific penalty.
– Different social classes required different penalties.
– Written down for all to see
Main Idea 2:
Invasions of Mesopotamia changed the
region’s culture.
• Several other civilizations developed in and around the
Fertile Crescent.
• Their armies battled for land.
• Control of the region passed from one empire to another.
Invasions of Mesopotamia
Hittites and
Kassites
• Hittites built a
strong kingdom in
Asia Minor.
• First to master
ironworking
• Skillfully used
chariot, a
wheeled, horsedrawn cart used in
battle
• Captured Babylon
around 1595 BC
• Babylon was soon
captured by the
Kassites, people
from the north,
who ruled for
almost 400 years.
Assyrians
• From northern
Mesopotamia
• Briefly gained
control of Babylon
in 1200s BC, but
soon defeated.
• About 900 BC
began to conquer
all of Fertile
Crescent
– Strong armies
– Heavy taxes
– Harsh laws
– Ruled through
local leaders
Chaldeans
• From Syrian desert
• Led attack on the
Assyrians and
destroyed the
empire in 612 BC
• King
Nebuchadnezzar
rebuilt Babylon.
• Admired ideas and
culture of
Sumerians
• Babylon became a
center for
astronomy.
• Created a calendar
and solved complex
problems of
geometry
Main Idea 3:
The Phoenicians built a trading society
in the eastern Mediterranean region.
• Phoenicia was at the western end of the Fertile Crescent,
along the Mediterranean Sea, where the nation of Lebanon
is now.
• Phoenicians were largely an urban people, with cities such
as Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, which still exist today.
• Phoenicia’s overland trade routes were blocked by
mountains and hostile neighbors, so they built a sea trading
society.
• Phoenician traders travelled to Egypt, Greece, Italy, Sicily,
Spain, and the Atlantic Ocean. They founded several new
colonies, including Carthage in northern Africa.
Phoenician Accomplishments
Wealthy trading
society, based
mostly on
plentiful cedar
lumber
Also traded
silverwork, ivory
carvings, and
slaves
Made and sold
beautiful glass
items
Made purple
dye from a type
of shellfish
Dyed fabric with
the purple dye
and traded the
cloth, which was
popular with rich
people
Developed one
of the world’s
first alphabets,
a set of letters
that can be
combined to
form words
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