Transcript The Fertile Crescent

We will Locate The Fertile
Crescent, where Ancient
Middle Eastern
civilizations developed.
Mesopotamia
“The Land BeTween Two
RiveRs”
Vocabulary
• Silt – soil from the river bottom; flooding
caused it to cover the land; good for farming
• Fertile Crescent – a region in Southwest Asia;
site of first civilizations
• Scribe – a professional writer
Rivers of Life and Death
• The Tigris and
Euphrates were the
source of life.
– Melting snow from the
mountains flooded the
land.
– The flood left the silt on
the plains below.
– Farmers grew crops.
– Rivers supplied fish, clay
for building, and reeds
for boats.
• The rivers brought
sorrow.
– Floods did not happen at
the same time each year.
– Floods raced down
without warning,
sweeping away people,
houses, crops, and
animals.
– Survivors would rebuild
and hope the next time
it would be better.
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©1996, Richard Hooker
Updated 9-12-97
6500 B.C., people began to settle.
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Plows were used.
They built canals.
Made pottery from clay
Houses were made from mud.
Wheel – caused growth in the area
Uruk
Towns grew into cities.
The cities grew larger. A new
invention helped cities grow. It
was the wheel. Using wheels,
people could ride in wagons.
They could travel farther.
They no longer had to carry
everything on their backs.
The wheel is said to have
been invented in Uruk (OOruk).
It may be the reason that
so many people moved there.
As many as 50,000 people may
have lived in the city of Uruk.
• Mesopotamian religion was basically characterized by polytheism.
• Mesopotamian mythology provides evidence of a number of gods
and goddesses.
• The Gods represented places and powers in ancient
Mesopotamia.
• Priests were an important part of the Mesopotamian social
structure.
• Temples, or ziggurats, could be found anywhere in the city.
• An was the primary god of Mesopotamians who was the god of
heavens.
The main Sumerian gods are:
• Anu: god of heaven
• Enlil: god of the air
• Enki: god of freshwater, fertility and knowledge
• Ereshkigal: goddess of the underworld
• Inanna: goddess of warfare and love; matron deity of Uruk
• Ninhursag: goddess of the earth
• Nanna: god of the moon; one of the patron deities of Ur
• Ninurta: god of war, agriculture, one of the Sumerian wind gods;
• Utu: god of the sun
Uruk
• Uruk was one of the first major cities in the history of the world.
• It reached its peak around 2900 BC when it had an estimated
population of over 50,000 people, making it the largest city in the
world.
Uruk was located in southern Mesopotamia along the banks of
the Euphrates River.
• It was the center of the Sumerian civilization.
• It was able to grow so large because of advanced farming and
irrigation techniques.
• The surplus of food made the city rich.
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The most famous king of Uruk was Gilgamesh. He was later turned
into a mythical hero through the tales of his exploits and
superhuman strength in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Mesopotamia in the News
• Ancient tablet reveals lost chapter of "Epic of
Gilgamesh"
A new chapter in the ancient "Epic of Gilgamesh"
has been found within a set of clay tablets the
Sulaymaniyah Museum in Iraq bought from a
smuggler. The tablet describes in more detail a
forest for the gods and also provides fresh insight
into the tales' heroes' inner conflict. The 20 new
lines have been fully translated, and the tablet is
on display at the museum. LiveScience.com
(10/2)
Akkad
The city of Akkad was the center of the world's first
empire, the Akkadian Empire.
• The people of Akkad, under the leadership of Sargon
the Great, conquered many of the Sumerian citystates and took control of Mesopotamia.
• The Akkadian language took the place of Sumerian
and continued to be the primary language of the
region into the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires.
• Archeologists still haven't found the city of Akkad and
are unsure where it is located. It was likely located in
southern Mesopotamia just east of the Tigris River.
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Babylon
• Babylon was the capital city and center of the
Babylonian Empire.
• During its peak, Babylon was the largest city in the
world with populations exceeding 200,000 people.
• It was home to kings such as Hammurabi and
Nebuchadnezzar as well as the fabled Hanging
Gardens of Babylon, which are one of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World.
• Babylon is located in central Mesopotamia along the
banks of the Euphrates River.
• Today the ruins of the city can be found around 50
miles south of Baghdad, Iraq.
• Babylon is mentioned several times in the Bible.