Transcript The Ancient Greeks

GULF
Geography
Physical environment and how it may influence an economy and culture.
Located between Tigris and Euphrates river in the fertile
crescent.
Overflow of rivers made land very fertile.
Rivers flowed into the Persian Gulf through modern-day
Iraq and Kuwait.
Irrigation streams allowed for large-scale farming.
Economy
How a civilization makes money through the buying and selling of goods and services
o Surplus of crops enabled cities to grow into trading
centers.
o Division of labor leads to specialized, non-agricultural
jobs like artisans, builders and metalworkers.
o Goods were traded as far as Egypt and Pakistan.
o Developed trade routes which were traveled by caravan.
o Used animals and wheeled carts to move large amounts
of goods.
o Sumerians used money, which made individual wealth
more easily measured and stored.
Achievements
The lasting contributions of a civilization.
Hammurabi's Code
Created world’s first city-states.
Had the world’s first monarchies.
Developed the format of time we still use in the present.
Invented wheeled cart and possibly the sailboat.
Scribes wrote the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, one of the oldestsurviving and most famous stories ever written.
Akkadian Empire was the first empire in the world.
Cuneiform was one of the first writing systems in recorded
history.
An Ancient Scribe
In early Mesopotamia scribes carved pictographs into clay tablets.
Government/Leadership
How a civilization creates an organized way of leadership.
 Sumer was originally made of 
12 separate city-states.
Hence, the people called

themselves Sumerians.
 Each city-state was run by its
own king.
•
 Sumer united under army
leader Sargon, and became
world’s first empire.
Sargon
Akkadian Empire survived 250
years.
Babylonian Empire united the
numerous city-states under
imperial rule.
Hammurabi set laws for the
entire empire.
Religion
A belief system that influences the development of a civilization.
Polytheistic (the belief in
many gods).
Nature based gods, and
made offerings and animal
sacrifices to appease the
gods, in hopes that they
could influence nature
positively .
Enlil = air god, Enki = water
god
Kings were demigods (part
man, part gods).
Enlil & Enki
Social Classes
How a civilization is divided into classes that have different roles, responsibilities
and privileges.
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Had first ever monarchy (king or queen rule).
King and royal family were at top of social order.
The middle class made up the majority of society.
Women had rights protected by law.
Slaves were common, acquired from conquered territories.