1. The Fertile Crescent ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

2.  Southwest Asia 4000 BCE  Two major cities: Sumer and Babylon  Mesopotamia is located in the Fertile Crescent.  Fertile Crescent is present day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.  This area of land is shaped like a crescent moon. LOCATION AND TIME

4.  Mesopotamia means “Land Between Two Rivers”.  It is located between the Tigris and Euphrates River.  These rivers start in the Taurus Mountains, flow through present day Iraq, and empty into the Persian Gulf. PHYSICAL SURROUNDINGS

6.  Most of the land in this area is rocky or desert like, which is not ideal for farming.  However, when the rivers flooded, the silt was deposited and certain parts of the land became fertile for farming.  Early farmers faced many challenges because of the land, droughts, and unpredictable flooding. FARMING AND NATURAL RESOURCES

8.  Flooding in Mesopotamia was unpredictable and it didn’t necessarily happen every spring to help with planting. Instead, floods would come in the fall and destroy the crops that were nearly ready for harvesting.  These floods destroyed crops, homes, and lives.  Farmers used an irrigation system to help provide water to their land because of draughts and unpredictable water supplies. FLOODING

10.  Crops – wheat, barley, beans, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, spices, date palm, apples, pomegranate trees  Many crops were planted in canal banks to be close to the water.  Animals  sheep – used for wool and milk  goats  cattle – good work animals, used for meat, leather, milk CROPS AND ANIMALS

12.  An area, made up of about a dozen cities, in Southern Mesopotamia that developed about 3000 BCE.  People in Sumer  Valued their independence  Had a rich cultural heritage  Worked hard to produce crops  Worshiped many gods  Invented the first wheeled vehicles and sailboats  Invented simple machines  Studied math and science PEOPLE OF SUMER

14.  Cuneiform – ancient form of writing  They used sharp reeds to scratch records into wet clay tablets.  Oldest tablets are from 3500 BCE.  The symbols looked liked the things they described and were scratched on the tablets.  They developed about 500 signs that they used regularly.  Very few people had the honor of going to school and learning how to write cuneiform.  Mostly boys went to school to learn, very few girls  Practiced very hard  Had to study math so they knew how to keep records  They also wrote stories, laws, and songs WRITING AND SCHOOL IN SUMER

16.  Sumerians often had to fight in wars to protect their access to the river water.  They would build walls to protect against attacks.  City gates used to control people and goods coming in and out.  There was a king’s palace that could be seen from everywhere in the city, where planning and decision making took place.  Most cities had a central towering mud brick building called a ziggurat, which was a large temple.  Sargon started to rule all of the cities in Sumer around 2300 BCE. SUMERIAN CITIES

18.  Sargon’s rule lasted 56 years, but then people started to rebel.  500 years later another empire developed – Babylonia.  Hammurabi was the king of Babylon his rule began in 1800 BCE.  He set out to control Sumer by damming parts of the river to cause floods there, his army also attacked the Sumerians.  Eventually Hammurabi obtained control and created a huge empire that was powerful and rich. BABYLONIA

20.  Babylonia traded with present day Syria, Iran, and Turkey for things like timber, copper, silver, and wine.  In exchange, Babylonia exported fruits and grains.  Servants would float ice down the rivers so that food and drink could be preserved and refrigerated. TRADE IN BABYLONIA

21.  The Babylonians still used the Sumerian’s form of writing – Cuneiform.  They produced the world’s first dictionaries in Cuneiform.  They also adopted many of the Sumerians laws that were recorded years before.  In 1901. archaeologists found a stone pillar, that was more than 4,000 years old, from Babylonia with more than 200 laws inscribed on it in Cuneiform.  The Code of Hammurabi is one of the world’s oldest codes of laws.  A code of law is a set of rules that applies to everyone under a government. A CODE OF LAW

23.  The pillar shows that slavery existed and not everyone was treated equally.  Hammurabi’s Code was meant for everyone throughout the entire empire.  Excerpts from The Code of Hammurabi  “If a freeman has put out the eye of another freeman, they shall put out his eye.”  “if he breaks the bone of another freeman, they shall break his bone.” Think about why a system of writing is so important in a civilization. THE CODE OF HAMMURABI