Power Words (Vocab)
This term describes a wanderer who travels from place to place seeking food without a permanent home.
What is a nomad?
Derived from Greek, the word "Mesopotamia" translates to this English phrase.
What is "the land between the rivers"?
Calling themselves the "Sag-giga," the Sumerians used this phrase to refer to their people.
What is the "black-headed ones"?
King Hammurabi served as the sixth king of the First Dynasty of this Mesopotamian empire.
Who are the Babylonians (or Babylon)?
The word "Cuneiform" literally translates to this phrase, describing the shape of its markings.
What is "wedge-shaped"?
This word refers to a government in which rulers are believed to be appointed by or rule in the name of the gods.
What is a theocracy?
These are the two primary rivers that bordered and nourished the region of Ancient Mesopotamia.
What are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
To manage river water for farming, the Sumerians built complex irrigation systems using these two key structures.
What are levees and canals?
The complete Code of Hammurabi contained this total number of recorded legal provisions.
What is 282 laws?
Sumerians wrote on wet clay tablets using a stylus made from this abundant wetland plant.
What are reeds?
This term describes a religious belief system that worships multiple gods or deities.
What is polytheistic?
Ancient Mesopotamia was situated in the territory of this modern-day Middle Eastern nation.
What is Iraq?
In the social structure of Sumer, this exact percentage of the total population consisted of farmers.
What is 90%?
The most famous complete text of Hammurabi's code was carved onto a 7.5-foot tall stele made from this dark volcanic stone.
What is basalt?
Approximately this percentage of recovered and translated cuneiform tablets served administrative and accounting purposes.Approximately this percentage of recovered and translated cuneiform tablets served administrative and accounting purposes.
What is 75%?
A society controlled by men or favoring men, where women hold very few rights or privileges.
What is a patriarchal society?
Around 11,000 B.C., nomads settled in Mesopotamia to domesticate animals and cultivate these four main early crops.
What are barley, flax, wheat, and lentils?
Beyond irrigation and pottery, Sumerians are credited with inventing this crucial transportation and machinery component.
What is the wheel?
Discovered in 1901, the famous stele containing Hammurabi's code is currently housed in this European museum.
What is the Louvre Museum (in France)?
According to the epic poem, King Gilgamesh of Uruk possessed this unique combination of divine and human ancestry.
What is two-thirds god and one-third man?
A large, pyramid-like stepped temple located at the center of Sumerian city-states used to worship their gods.
What is a ziggurat?
Modern irrigation projects dried up Mesopotamia's rivers and wetlands, turning the region into a desert that blends with this neighboring southern desert.
What is the Arabian Desert?
This ruler of Kish is recorded in history as the very first king of Sumer.
Who is Etana of Kish?
The Hammurabi stele is divided into three sections: the opening coronation, the 282 laws, and this final concluding section.
What is the epilogue?
In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods created this hairy beast to challenge Gilgamesh, but he later became his loyal companion.
Who is Enkidu?