What was the typical Sumerian building material?
Mud brick
What did the Sumerians believe their gods had control over?
Nature
Earliest civilization in Mesopotamia
Sumer
What is the name of the "Land between the two rivers?"
Mesopotamia
What was the Sumerian innovation that allowed farming to flourish with a system of dams, ditches and canals to control the flow of water?
Irrigation
What was the form of writing developed by the Sumerians that used a wedge shaped reed and clay tablets?
Cuneiform
What was a Sumerian temple called?
Ziggurat
What was the set of 282 laws that dealt with almost every part of daily life. Talked about an Eye for an Eye--the punishment should fit the crime?
Hammurabi's Code
What is the term for a place where a river or stream begins, often in mountains or highlands?
Source of a river
Why was flooding sometimes destructive?
What allowed for easier travel & transport of goods by water?
Sailboat
What is the belief in many gods called?
Polytheism
What was the powerful and brutal army who robbed people, set crops on fire, and destroyed towns and dams?
Assyrians
What is the term for a place where a river empties into a larger body of water?
Mouth of a river
Why was flooding a good thing?
Brought silt which made their crops grow and have a surplus
What was made by mixing copper and tin?
Bronze
What is a group of merchants traveling together for safety, usually with a large number of camels?
Caravan
Who was the Babylonian king who conquered Jerusalem and rebuilt the city of Babylon, including building the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?
Nebuchadnezzar
Mesopotamia is the land between what two rivers?
Tigris and Euphrates
What was the tool made of wood used to turn over the soil to prepare the field for planting?
Wooden plow
What was the ancient wonder that was built for the king's wife who was homesick in the king's palace?
The Hanging Gardens
What was the result of difficulties with traveling and communication between city-states?
City States became independent
Who was the final Mesopotamian empire that took power from the Assyrians in 612 B.C?
(Later conquered Jerusalem and brought the Hebrew people to Babylon. Fell in 539 B.C.E. to Cyrus the Great of Persia.)
Chaldeans
What is the modern-day location of Mesopotamia?
Southern Iraq
A surplus of food led to a ________? since not everyone needed to be farmers.
Division of Labor