Social Classes
These people did the least desirable jobs .
What are slaves?
This invention allowed farmers to more easily prepare their fields for planting.
What is the plow?
This wedge-shaped writing evolved out of a system of pictographs first used in ancient Mesopotamia.
What is cuneiform?
This Akkadian emperor ruled over a united Sumer for just 200 years before Hammurabi's Babylonians took over .
Who was Sargon?
This collection of peoples, nations, or previously independent states would be under the control of one ruler.
What is an empire?
These individuals were at the top of the upper classes in ancient Sumer.
Who were kings and priests?
These were invented to move water and irrigate crops.
What are canals?
The Sumerians invented this around 3000 BC to meet the needs of business and record keeping.
What is writing?
Hammurabi developed this to help unify the diverse groups within his empire.
What is a uniform code of laws?
This is the implement used to incise cuneiform letters onto clay tablets.
What is a stylus?
Landowners, government officials, and rich merchants were part of this social class.
What is the upper class?
Historians believe the Sumerians may have invented the plow around the year ____________.
What is 6,000 BC?
The Sumerians used geometric shapes such as rectangles, squares, and triangles in the construction of these features.
What is brick making, ramp building, and canal digging?
Hammurabi did this to ensure that everyone in his empire would see his laws on display for all time.
What is have them engraved in stone?
This term refers to an area of high population density with surrounding farmland under a unified government.
What is a city-state?
All free people, including many farmers and artisans, belonged to this social class.
What are the in between or middle classes?
Historians believe the Sumerians may have invented this important innovation around 3,500 BC.
What is the wheel?
The Sumerian number system was based on this number.
What is the number 60?
This idea of law enforcement is best illustrated by the expression "an eye for an eye."
What is the idea of "retaliation?"
This important metal used by Sumerians for tools and trade is a mixture of copper and tin.
What is bronze?
Free women, especially in early Mesopotamia, enjoyed these opportunities of jobs and roles.
What are landowners, merchants, and artisans, such as weavers?
These important storage containers for surplus food could be much more quickly made because of the invention of the pottery wheel.
What are pots?
The Sumerian number system influenced this current measurement system that we still use today.
What is our measurement of time and/or calendars?
Under Hammurabi's code of laws, if the government was unable to catch a thief, it had to do this for the victim of the crime.
What is pay or compensate him or her for the loss?
These were the professional record keepers.
Who were the scribes?