Civlizations
These people lived on a peninsula surrounded by the Ionian, Aegean, and Mediterranean Seas. People mostly lived in political units known as poleis or city-states, and their cultural achievements have been admired for thousands of years.
Who are the Greeks?
This name, meaning “the land between two rivers”, is given to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now modern day Iraq. It was home to many ancient civilizations, such as Sumer, Akkadia, and Babylon.
What is Mesopotamia?
The many-god beliefs of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece are examples of _____________ religions.
What is polytheistic?
This Akkadian king used chariot armies to conquer and unite the lands of ancient Sumer, and because of that is often called the first emperor in history.
Who is Sargon?
The king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder/lightning in Greek mythology
Who is Zeus?
Around 3500 BCE, these were the first people to live together in large numbers in cities, in what was known as Mesopotamia.
Who are the Sumerians?
This physical feature of Greece made farming difficult and led to the development of city-states.
What are mountains?
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with their belief in one God, are examples of _______________ religions.
What is monotheistic?
This Mesopotamian leader created one of the first written sets of laws, summed up by the phrase “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Hammurabi
This writing system created in Mesopotamia is considered the first writing system in the world.
What is Cuneiform?
These people settled in the land known as Canaan, spent time enslaved in Egypt, before eventually returning to Canaan.
Who were the Israelites/Hebrews/Canaanites
This desert is the largest in the world (after Antarctica), stretching across most of northern Africa.
What is the Sahara Desert?
The father of the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this man believed in only one God and famously made an agreement (covenant) with him and left his home and traveled with his family and followers across West Asia and Egypt.
Who is Abraham?
This man was a Hebrew who was born in Egypt, and grew up in the royal family as a prince before later leading his people out of Egypt according to the book of Exodus.
Who is Moses?
This Paleolithic Age invention allowed early humans to get more nutrition from their food, leading to bigger brains. It also was a thing that gathered early humans together, and helped scare off dangerous animals.
What is fire?
These people lived on the island of Crete, and became strong by trading with people across the Mediterranean Sea. They are most famous for a myth about a half-human, half-bull creature.
Who were the Minoans?
To control river floods and provide water for farming, ancient people in Sumer and Egypt built these.
What are canals?
or
What is irrigation?
Someone who tries to spread their religion to others.
What is a missionary?
or
What is a prophet?
This west African leader was a Muslim who famously made the hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca with a large entourage of camels carrying gold. He may have been the richest man in the world at the time, in the 1300s.
Who is Mansa Musa?
Islam’s holiest site—a stone building covered in cloth that is located in the courtyard of the Great Mosque in Mecca. Muslims face it when they pray
What is the Kaaba or Ka’bah?
This kingdom in East Africa adopted Christianity as its religion and became rich and powerful from trade with surrounding civilizations.
This precious metal, a natural resource found in many parts of Africa, became central to trade, especially for the Mali Empire.
What is gold?
A god/deity who is the protector of a particular place. The Mesopotamian and Greek city states both built temples to and worshipped gods like these.
What is a patron god?
This man may or may not have been a real king, and he was the main character of a long poem called an epic, which is one of the world's oldest stories.
Who is Gilgamesh?
In this West African kingdom, people named Griots were oral storytellers who passed down important information from generation to generation.
What is Ghana?
or
What is Mali?