CIVICS 🏛️
What was the political unit common in early Sumer that consisted of a city and the surrounding land?
What is a city-state?
Mesopotamia was located between these two rivers.
What are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
This civilization is identified as one of the earliest known civilizations in southern Mesopotamia.
What is Sumer?
A good brought into Mesopotamia from another region is called what?
What is an import?
This civilization developed in southern Mesopotamia and is considered the earliest known civilization in the region.
What is Sumer?
This term describes the belief that a king was chosen or approved by the gods.
What is divine kingship?
What does the word "Mesopotamia" mean?
What is "land between the rivers"?
What was cuneiform?
What is an early writing system using wedge-shaped marks?
A good sent out of Mesopotamia to another region is called what?
What is an export?
Mesopotamia means “land between the ___.”
What are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
This famous Babylonian ruler created a collection of written laws dealing with property, farming, injuries, loans, and other problems.
Who is Hammurabi?
Mesopotamians built canals and ditches to move river water to their fields. What was this system called?
What is irrigation?
What invention helped Mesopotamian farmers plant crops more efficiently?
What is the seed plow?
What is barter?
What is directly exchanging goods or services without money?
Put these events in the correct order: specialized jobs, irrigation, cities, food surplus.
What is irrigation → food surplus → specialized jobs → cities?
Hammurabi's laws sometimes gave different consequences depending on whether a person was free or enslaved. What does this reveal about Mesopotamian society?
Legal consequences could depend on social status, showing that Mesopotamian society had a hierarchy.
Give one benefit and one danger of living near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Benefit: Water for farming, fertile soil, transportation, etc.
Danger: Flooding could damage homes and fields.
Put these developments in the correct order:
Irrigation → Food surplus → Specialized jobs → Cities
Mesopotamia lacked enough wood and stone. Why did this encourage trade?
Mesopotamians had an incentive to trade for resources they needed but did not have in sufficient amounts.
Mesopotamians used this early writing system to record laws, trade, agreements, and stories.
What is cuneiform?
Read this situation:
A person carelessly opens an irrigation trench and floods a neighbor's field. The law requires the person to restore the lost crop.
What larger purpose of government is demonstrated by this example?
Government and written laws could assign responsibility and establish predictable consequences in order to maintain order.
The Persian Gulf helped connect Mesopotamia with other regions. What does this demonstrate about the relationship between geography and human interaction?
Geographic features could provide routes for trade and movement between societies.
Explain the chain of cause and effect:
Irrigation → greater agricultural production → food surplus → specialized labor → cities
Irrigation increased agricultural production. Extra food created surpluses, which allowed some people to specialize in jobs other than farming. This helped larger communities and cities develop.
A farmer grows grain. A potter makes pottery. A weaver makes cloth. Why would these different workers need to exchange goods?
Specialization meant people produced different goods and services, so they could trade with one another to obtain things they did not produce themselves.
Explain how geography, farming, government, and economics all helped Mesopotamian civilization develop.
What is: The Tigris and Euphrates provided water, irrigation increased farming, food surpluses allowed specialization and cities to grow, and governments/laws helped organize these larger communities?