Vocabulary
What is Mesopotamia?
The two rivers that flow through Mesopotamia
What are the Tigris and the Euphrates?
An advanced form of culture
What is a civilization?
As Sumerian society became more complex, it divided into _________ _________, or groups
What are social classes?
The Sumerian city-state of Ur was home to this important Biblical figure
Who was Abraham?
Less than ten inches of rain per year, a dry, hot climate
What is semiarid?
When rivers reach the plains, the overflow of water spilled onto the ________, which is the flat land bordering the banks
What is a floodplain?
This was the first civilization
What is Sumer?
Upper-class women could become __________, which was a position of honor
What are priestesses?
Workers who specialize in one craft
What is an artisan?
A community that includes a city and its nearby farmland
What is a city-state?
Name two reasons why flooding could be harmful to the ancient Mesopotamians.
What is unpredictability, and too much flooding?
The Sumerian belief in many gods and goddesses
What is polytheism?
Historians believe that Sumerians are responsible for the invention of these two things
What is the wheel and the plow?
Cuneiform was written on clay tablets with one of these
What is a stylus?
A complex writing system that consists of wedge-shaped symbols that represent words, ideas, and sounds
What is cuneiform?
Mesopotamians used this for building materials since they could not build with wood or stone
What is mud?
Sumerians believed that the gods were responsible for every aspect of their lives, including dangers, these people were able to gain influence because of their ability to communicate with the gods.
Why did the Sumerians start using arithmetic?
What is to keep records and trade goods?
Sumerian mathematics were based on this number, which gives us the number of seconds in a minute and minutes in an hour
What is the number 60?
Sumerian temples that were the most important structures in the city, due to their use as both a religious center and the center of the city
What is a ziggurat?
The people of Mesopotamia developed this to bring water to crops
What is irrigation/an irrigation system?
Cities were able to grow because of ____________, which means they had more than they needed for themselves.
What is a surplus?
Sumerians used record keeping for these two reasons
What is business dealings and for written history?
These two were at the top of Sumerian social classes
Who were kings and priests?