Mesopotamia & Sumeria
Babylonia
Persia
Grab Bag
Trivia!
100

The area from Mesopotamia through the Levant and up the Nile is called this because of its shape.

Fertile Crescent
100

The Babylonian king who brought all of Mesopotamia into his empire.

Hammurabi

100

A 1,700-mile road that united the Persian empire.

Royal Road

100

The largest Mesopotamian empire (and, by the 6th century BC, the largest empire the world had ever seen).

Persian/Achaemenid Empire

100

James Bond's code name.

007

200

This place means "place between the rivers."

Mesopotamia

200

The extensive code of laws that was written in public for all Babylonians to see.

Hammurabi's Code

200

The first king of the Persian empire.

Cyrus II

200

The Phoenicians most important achievement was the _____ alphabet, or a consonant-only alphabet.

abjad

200

What is the largest country in the world?

Russia

300

The first civilization, made up of city-states (including Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Larsa, Kippur, and Kish), that arose in Mesopotamia.

Sumeria

300

A large building project that planted plants on the edges of terraced walls to make them look as if they were floating.

Hanging Gardens

300

The king who divided the Persian empire into 20 provinces, standardized the currency of the empire, and had the Royal Road built.

Darius the Great

300

The powerful merchant "empire" that founded a Carthage as a colony.

Phoenicia

300

What was the first animal ever to be cloned?

Sheep

400

A polity that is ruled by a monarch and made up of a city and its surrounding farmland.

City-state

400

This Neo-Babylonian king is featured in the Bible for his exile of the Jews to Babylon.

King Nebuchadnezzar

400

The war in which the Persians were driven out of Greece.

Greco-Persian War

400

This empire had a very powerful army and established a huge library at their capital in Ninevah.

Assyria

400

Weighing around 8 pounds, this is the human body's largest organ.

Skin

500

The belief in many gods.

Polytheism

500

The two major building projects undertaken by king Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.

Hanging Gardens, Ishtar Gate

500

The Persian king who fought the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae and was defeated in the Greco-Persian Wars.

Xerxes

500

This epic hero was a Sumerian king of Uruk who sought immortality and who was written about by the Babylonians.

Gilgamesh

500

How many states does the Appalachian Trail cross?

14

600
This word for the main family in the Sumerian pantheon of gods, meaning "children of An".

Annunaki

600

A stone pillar on which laws and other important information was written and posted in public in Babylonia.

Stele

600

The name of the new capital built by Darius the Great.

Persepolis

600

The king of Akkadia who built Akkad.

Sargon

600

What is the average distance from the earth to the sun?

93 million miles

700

These pyramid-like structures were built as houses for the gods.

Ziggurats

700

The name of the form of writing created by the Babylonians.

Cuneiform

700

The name of local governors in the Persian imperial system.

Satraps

700

The people who invented ironworking and chariots.

Hittites

700

The Mona Lisa hangs in which museum?

The Louvre

800

Through irrigation, the rivers that ran through Mesopotamia brought this type of rich soil to crops.

Silt

800

A large 40-foot, bright blue gate covered in motifs of animals to honor a goddess.  It has been.recreated by archaeologists.

Ishtar Gate

800

Why was Cyrus (and the Persians in general) such a successful leader?  That is, why was it rare for people to rebel against him?

They allowed people to keep their own religion and cultural traditions.

800

The people who invaded Babylon in the 16th c. BC and do not appear to have been a Sumerian people based on their different language and gods.

Kassites

800

What is the only food that can never go bad?

Honey

900

Mesopotamia is located between these two rivers.

Tigris and Euphrates

900

The first king of the Neo-Babylonian empire.

Nabopolassar

900
The Persian ruler who conquered Egypt.

Cambyses

900

The name of the expensive purple dye from the murex snail made by the Phoenicians.

Tyrian Purple

900

Nearly all fossils are preserved in which type of rock?

Sedimentary

1000
Name THREE things that the Sumerian creation myth has in common with the Biblical story of Noah.

1. Flood/Rains to destroy humanity.

2. A human is instructed to (and does) build a boat.

3. Releasing of a dove.

1000

Bonus: Name ALL the books of the Bible in which King Nebuchadnezzar is mentioned.

II Kings, II Chronicles, Ezra, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

1000

The name of the religion that came about during the Persian empire that focuses on the battle between good and evil and whose motto is "good words, good thoughts, good actions."

Zoroastrianism

1000

Name three TECHNOLOGICAL achievements of the Mesopotamian civilizations.

  • Wheel (cart wheel, potter’s wheel, etc.)

  • Plough

  • Sailboats (later, seafaring vessels in Phoenicia)

  • Measuring time

  • Makeup

  • Glass jewelry

  • Bronze (copper and tin)

  • Math (and geometry)

  • Twelve month calendar

  • Science

  • Medicine

1000

Relative to the internet, what does the abbreviation "URL" stand for?

Uniform resource locator

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