Property, Power,Politics & the Death of the Sumerian Langauge
From Tokens to Script
How Humans Learned to Count
100
This is the most densely populated area in the Middle East.
What is along the Nile River?
100
This boat was large and used a sail.
What is a gulf boat?
100
Bonus: This is the year the Arab Spring began.
What is 2011?
100
This was the reason Mesopotamians used tokens.
What is for communication of money/currency?
100
This is how cultures that didn’t count beyond three develop to keep track of their property.
What is
Used a token system to keep track of things?
200
This is the reason why the Fertile Crescent been conquered so much.
What is it has few natural barriers?
200
This ship was very narrow in the front. A man with a weapon sat in the front while the man in the back navigated.
What is a river boat?
200
Early in the Sumerian Civilization these people held property.
What is The Temple Corporation owned some of the land, which it rented to sharecroppers; the remainder was the private property of individual citizens?
200
Sumerians used these as envelopes.
What are clay balls and then cylinders?
200
Describe how preschoolers use one-to-one correspondence when counting.
What is
"One plate for mommy, one plate for daddy, and one plate for me?"
300
This is the reason the Gulf of Hormuz so important to the world.
What is it is the only passage to the ocean from many of the oil producing states?
300
This boat was made of reeds and was round.
What is a coracle?
300
In early days of the Sumerian Civilization political power lay with this group of people.
What is in the hands of free citizens and a city governor?
300
This was necessary to the foundation of writing.
What is concrete counting with tokens?
300
This is the way Shepherds in the Ancient World used pebbles to keep track of their herd.
What is 1
The shepherd used pebbles to match his sheep so that he could later tell whether the flock was still complete?
400
These are the major religions of the Middle East.
What are:
1. Islam
2. Christianity
3. Judaism
400
This is a natural tar like substance, which comes from petroleum, and is used for waterproofing.
What is Bitumen?
400
This was the length of time that historians estimated the drought lasted which killed off the Sumerian language.
What is 200 to 300 years?
400
Explain how tokens fostered abstract thought.
What is " It helped move from concrete to abstract thought – the items represented actual objects?"
400
These are the two other revolutionary developments at the end of the fourth millennium B.C. besides breaking the one-to-one correspondence revolution.
What are
1) Rise of the city-state
2) Advent of writing
500
This is the geographic location of the Fertile Crescent.
What is it stretches from the Eastern Mediterranean along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to the Persian Gulf?
500
This red colored stone was used to make jewelry and to decorate objects.
What is Carnelian?
500
Konfirst found this piece of evidence that indicated increased dust in the environment of Sumer.
What are cores from marine sediments around that period indicate increased dust in the environment?
500
These are two examples of how abstract thought was easier for Mesopotamians.
What are:
1. It made record keeping easier
2. Allowed merchants to add, subtract, multiply, and divide
500
These are the three main stages Mathematical Historians speculate on how counting evolved.
What are:
1) Simple token system in which things are counted in one-to-one correspondence
2) Archaic counting system – such as the body counting of the Paiela.
3) Abstract counting, which we use everyday.