This allowed better pottery to create bowls, jars, and other vessels.
What is the potter's wheel?
An extra amount, beyond what is needed.
What is surplus?
This was the center of most Sumerian city-states and were large complexes that had administrative centers and warehouses for food.
What are ziggurats?
A long, complex tale that tells the story of a hero's adventures.
What is an epic?
Before civilizations, these societies had to move from place to place to find food, shelter, and resources.
What are hunter gatherers?
Sumerian calendars were based on this cycle.
What is the moon cycle?
What are religious leaders or priest-kings?
Tiny bits of rocks, minerals, and organic matter.
What are silt?
This artifact found in the British Museum showed various aspects of Sumerian civilization that allowed us to learn more about the Sumerians.
What is the Standard of Ur?
What is irrigation?
Nearly every early civilization was near this.
What are rivers or river valleys?
Set of laws that were displayed in public and outlined the punishments for various behaviors. "Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth."
What is the Code of Hammurabi?
Sumerians lacked many resources, such as wood, stone, and metal, so this was important to the Sumerians.
What is trade and commerce?
A person who will legally receive the property of someone who dies, a person who becomes king or queen after he or she dies.
What is heir?
Mesopotamia is between these two rivers.
What are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
A person whose job is to write or make copies of written information.
What is a scribe?
These caused the soil to be rich with minerals and other nutrients that allowed these soil to be amazing for farming.
What are floods?
Ashurbanipal's Library contained tens of thousands of clay tablets that included this tablet.
What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Mesopotamia is the combination of two words, which two words and what do they mean?
What is meso (middle or in between) and potamus (river)?
Belief in or worship of more than one deity.
What is polytheism?
The floods in Mesopotamia created these two advantages for the people there.
What are rich soil and clay?
Land created by silt deposits at the mouth of a river.
What is a delta?
Please list at least 3 defining characteristics of civilizations:
What are permanent settlements, division of labor, social class, political structure, writing, and trade?
What is cuneiform?
These two inventions were used to hold back and direct floodwater.
What are dikes and canals?
Firsthand account of a historical event.
What is a primary source?
The Code of Hammurabi was the first to establish this rule that our justice system today still uses.
What is "innocent until proven guilty"?
Who are archeologists?
Increased food supplies allowed for this.
What are division of labor or social classes?
Created iron weapons that allowed them to create this powerful empire.
What is the Assyrian Empire?