1
What is the earliest known civilization?
Mesopotamia
Who usually learned to read and write?
Boys from wealthy families.
For Sumer's social structure, what was the basic unit of society?
Family
What is it called when you have extra amounts of food?
Surplus
What were two things that the Sumerians studied?
mathematics and astronomy
What did the Sumerians make based on the cycles of the moon?
Calendar
What was cuneiform?
A writing system
Who made up the upper class in Sumer?
Kings, priests, warriors, and government officials.
What is polytheism?
Worshipping many gods.
Sumerian cities were cut off from neighbors and became independent. They had their own government so they formed what?
city-states
Mesopotamia has been called the ____________ of civilization.
cradle
What is irrigation?
A method of watering crops, where farmers built canals that let water flow from rivers to their crops.
Why could Mesopotamian farmers not always depend on the rivers for their needs in the summer?
The rivers were too low because no rain fell.
The Sumerians were the first to mix copper and tin to make what?
Bronze
The civilization of Mesopotamia began on the plain between what two rivers?
Tigris and Euphrates
What does the word Mesopotamia mean in Greek?
The land between the rivers
Who were the people who could read and write cuneiform?
Scribes
Why was the land that Mesopotamia was located on called the fertile crescent?
It was a curving strip of good farmland in the shape of a crescent moon.
To honor a god, a city-state often included a large temple called what?
ziggurat
How were floods helpful to farmers?
Flood waters brought silt, which was good soil for farming.