Writing
This wedge-shaped writing system was developed by the Sumerians and is one of the world’s earliest forms of writing.
What is Cuneiform?
Mesopotamian farmers built canals and ditches to bring river water to their crops, a system known as this.
What is irrigation?
At the top of Mesopotamia’s social pyramid stood this ruler, believed to have been chosen by the gods.
Who is the king?
Mesopotamia was located between these two rivers in what is now modern-day Iraq.
What are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
The people of Mesopotamia believed in many gods, which means their religion was this.
Before writing evolved into cuneiform, the Sumerians used these drawings to represent objects and ideas.
What is a pictogram?
The region where Mesopotamia was located had rich soil shaped like this curved area stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
What is the Fertile Crescent?
Mesopotamian society was divided into groups, or classes, based on wealth and job. This system is called this.
What is the social hierarchy?
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers were important because they provided this essential resource for crops and people.
What is water?
These pyramid-shaped temples were built in the center of each city-state to honor the gods.
What are ziggurats?
Only a few people in Mesopotamia mastered reading and writing; these educated individuals were responsible for keeping official records.
What is a scribe?
This farming tool, first used by the Sumerians, made it easier to plant seeds by turning over the soil.
What is the plow?
At the bottom of the social hierarchy were these people, often prisoners of war, who worked on farms or in temples.
Who are the slaves.
Mesopotamia’s central position between several regions made it an early center for this kind of exchange between cultures.
What is trade?
The earliest clay tablets from Mesopotamia weren’t poems or laws. They were used by temple officials for this practical purpose.
What is keeping track of trade and goods?
Each year the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers did this, leaving behind silt that made the land fertile.
What is flooding?
This Babylonian king created one of the first written sets of laws to make sure “the strong do not harm the weak.
Who is Hammurabi?
Because Mesopotamia’s flat land had few natural barriers, people formed independent walled communities known as these.
What are city-states?
This ancient Mesopotamian story about a king’s search for immortality is considered the world’s first epic poem.
What is The Epic of Gilgamesh?
The world’s first known author, she was a Sumerian priestess who wrote hymns to the goddess Inanna.
Who is Enheduanna?
Irrigation projects and food distribution required coordination, helping give rise to this form of organized leadership.
What is government?
Hammurabi’s Code was based on this principle, meaning the punishment should match the crime.
What is “an eye for an eye”? Or what is equal justice?
Because Mesopotamia lacked materials like wood and metal, people traded their grain and cloth with neighbouring regions such as these two ancient lands.
What are Egypt and the Indus Valley?
Mesopotamians invented many things still used today, including this system for measuring time that divides an hour into 60 minutes.
What is the base-60 number system? or What is a 60-minute hour?