Characteristics of Civilization
Farming & Technology
Religion & Architecture
Writing and Government
Society & the Arts
100

This characteristic means a civilization can produce or obtain enough food for its people.

What is stable food supply?

100

Mesopotamian farmers used this system to bring water from rivers to their fields.

What are complex irrigation systems?

100

This large stepped temple stood at the center of many Sumerian cities.

What is a Ziggurat?

100

This writing system used wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets.

What is cuneiform?

100

This civilization characteristic refers to the music, art, and other creative works of a society.

What is the arts?

200

These are the buildings, paintings, music, and other creative works that express a civilization’s culture.

What are the arts?

200

This farming invention, pulled by animals, helped farmers prepare soil for planting.

What is the plow?

200

Sumerians built this kind of structure as a place of worship and a sign of devotion to their gods.

What is a temple?

200

This trained worker recorded information using cuneiform.

What is a scribe?

200

This visual diagram can show groups in a society arranged from highest status to lowest.

What is the social pyramid?

300

This characteristic includes shared beliefs and practices about gods or other sacred ideas.

What is religion?

300

This characteristic includes tools and methods people create to solve problems and make work easier.

What is technology?

300

This civilization characteristic includes the beliefs and rituals people share about the sacred.

What is religion?

300

Scribes often pressed marks into this material while it was soft.

What is clay (or clay tablet)?

300

Social structure describes how people are grouped according to this. 

What is a job?

400

This characteristic includes the way a society is organized into groups with different roles or status.

What is social structure?

400

Canals and irrigation systems helped achieve this characteristic by making crops more dependable.

What is stable food supply?

400

A ziggurat was an example of this civilization characteristic, which includes the design and construction of buildings.

What is architecture?

400

These rulers led Sumerian city-states and helped organize their people.

Who were government officials?

400

In a social pyramid, people at the top generally had more of this than people at the bottom.

What is wealth and power?

500

This characteristic includes roads, canals, and other structures built for people to use together.

What is public works ?

500

These are the main parts of a complex irrigation system.


What is a levee, canal, dam and reservoir?

500

Besides serving as a temple, a ziggurat showed that religion was important in Sumerian city life because of this mantra.

What is "Please the gods in ALL things".

500

A Sumerian city-state leader had several jobs , 5 to be specific. What were they? 

What is lead army, collect taxes, enforce laws, maintain irrigation systems and build temples?

500

The Mesopotamians believed this brought great joy to the gods. 

What is music?