Geography
Name two rivers that ran through Mesopotamia.
Tigris and Euphrates
What is the name for The belief in many gods.
polytheism
What was the first set of written laws called?
Hammurabi's Code
Who was the king who had laws written down for the first time?
Hammurabi
Who was at the lowest level of the social pyramid?
enslaved people
What was the Fertile Crescent
The land between the two rivers: Euphrates and Tigris
What type of Gods did Mesopotamians believe in?
Nature gods
What was the type of writing the Sumerians used called?
Cuneiform
What is a city with its own traditions and its own government and laws called that has agriculture?
city state
Who was at the highest level of the social class?
kings
What is the name of the soil that the flood waters left in order to make farming successful?
silt
Why did their daily life revolve around their nature gods?
Their civilization relied on farming, therefore they had to make sure their gods were never upset.
What kind of genre was the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Fictional story
Who ruled the city states?
kings
What did farming allow people to do now that they didn't have to worry about food?
Specialization of labor
What is a drought?
a long period of low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water.
Name the temple where the people left food offerings and worshiped their gods.
ziggurats
Which aspect of our time was invented by the Sumerians?
Who was Sargon?
First king to unify sumerian city states under one empire
How did Women have greater opportunity in Sumer than they did in many other ancient cultures
They [women] could buy land, become scribes, own businesses, and even divorce their husbands
Too much water but too little water damaged the crops. What were their solutions?
Irrigation systems!
What did the Sumerian people believe the gods would do to punish the people?
Bad flooding or drought
What invention helped the Sumerians with trade?
Wheeled carts
Kings were viewed as what?
demigods
People who learned how to write were called what?
scribes