Geography
Definition: An ancient Mesopotamian temple tower with outside staircases and a shrine at the top
Ziggurat
Why was silt a problem for the people of Sumer?
clogged irrigation canals
A society has a stable food supply if...
It has enough food for all of it's people.
What invention most affected the food supply in Sumer?
The Plow
The way that the people of a civilization are organized is called?
Social Structure
What does the word Mesopotamia mean?
Land between two rivers.
Why did the villages of Sumer depend on each other?
Maintain irrigation
Clear silt
Scoop water
How did the City-States sometimes use the irrigation system for defense?
Building a moat.
What are at least 3 things that would be considered art in ancient Sumer?
painting, architecture, music, literature, sculpting, metalworking.
Definition: Writing that uses wedge-shaped characters
cuneiform
What two bodies of water is Mesopotamia between?
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
How did the irrigation system bring people together from other settlements?
People had to work together to build and maintenance the irrigation system because it went across city boundaries.
What did some City-States do to the irrigation systems that caused problems with other City-States?
They blocked water from other City-States so they could have more of it.
Definition: The way a civilization is organized
Social Structure
This stringed instrument was popular in early Sumer.
Lyre
Definition: An area in southern Mesopotamia, where cities first appeared
Sumer
What is a city-state?
A populated area with a city area in the middle with a wall and then countryside/farm land outside of it.
If you were in ancient Sumer, you might see a levee beside a river. Why was the levee built?
to prevent floods
What where the 3 important technologies from Sumer?
The wheel, the arch, and the plow
What was an important invention that improved the work of potters, farmers, and soldiers?
The Wheel
What was the main issue regarding the rivers in Mesopotamia?
They flooded in the spring, destroying crops and homes.
Name at least 3 ways the people in Mesopotamia solved the flooding problem.
They built canals, dams, levees, reservoirs.
This group of people lived on the outside edges of the city-state often outside of the city walls.
Farmers
What was Sumer's greatest architectural achievement?
The Arch
Name all 7 characteristics that make something a civilization.
1)Stable food supply.
2)Social structure/hierarchy
3)System of government.
4)Religious system.
5)Highly developed culture.
6)Advances in technology.
7)Highly developed written language.