Geography of the Fertile Crescent
This region included the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and stretched toward the Mediterranean Sea.
What is the Fertile Crescent?
Around 3500 BCE, this early civilization developed in Mesopotamia.
What is Sumer?
Sumerians believed in many gods, meaning their religion was this.
What is polytheistic?
Around 3100 BCE, Sumerians developed this wedge-shaped system of writing.
What is cuneiform?
This Akkadian ruler conquered the Sumerian city-states around 2334 BCE.
Who was Sargon the Great?
This area of land means “land between the rivers.”
Mesopotamia
These were independent, self-governing communities that included a city and surrounding farmland.
What are city-states?
Their chief god, An, controlled this aspect of nature.
What are the seasons?
Sumerians wrote on clay tablets using this type of tool.
What is a sharp reed?
This empire was known for using iron weapons and horse-drawn chariots.
What was the Hittite Empire?
The Fertile Crescent includes parts of these modern-day countries such as... (NAME AT LEAST 1)
What are Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey?
These large, pyramid-like temples were dedicated to a city-state’s god.
What are ziggurats?
The Sumerians believed that when gods were angry, they caused these two disasters.
What are floods and famines?
Schools where students learned to write cuneiform were called this.
What are eddubas?
This group was known for their alphabet and sea trading power.
Who were the Phoenicians?
Early settlers used the rivers’ water for this agricultural purpose.
What is watering crops (irrigation)?
The king of a Sumerian city-state also served as the head of the military and this religious position.
What is a high priest?
This Babylonian king created one of the world’s first written codes of law.
Who was Hammurabi?
This epic poem told of a part-god king of Uruk and his friend Enkidu.
What is The Epic of Gilgamesh?
This fearsome empire used cavalry, iron weapons, and terror to expand its lands.
What was Assyria?
The rivers’ floods were unpredictable but spread this nutrient-rich material that made land fertile.
What is silt?
These marketplaces were found in every Sumerian city-state.
What are bazaars?
Under Sumerian law, men had authority over families, but women could still do this with property.
What is buy, own, and sell it (or operate a business)?
Sumerians entered the Bronze Age when they learned to mix copper with this metal.
What is tin?
This Persian king built the Royal Road and used satraps to govern provinces.
Who was Darius I?