Ancient Mesopotamia

1. Ancient Mesopotamia By: Spencer Ramirez, Chris Swenson, and Cameron Tegeler

2. What is Mesopotamia? • Mesopotamia is the Greek word for “between the rivers” (Unknown.) • It was given this name because it was located between two rovers, the Tigris and Euphrates. • They flow through what in modern days Iraq. • It’s nickname was “the fertile crescent” (Martin.)

3. Northern Mesopotamia: • Northern Mesopotamia is made up of hills and plains. • The land is quite fertile due to seasonal rains, and the rivers and streams flowing from the mountains. • Early settlers farmed the land and used timber, metals and stone from the mountains nearby.

4. Southern Mesopotamia: • Southern Mesopotamia is made up of marshy areas and wide, flat, barren plains. • Early settlers had to irrigate the land along the banks of the rivers in order for their crops to grow. • Since they did not have many natural resources, contact with neighboring lands was important.

5. The rivers: • Tigris and Euphrates rivers are in Southwest Asia. • They start in mountains of todayʼs Turkey, Kurdistan. • They flow southeast through todayʼs Iraq to Persian Gulf.

6. Floods and Droughts: Floods: • Annual flood was unpredictable and came sometime between April and June • Farmers didn't know when to plant because a flood could come any time and destroy the crops. Drought: • A period without enough rain and snowfall which caused lowered river levels. • It made it hard to water crops because people would starved if there were not enough crops to produce food to eat.

7. Irrigation: • By 6000 B.C., irrigation canals carried water from rivers to fields. • Workers had to unclog canals and built dams to hold back floodwaters.

8. Neighboring Regions • The region roughly containing the Asian part of modern Turkey are referred to as Anatolia (Heise.) • Iran is roughly equivalent to Persia and including in its southwestern part ancient Elam.

9. First language: • At first there was no written language, everything was was entirely written in pictures. This is known as pictographic. • Sumerian has no known relation to any other language.

10. Language: • The Sumerian language is not Semitic. It is a so called “agglutinating” language (Heise.) • Semitic means, “a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs” (Webster.) • Agglutinating means, “to combine into a compound; attach to a base as an affix” (Webster.)

11. Religion: • People lived mainly to please the many gods they worshiped. • Each city had its own main god that it worshiped. • They believed the Earth was created by Ea heard of Apsu’s plot to kill all the younger gods. He, with the help of his brothers and sisters, put Apsu to sleep then killed him. His dead body was then used to create the Earth (Mark.)

12. Mesopotamian gods: • Tiamat – goddess of creative choas. • Ishtar – goddess of love and war. • Apsu – god of water and oceans. • Anu – god of sky, father of all fathers. • Inanna – god of words and language.

13. More Mesopotamian gods: • Adad – god of storms. • Garra – god of fire. • Enlil – god of water and wisdom. • Enten – god of winter. • Irra – god of plegues.

14. Class systems: • Mesopotamia classified the people as priests, upper class, lower class, or slaves. • Each class had different roles, social status, and jobs to do. • Some where valued as more important while others were treated badly.

15. The Priests: • The priests were powerful and were in charge of making sure everyone behaved in a way that would make the gods happy. • They were also the doctors of the time.

16. Upper Class: • The upper class where richer, more well off people. • Men and women wore jewelry, especially rings. Men wore skirts and had long hair, curly moustaches, and long beards. Women wore dresses, off one shoulder. They had long hair, which they braided or wore up in fancy arrangements.

17. Lower Class: • Although the lower class did not have the luxury lifestyle of the rich, they were comfortable. They worked very hard, but they had homes. • They wore jewelry, although perhaps it was not made of gold. They followed the clothing fashions of the time as much as possible.  • There was no law that said they could not move up the social scale, or more likely, have their children move up the social scale by becoming a scribe, or a priest or priestess.

18. The Slaves: • Slaves worked for the king, the temple and the wealthy. Slaves were bought and sold. • Records have been found recording the amount paid for a slave. • Typically, a slave bought at auction cost less than a donkey but more than a cow.

19. Questions: • What is the nickname of Mesopotamia? • What does Mesopotamia mean? • What two rivers is it located between? • What was Southern Mesopotamia like? • What where two problems early settlers faced?

20. More QUESTIONS: 6. What did they use to solve these problems? 7. How was the original language written? 8. Name three gods the Mesopotamians believed in? 9. What were the four class systems? 10. About how much was a slave worth?

21. Citations: Heise, John. "II Mesopotamia." Www.sron.nl. N.p., 06 Jan. 1995. Web. 01 Sept. 2013. Mark, Joshua J. "Mesopotamian Religion." Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 22 Feb. 2011. Web. 01 Sept. 2013. Martin, Phillip. "Mesopotamia - Geography & Maps." Mesopotamia for Kids - Geography & Maps. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2013. Unknown. "Geography." Geography. The British Museum, n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2013.

22. More Citations: 5. Webster, Merriam. "Agglutinate Definition." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2013. 6. Webster, Merriam. ”Semite Definition." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2013.