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Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia: 3500 BCE. Earliest settlement in the East Means “land between rivers”. Between the Tigris & Euphrates rivers Brought under control by a system of irrigation canals. Earliest known settlers were Sumerians. Invented a numerical system, form of writing.

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Ancient Mesopotamia

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  1. Ancient Mesopotamia

  2. Mesopotamia: 3500 BCE • Earliest settlement in the East • Means “land between rivers”. • Between the Tigris & Euphrates rivers • Brought under control by a system of irrigation canals. • Earliest known settlers were Sumerians. • Invented a numerical system, form of writing. • Sumerians believed in several gods who showed the creative & destructive forces of nature.

  3. Sumerian Religion • Based on the geography & history of this region, how do you suppose the Sumerians viewed their gods? Why? (use evidence in justifying your argument)

  4. City-States were built around Ziggurats. The god or spirit of the Ziggurat watched over the fortunes of the town. Ziggurats also contained tombs, and temples for priests.

  5. Summerian Inventions Metal Plow Wagon Wheel Potters Wheel 12 month calendar Made bronze from copper and tin Cuneiform Writing System Sumerian writing developed around 3100 BCE Symbols were engraved on clay tablets Scribes kept business records and poems on tablets Most famous epic poem Gilgamesh

  6. Opening Question • What is a “value”? • Based on the images you just heard about (Ziggurat, Cuneiform, Inventions), what can you infer ancient Mesopotamian people valued?

  7. Mesopotamia 3500-1600 BCE Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians • 2300 BCE: Akkadians conquered Sumerians • Sumerians regained control • Sumerians & Babylonians war for several centuries (Babylonians won in 1900 BC) • 1595 BCE: Hittites defeated Babylonians Mesopotamia was a wide plain, open for invasion

  8. Babylonians ruled Mesopotamia from 1900 to 1595 BCE • Greatest ruler was Hammurabi • created law code for the region • Laws were harsh, but protected every one (all classes) • Hammurabi’s code was an “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a limb for a limb.”

  9. Ancient Sumerian record keepers marked pictographic symbols in soft pieces of clay with a pointed reed. The clay tablets were then baked to make them hard. We call the Sumerian’s writing system cuneiform. Cuneiform means wedged shaped, because the marks in the clay were wedges. The first pictographs were simple. A writer would draw an object like a fish or a broom to communicate to others. This system worked well in a simple society, but it would be difficult to describe abstract concepts such as justice or liberty in pictographs. Many Chinese people continue to use a pictographic system today, but the government has endorsed the Pinyin system of phonetic writing. Eventually, most cultures developed phonetic writing systems where a symbol represents a sound rather than an object. English speaking people, agree that the symbols D-O-G refer to an animal. English, French, Spanish, German and Russian are examples of phonetic languages. Phonetic languages make small typewriters and computer keyboards possible. Imagine a different key for every single word! http://www.mrdowling.com/603-writing.html

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