Mesopotamia

Question 1

Location

Answer 1

“Fertile Crescent” between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers

Question 2

Lack of which key resources

Answer 2

stone, timber, precious metals. This suggests trade

Question 3

cultural and Technological Developments

Answer 3

Writing, Math & time, Cylinder seals, agriculture, mass-produced pottery, cities, monumental architecture

Question 4

Writing date, style, and earliest topics

Answer 4

• Cuneiform
• Developed 3600 B.C.
• Simple records in clay
• Started as pictographic, developed into logosyllabic
• Earliest writings were epics, history, and economics

Question 5

Math & time dates, subjects, division of time

Answer 5

-Developed before writing
- Pythagorean geometry
- Trained scribes
- Invented sundials and clocks
- created the current minute, hour, and day system

Question 6

Cylinder Seals

Answer 6

• Used similarly to an ID card
• Decorated cylinder rolled over clay to make a unique stamp
• Used to stamp envelopes so you could see if they had been opened
• Created before handwriting

Question 7

Agriculture

Answer 7

-Domestication of many grains and animals
-Irrigation through canals, shadufs, reservoirs, aqueducts, etc.
- wheel and plough invented 4th millennium BC.
-Crop rotation

Question 8

Mass Produced Pottery

Answer 8

• Original use of the wheel
• could be produced much more quickly, therefore more affordable
• Led to pottery becoming more used among all social classes

Question 9

Uruk

Answer 9

• 4000 B.C.-500 A.D.
• Most cities mimicked Uruk
• Buildings made of mud brick without mortar
• Tells with many layers
• Temple complexes in the center of the city to Inanna and Anu

Question 10

Monumental Architecture

Answer 10

• Large Scale statues or buildings
  -Meant to last forever
  -Palaces, temples, ziggurats

Question 11

Mesopotamian cultures

Answer 11

• Sumerians
• Akkadians
• Assyrians
• Babylonians
• Hittites
• Phoenicians
• Sea People

Question 12

Sumer

Answer 12

-Earliest Mesopotamian civilization
- 4100-1750 B.C.
- City states, “Land of the civilized Kings”
Sumerian king list
-Collapsed/transformed 1750 B.C.
- Kings represented triumph over chaos and disorder
-Gilgamesh

Question 13

Akkad

Answer 13

-2334-2218 A.D.
-Multiple nations conquered into one large empire
-short lived society
-founded by Sargon the Great from Akkad
Language was called Akkad
- 5 leaders: Sargon, Rimush, Manishtusu, Naran, Shar-kali-Sharri
-Established large scale global trade
- After other Kings were conquered, they were hired to help run the empire

Question 14

Downfall of Mesopotamia

Answer 14

During the Bronze Age Collapse

Question 15

Ziggurat

Answer 15

• Limited access
• Tiered stone platform
• Held temples or palaces
• Also used for astrological purposes

Question 16

Sumerian King List

Answer 16

• Cuneiform document
• Listed all kings of Sumer along with when and where they reigned

Question 17

Gilgamesh

Answer 17

• King of Uruk
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Seen as an intermediary with the Gods
• Oldest epic literature on Earth
• May have influenced the tropes in Homer’s writing
• May or may not have been a real king