Mesopotamia, 3500 - 1200 BC/BCE

  1. Explain how the presence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers contributed to the development of agriculture and ancient complex societies; explain why historians have called the region that surrounds these rivers “the Fertile Crescent.”

  2. On a map of archaeological sites in the region, and identify the locations and time periods of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians as successive states and empires.

  3. Describe how irrigation, mining and metalsmithing, agriculture, the domestication of animals, and inventions such as the wheel, the sail, and the plow contributed to settlement and the growth of Mesopotamian civilizations.

  4. Analyze the important characteristics and achievements of early Mesopotamia.

        • a complex society with rulers, priests, soldiers, craftspeople, farmers, and slaves

        • a religion based on polytheism (the belief in many gods)

        • monumental architecture (the ziggurat) and developed art (including large relief sculptures, mosaics, carved cylinder seals)

        • cuneiform writing, used for record keeping tax collection, laws and literature

        • the first epic (the Epic of Gilgamesh) and the first set of written laws (the Code of Hammurabi)