Early Civilizations Mesopotamia

Things all Shared. People begin to settle along rivers because of the need for fresh water. Need water for: crops, animals, themselves, everything you use water for The first four civilizations to show up are located in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India they all developed along rivers and used them to help survive they all farmed and used irrigation to get water to the crops they all had to worry about flooding and figure out some sort of defense and when to harvest their crops

Mesopotamia: The land between 2 Rivers Civilizations are complex societies Rivers were very important Used for transportation They could water enough crops to feed large groups of people Without having to worry about basic needs, people had time to think of other things and do other jobs; Specialization The 2 rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates Irrigation: the building of walls, canals, and ditches to water crops and control flooding Flooding is both good and bad Good: brings fresh soil Bad: washes crops away if not harvested in time

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is not a civilization. It is a region where a bunch of different peoples lived. Many different groups came to power over time.

Sumer The first group to come to power Organized into city-states City-state had its own government (was its own country) Sumerian cities were not united. The city-states were often at war with one another Polytheistic-believe in many gods and goddesses Ziggurat-religious temple Kings and leaders were probably war heroes

Sumer 3 main classes of people Slavery was not based off of skin color Upper: kings, priests, gov. officials Middle: artisans (skilled workers) merchants, farmers and fishermen Lower: enslaved people Slavery was not based off of skin color They were prisoners of war or simply owed money

Mesopotamia-the cradle of civilization Invented many things Cuneiform- the first system of writing using wedge shaped marks Scribes- people that were taught to write, only boys, held honored positions in society Oldest known story Epic of Gilgamesh Some of them we still use today Wagon wheel, plow, number system (based off of 60), 60 minute hour, 12 month calendar

Empires of Mesopotamia Sumer was not united and therefore was vulnerable to attacks from large armies The Akkadians eventually under King Sargon conquered Sumer and all of Mesopotamia He set up the world’s first empire- a group of many lands under one ruler After Sargon’s death the Akkadians lost power to the Babylonians. Their leader Hammurabi created the Babylonian Empire. Hammurabi is best remembered for creating his code of laws. It was the first set of written laws, everyone knew them