1. Chapter 2
The Fertile Crescent

2. Section 3 The Legacy of Mesopotamia

3. Hammurabi’s Code Code – organized list of laws
Help people know rules and punishment
Hammurabi – ruled Babylonia B.C.
Set of rules for the empire
Told people how to settle conflicts
Based on early Sumerian codes
282 laws
Organized different categories
Trade
Labor
Property
Family

4. Hammurabi’s Code Code based on “an eye for an eye”
Punishment should fit the crime
Did not apply equally to all
Harshness of punishment depended on importance of victim
Example pg. 44
Person who accidentally broke law still guilty
Laws important because written down
Everyone knew the rules
1st recorded set of rules found

5. Writing 1st developed 3100 B.C. – Mesopotamia Way to keep records
Record keepers – important and busy in Sumer
Earliest documents – records of farm animals
One of the most valuable skill – because most don’t know how
Respected

6. Scribes
Military
Calculated amount of food and supplies an army would need
Government scribes figured the number of diggers needed to build a canal
Records
Written on clay – paper not invented

7. Clay…where did that come from?
Tigris and Euphrates – washed down from mountains
Scribes shaped clay
Used sharp tools to make letters
When dried – hard
Size and shape depended on its purpose

8. Where did writing come from?
Before writing used:
Shaped pieces of clay tokens = record keeping
1st writing symbols represented specific objects
Cuneiform – scribes combined symbols to make groups of wedges and lines
Could represent different languages = flexibility and useful
Historians believe:
Sumerians developed system of writing alone – did not borrow
Symbols set in rows
Rows read left to right
Top to bottom

9. Elements