1. Pre-Class Review What are the three main religions of the Middle East?
What are the two distinct ethnic groups of Jews which live in the Middle East?
Differentiate between the terms Arab and Muslim
List what you think were two important things the President mentioned in his U.N. speech.

2. Ancient Sumer

3. The Land Between the Two Rivers

4. Ancient Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia had rich soil, lots of rain, a good source of water, and rivers filled with fish
Southern Mesopotamia had good soil, but much less rain
This meant that the people had to work extremely hard and cooperate with each other. They worked together to plow and build irrigation ditches.

5. Sumer
Around 3500 B.C., most people lived in scattered villages, towns, and farms
People began to concentrate in larger settlements known as city-states
They formed these city-states for two reasons:
1. needed lots of people for farming projects
2. security from raiding nomads

6. Rise of City-States
Powerful city-states developed, such as Ur, Uruk, and Lagash

7. Soldiers, merchants, craftsmen
Social Structure
Within these city-states, a social structure developed.
City ruler or king
Priests
Landowners
Soldiers, merchants, craftsmen
Peasants
Slaves

8. Control of City-States
Priests collected taxes from the people to maintain the state
They also prayed to the gods for good harvests
The center of priestly power was located in a ziggurat, which was a huge temple

9. Sumerian Ziggurat

10. System of Writing
Scribes developed a system of writing, first based on pictograms, and later developed into cuneiform
This system of writing was used primarily for record-keeping

11. Other Achievements Improved plows for farming
Perfected systems of dikes and canals
Sailing ships
Potters wheel

12. Other Achievements
By 3000 B.C., the Sumerians began to cast bronze, which they used for tools and weapons

13. Trade Mesopotamia had little by way of natural resources
They relied on trade with the Arabian Peninsula and the Indus River Valley to obtain goods that they needed
Traded textiles (made primarily by women) for precious metals
Mesopotamian society was patriarchal

14. Ancient Trade Routes

15. Conquest
Mesopotamian city-states were CONSTANTLY fighting with each other
By the beginning of the 18th century B.C., the city-states of Sumer were conquered by the Babylonians under King Hammurabi

16. Babylon and Hammurabi
Mesopotamia was conquered by the Babylonians under King Hammurabi
This ruler expanded his state through both warfare and diplomacy
Set up a written system of laws, composed of both old and new

17. Created this law system:
Babylon and Hammurabi
Created this law system:
To cause justice to prevail in the country
To destroy the wicked and evil
That the strong may not oppress the weak
The Code of Hammurabi: