3) Mesopotamia

Question 1

Mesopotamia Meaning

Answer 1

Meso - Between

Potomoi - Rivers

Question 2

Mesopotamia Rivers

Answer 2

Tigris

Euphrates

Question 3

What was the older of Mesopotamia’s two economic systems?

Answer 3

Proto-socialism

Famers gave crops to public storehouses

Workers received uniform wages in grain

Question 4

Themes of “The Epic of Gilgamesh”

Answer 4

City v Country - City wins - Wild Man is civilized, becomes friend and brother to King

Death

Question 5

Largest City in Early Mesopotamia

Answer 5

Uruk

Question 6

Uruk characteristics

Answer 6

Walls
Canals
Temples
Ziggurats

Question 7

Mesopotamian religion

Answer 7

Polytheistic

Moody gods

Question 8

Why did Mesopotamian gods flood the earth?

Answer 8

Humans were being too noisy and making it hard to sleep

Question 9

What were the Mesopotamian rivers like?

Answer 9

Violent
Unpredictable
Difficult to navigate
Difficult to work with (used slave labor to irrigate)

Question 10

Who was in charge in the older of Mesopotamia’s political system’s?

Answer 10

Priests; they communicated with difficult gods

Question 11

Mesopotamia: Transition from Temples to Palaces

Answer 11

1,000 years
Power moves from Gods to people
Military leaders and rich landowners marry high priests

Question 12

Mesopotamian writing system

Answer 12

Cuneiform

Mostly used to record business transactions: wheat and goats

Question 13

What is important about writing? (Mesopotamia)

Answer 13

1) Increased social stratification (literate+illiterate)

2) Recorded history

Question 14

Mesopotamia: Necessary Trade

Answer 14

Traded for most things but crops (metal, stone, wood, etc)

Question 15

Mesopotamia: Trading implies what?

Answer 15

Territorial Kingdoms

Question 16

When did the Mesopotamian City-State period end?

Answer 16

2000 BCE

Question 17

Why did the Mesopotamian City-State period end?

Answer 17

shift in rivers
drought

easy conquering for nomadic peoples (Amorites) and neighboring cities (Elamites)

Question 18

What was the newer of Mesopotamia’s two economic systems?

Answer 18

Taxation

People produced as much as they want, and paid taxes to chiefs (eventually kings)

Question 19

Who was in charge in the newer of Mesopotamia’s political systems?

Answer 19

Chiefs and Kings, who passed power to their sons

Question 20

Hammurabi

Answer 20

Law Code: presumption of innocence + retributive justice

Question 21

What was the Assyrian Empire known for?

Answer 21

Brutality
Deport + relocate people following conquest
Mutilated potential rebels

Meritocratic military

Question 22

Who was the God of Assyrian Religion?

Answer 22

Ashur

maintains the world through the King of Assyria

Question 23

What was the driving force behind the God of Assyrian religion?

Answer 23

Conquest

If conquering continues, the world continues
If conquering ends, the world ends

Question 24

Why did Assyria collapse?

Answer 24

Assyria extended its empire beyond its roads, making control difficult

Lost capital of Nineveh and major city of Harran in 600s BCE (to Neo-Babylonians and Medes)

Lost battle, and world continued; Assyrian religion proved false

Question 25

What names was Hammurabi referred to by?

Answer 25

“Father” and “Shepherd”

Abrahamic concepts

Question 26

What was the Mesopotamian afterlife like?

Answer 26

Dark, gloomy cavern beneath the ground