History Flashcards
Rank the ages
Stone, bronze, iron
What does Mesopotamia mean?
Between rivers
Where is Mesopotamia located?
Between the Euphrates and Tigris river
What country was Mesopotamia located in?
Iraq
What was the climate like in the summer?
Dry, hot, with little rainfall
What was the climate like in the winter to spring?
Heavy windstorms and rainstorms led to catastrophic flooding in the spring
What was the soil like?
Arid soil that had little mineral contents
Were there resources available?
No timber and stone were mostly unavailable
What was the land like in northern Mesopotamia?
Made of hills and plains with fertile soil for farming and resources from the mountains
What was the geography like in southern Mesopotamia?
Marsh lands with wide barren flat plains, cities made on the banks used irrigation for farming, less resources (trade was very important)
Why were natural levees important?
The levees created flood plains and hills safe for villages and swamps below the hill had lots of water fowl
How were the levees created?
They were embankments created from built up sediments from thousands of years of flooding
What are reeds?
They are hard Brussels that could be used for construction and food for animals
When was Mesopotamia?
10 000 years ago
When was sumer?
3500-2000 BCE in the southern part of Mesopotamia
When was Akkad?
2340-2180BCE in the northern part
When was Babylonia?
650-500BCE 1830-1500BCE
When was Assyria?
1100-612BCE
How many gods in the polytheistic religion?
3600
What are ziggurats?
Temples used to worship gods, a stack of platforms decreasing in size from bottom-top
When was Gilgamesh
Written 4000 years ago
First epic
Sumer legacy
Cuneiform, invention of the wheel, established social and economics, first cities
Assyria legacy
Feared due to weapons, large empire, dominant force in 10th century, reunited meso., first true empire
Babylon legacy
Reunited Mesopotamia in 1830, central trade location, Hammurabi
Akkad legacy
Sargon the great, unified lower meso, spread of Mesopotamia in Fertile Crescent
