Mesopotamia Flashcards
Mesopotamia means…
The land between two rivers
Mesopotamia is also known as…
fertile crescent
Mesopotamia is now…
modern day Iraq
Mesopotamia was between the rivers…
Tigris and Euphrates
The flooding of the rivers lead to…
fertile soil
Irrigation was invented to…
help control the flow of water to water the crops
Due to the open plains mesopotamia…
vulnerable to easy attacks
Because mesopotamia was vulnerable to easy attacks…
they built city walls
Mesopotamia was made up of…
City-states
A city-state is…
A state that functioned much like an independent country
Polytheistic believed in…
many gods
Humans must please gods to…
avoid natural disasters, losses, etc
A ziggurat is a…
temple/place of worship in the center of the city
Religion leads to creation of…
Mathematics, Calendars, and Astronomy
The economy was based of on…
Agriculture and Trade
Mesopotamia lacked…
Natural Resources
Because mesopotamia lacked natural resources they…
had to rely on trade for resources they could not obtain themselves
Most of the population of Mesopotamia had…
No power/money
A small portion of the population of Mesopotamia had…
Had power/money
Cities served as center of…
life through trade and religion
Cities in the state of sumer:
Ur, Lagash, Uruk
Ur, Lagash and Uruk formed…
along the tigris and euphrates river
Cuneiform is a…
sumerian form of writing in the style of pictographs
Pictographs are…
symbols that represent sounds. words and phrases
Cuneiform was written on clay tablets in order to keep…
track of business, historical events, customs, and traditions
The 1st empire was the…
Akkadian empire, 2340 BC
Sargon of Akkad created…
the 1st empire
Hammurabi’s code was the first…
the first uniform code, and would inspire later rulers create their own laws
Hammurabi’s code was written…
down and displayed all over the empire
Hammurabi’s codes punishments were…
meant to fit the crime “eye for an eye” applied differently depending on the social class
