Mesopotamia

Cities:Sumerian City-States

• city-states = a city that is also a separate, independent state

• ziggurats = pyramid-temples dedicated to a chief god or goddess of a city

• Rectangular in shape; surrounded by large walls

• Rival cities battled for control of land and water

• Examples: Ur, Sumer, Erech, Kish, Babylon

Central Government: First Empires

• Sumer (3200 BCE)– King Sargon: first empire builder

• Babylon (1790 BCE)– King Hammurabi: law code

• Assyrians (1100 BCE)– King Assurbanipal: library of Ninevah

• New Babylonia (612 BCE)– King Nebuchadnezzar: Hanging Gardens of Babylon

• Persia (539 BCE)– Cyrus the Great: largest empire of Mesopotamia

Writing:Cuneiform

• cuneiform = earliest form of writing invented by the Sumerians in 3200 BCE; “wedge” writing using a stylus (reed pen)

Social Classes:Hammurabi’s Code

Organized Religion:Epic of Gilgamesh

Technology:Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Job Specialization:Phoenician Merchants

• Phoenicians gained fame as sailors and merchants (traders)

• Sea snails “Tyrian purple” • Traded along Mediterranean• colony = territory settled &

ruled by people of a distant land• alphabet developed symbols

to represent spoken sounds