Ancient Mesopotamia

Miss Cokinos
Geography of Ancient Mesopotamia
 Do Now Activity
● https://www.flickr.com/photos/5
8696257@N03/5512116621
- What do you see? Do this
map remind you of
anything? How do you think
rivers, mountains, and
deserts are connected? How
can they affect a
civilization?
 Another name for Mesopotamia, though, is “The
Land Between the Rivers.” In fact, the word
The Tigris and Mesopotamia, derived from ancient Greek,

Euphrates Rivers
means “the land between the rivers."

Both rivers flow out of the Taurus Mountains to

the north and, after traveling over a thousand
miles through what is mostly desert, they flow
into the Persian Gulf to the South. To the east,
Mesopotamia is bordered by the Zagros
Mountains.

The rivers provided transportation, silt, and

enabled irrigation systems that helped the
civilization flourish. They were a MAJOR river
system.
 The Fertile Crescent, often called the

Fertile Crescent "Cradle of Civilization", is the region in

the Middle East which curves, like a
quarter-moon.

The region historically contained unusually

fertile soil and productive freshwater and
brackish wetlands

This region, alongside Mesopotamia

(which lies to the east of the Fertile
Crescent, between the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates), also saw the emergence of
early complex societies.
 Syrian Desert in Ancient Mesopotamia is
Syrian Desert / south of the Fertile Crescent.

Taurus and Zagros The Taurus and Zagros mountain ranges in

Mountain Ranges Ancient Mesopotamia are north of the Fertile
Crescent.

BOTH provided a natural barriers / borders

between other countries. This provided
safety and privacy for Ancient Mesopotamia.

Enabled ancient
Mediterranean-Mesopotamian trade routes.
Exit Slip!

Clear your desks, you will only need

a pen or a pencil :)
Closing Time

Discussion time: let’s summarize the lesson!

 Recap Video Answer the questions on your
worksheet as you are watching
this video.
● https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=x18Sa6Mgu5A
Structures of Ancient Mesopotamia
Do Now Activity: What do you see? Do
https://www.ancient-origins.n
these pictures remind you
et/artifacts-ancient-writings/d of anything? How do you
eciphering-cuneiform-helping-
scholars-get-handle-life-ancie think they are connected?
nt-021433 (Cunieform)
https://study.com/academy/l
esson/mesopotamian-ziggura
t-definition-images-quiz.html
(Ziggurats)
 Definition-An ancient temple tower consisting
of a lofty pyramidal structure built in successive
Ziggurats stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the
top

In the center of each town, was the Ziggurat.

The Ziggurat was a temple. The ancient
Sumerians, believed their gods lived in the sky.
In order for the gods to hear better, you needed
to get closer to them. Ziggurats were huge, with
built in steps.

Religious ceremonies were held on top of the

Ziggurat. Each day, people would leave
offerings to the gods of food, cloth, and wine on
the steps of the ziggurat. The priests would
collect and use these gifts since they were the
representatives of the gods on earth.
Cuneiform Definition- wedge-shaped characters used in the
ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia on clay
tablets

Cuneiform is a system of writing first

developed by the ancient Sumerians of
Mesopotamia c. 3500-3000 BCE.

The name comes from the Latin word cuneus for

'wedge' owing to the wedge-shaped style of
writing. In cuneiform, a carefully cut writing
implement known as a stylus is pressed into soft
clay to produce wedge-like impressions that
represent word-signs (pictographs) and, later,
phonograms or `word-concepts' (closer to a
modern-day understanding of a `word').
 Definition of Agriculture - the cultivation of land and
breeding of animals and plants to provide food and
Agriculture and other products to sustain and enhance life.

Surplus Definition of Surplus - an amount of something left

over when requirements have been met; an excess of
production or supply over demand.

Agriculture CREATED surplus.

Archaeological excavations starting in the 1840s CE

have revealed human settlements dating to 10,000 BCE
in Mesopotamia that indicate that the fertile conditions
of the land between two rivers allowed an ancient
hunter-gatherer people to settle in the land, domesticate
animals, and turn their attention to agriculture.

The very fertile soil allowed enormous surpluses to be

generated. The main crops were barley and wheat.
Ted Talk Video Answer the questions on your
worksheet as you are watching
https://www.ted.com/talks/le this video.
ra_boroditsky_how_languag
e_shapes_the_way_we_thin
k/transcript?language=en
Quiz Time!

Clear your desks, you will only need

a pen or a pencil :)
Closing Time

Get in pairs of 2 or 3 and jot down one fact

you each learned today.
Hunter Gatherer To Farmer
Listen and Relax To Ancient
Mesopotamian Music !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxsh_8ZWgMg
The Birth of Farming Farming was born after the end of the last
Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, when
hunter-gatherers settled in small
communities in the Fertile Crescent, a
narrow band of land arcing across the Near
East. They swiftly learned to produce their
own food, sowing cereal grains and
breeding better plants.
 Mesopotamia that indicate that the fertile
conditions of the land between two rivers
Hunter Gatherers in allowed an ancient hunter-gatherer people to
settle in the land, domesticate animals, and turn
Mesopotamia their attention to agriculture.

The discovery of fire helped hunter gatherers

adapt to their environments

Hunter gatherers were prehistoric nomadic

groups that harnessed the use of fire, developed
intricate knowledge of plant life and refined
technology for hunting and domestic purposes as
they spread from Africa to Asia, Europe and
beyond

The early hunter gatherers used simple tools,

such as sharpened stones for cutting, before
developing the hand-axes.
 The earliest people combined hunting and gathering
with keeping animals and growing cereals. They

Farmers in became more and more dependent upon

domesticated animals and cereals as time went on.
Mesopotamia
While crops grew abundantly in the fertile soil near
the rivers, crops grown farther away required
irrigation, which meant maintaining dams or canals
that led from the river to the fields. Mesopotamian
farmers were laborers and their work was physically
hard.

The most important crops in Mesopotamia were

wheat and barley. Farmers also grew dates, grapes,
figs, melons, and apples. Favorite vegetables
included eggplants, onions, radishes, beans, lettuce,
and sesame seeds. Mesopotamians also raised
sheep, goats, and cows
 The first successful efforts to control the flow of water
were made in Mesopotamia, where the remains of the
The importance of prehistoric irrigation works still exist.

irrigation
The Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia built city
walls and temples and dug canals that were the world's
first engineering works. It is also of interest that these
people, from the beginning of recorded history, fought
over water rights. Irrigation was extremely vital to
Mesopotamia, Greek for "the land between the rivers."
Flooding problems were more serious in Mesopotamia
than in Egypt because the Tigris and Euphrates carried
several times more silt per unit volume of water than
the Nile. This resulted in rivers rising faster and
changing their courses more often in Mesopotamia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=5RP2KfewiJA
History Channel Answer the questions on your
Video worksheet as you are watching
this video.

https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=bhzQFIZuNFY
T Chart Time ! :)

Clear your desks, you will only need

a pen or a pencil :)
Closing Time

Get in pairs of 2 or 3 and discuss one thing

you learned today.