Study Guide – Chapter 3: Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent

1. Describe the following:

Fertile Crescent – large arc of rich, fertile farmland located in Mesopotamia extending

from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea

Surplus – more than needed; irrigation increased the amount of food leading to a food

surplus; with more than enough food not everyone had to be farmers division of

labor

City-State – a city and all the countryside around it; basic political unit of Sumer

because the amount of land controlled by each city-state depended on its military

strength

Empire – land with different territories and peoples under a single rule; first empire

was established by Sargon

Polytheism – belief in many gods; Sumerians believed their gods had enormous

powers; every Sumerian had a duty to serve and to worship the gods

Social Hierarchy – the division of society by rank or class; Levels: kings priests

skilled crafters, merchants, and traders farmers and laborers slaves

Scribe – writer; scribes were very important because they kept track of items traded

and records for the government and temples

Sargon – king of the Akkadians; first ruler to have a permanent army; established the

world’s first empire

Gilgamesh – legendary Sumerian king that epics were written about (The Epic of

Gilgamesh)

2. What weapons and vehicles did the Hittites and Assyrians use in battle?

Weapons made of iron; chariots allowed soldiers to move quickly around a battlefield

and fire arrows at the enemy

3. Why were scribes so powerful and important in Sumerian society?

scribes kept track of items traded and records for the government and temples; scribes

possessed a skill that not everyone had, which made them very important

4. Why did citizens build walls around their cities?

the walls provided protection from attack

5. What does Mesopotamia mean? What 2 land features give it its name?

Mesopotamia means “land between the rivers”; Tigris and Euphrates Rivers

6. Why is Mesopotamia a good place to grow crops?

floods from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers brought silt (mixture of rich soil and tiny

rocks) to the land making the land fertile and ideal for farming

7. Why were Ziggurats built so tall?

Sumerians believed the higher it was in the sky, the closer it was to the gods

8. Describe the world’s first system of writing.

Cuneiform was a system of writing using pictographs (picture symbols) written with

styluses on clay tablets

9. How did the Phoenician alphabet spread?

Phoenicians needed a way to record their activities so they developed an alphabet to

make writing much easier; they established many colonies throughout the

Mediterranean Sea so using the alphabet made it easier to communicate throughout

the region

10. What did both Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar do for Babylon?

Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar brought order and prosperity to Babylon;

Hammurabi was responsible for building and irrigation projects, increased trade, law

codes; Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the city and featured the Hanging Gardens, studied

astronomy and geometry and created a calendar

11. Be able to do the math to decipher how long ago a ruler came to power in

Mesopotamia. (2013 + year BCE = total years)

Example: If Nebuchadnezzar came to power in Babylon in 612 BCE, how long ago was

that? Answer: 2,625 (2013 + 612)