Unit 2 Mesopotamia

Geography & Environment

  • fertile crescent: a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East with rich soil, stretching from the Persian Gulf through to Egypt, where early civilizations first flourished.

  • Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: the two major rivers framing Mesopotamia (meaning "land between rivers") whose flooding enabled early agricultural development.

  • agriculture: the practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals, which allowed nomadic groups to settle.

  • trade: the exchange of goods, services, or resources between different groups, which expanded throughout Mesopotamia due to surplus agricultural production.

Societies & Civilizations

  • Sumer / Sumeria: the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia, widely considered the cradle of world civilization.

  • Sumerians: the people who inhabited Sumer; known for inventing cuneiform writing, building ziggurats, and founding some of the earliest known cities.

  • Akkadians: an ancient people who conquered Sumer under Sargon the Great to build one of the world's first empires.

  • Babylon: a major city-state in central Mesopotamia that grew into a powerful empire and capital city under ruler Hammurabi and later Nebuchadnezzar.

Government & Society

  • city-states: independent, self-governing political units consisting of a prominent city and its surrounding countryside.

  • theocracy: a system of government in which priests rule in the name of a god or gods, or where rulers are considered divine representatives.

  • empire: a large group of states, territories, or nations brought under a single supreme authority or monarch.

  • patriarchal: a social system in which men hold primary power in political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property.

Culture, Religion & Artifacts

  • polytheism: the belief in or worship of multiple gods or deities.

  • ziggurats: massive, stepped pyramid-like temple towers built in ancient Mesopotamian city-states to honor local patron gods.

  • cuneiform: the earliest system of writing, developed by the Sumerians, using wedge-shaped marks pressed into wet clay tablets.

  • Hanging Gardens of Babylon: one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a legendary tiered complex of lush gardens built in Babylon, attributed to King Nebuchadnezzar II.

Key Figures & Texts

  • Hammurabi: an influential king of the Babylonian Empire famous for codifying Mesopotamian laws and expanding Babylonian territory.

  • Code of Hammurabi: a set of legal codes carved into a stone stele, famous for establishing clear punishments based on social class and the principle of retaliation ("an eye for an eye").

  • Gilgamesh: a historical king of Uruk who became the legendary hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of world history's earliest surviving works of literature.

  • Nebuchadnezzar: a powerful king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire known for rebuilding Babylon, constructing the Ishtar Gate, and capturing Jerusalem.