Name ______Date ______Period______
Study Guide Chapter 2 Lesson 2: Civilization in Mesopotamia pages 89 – 95
Directions uses your book and class notes fill in the blanks.
Introduction paragraph page (89)
1. What is civilization: a centralized society with developed forms of religion, ways of governing, and learning
2. Civilization depended on 2 things:
a. stable food supply
b. division of labor
New Inventions pages (89-90)
1. The southern part of Mesopotamia is called Sumer
2. The loss of crops meant starvation
3. Dikes, also called walls, held the flooding rivers within their banks
4. Canals carried extra water back to the rivers after the floods
5. Reservoirs stored remaining floodwater.
6. What is technology? Technology is the skills and knowledge to make products or meet goals
7. Sumer used technology to carry out successful agriculture and to building of cities
8. The technology of Sumer was greatly advanced by the uses of the wheel
9. What did the Sumerians do to make the wheel last longer? covered the rims with pieces of copper.
10. The invention of the wheel led to the invention of the wheel cart.
11. The Sumerians also invented the sailboat, which helped them move goods and travel.
List all of the Sumerians inventions:
1.) irrigation system examples canals, dikes
2.) wheel
3.) wheel cart
4.) sailboat
5.) units of measurement (acre),
6.) Quart
7.) writing system (cuneiform)
8.) 60 Minutes
9.) water raising system
10.) early plow
Architecture and religious beliefs (page 91)
1. The largest building in the Sumerians cities was the ziggurat, and some were as tall as a seven-story building
2. These large buildings required both planning and teamwork skills to build these buildings.
3. On top of the ziggurat was a shrine for the cities special god.
4. Sumerians believed that if they pleased the gods, they would get large harvests.
5. Sumerians believed that if they upset the god’s floods and natural disasters would come.
6. What kind of buildings were at the bases of the ziggurat? Workshops and temples
7. What building was the center of activity in each city? Ziggurat
8. The Sumerians believed in many gods like many other ancient societies. Some reasons why many ancient societies were polytheistic was because they did not have scientific explanations of why things occurred. Some they believed that the Gods were happy or upset with them.
9. Polytheism / polytheistic: means the beliefs in many Gods
10. Monotheism / monotheistic: the belief only one God
The Role of the Government
1. What was the government? The government is a system used to make laws and decisions.
2. Sumer was made up of several independent city-states. A city-state is a city and its surrounding farmlands, with its own leaders and government.
3. Each city-state had it own government and leaders.
4. List 3 reasons for war
a. outsiders
b. increase farmland size
c. rights to water supplies
5. Strong leadership was needed in each Sumerian city-state. A new kind of government was formed. This government was called monarchy, which is when one person has complete authority to right rule in peacetime and in wartime.
6. Sumerian rulers were usually called kings (“big men”). They ruled over every part of Sumerian life including religion and agriculture and building plans.
7. Sumerian believed that their god selected the rulers.
8. Sumerian leaders were believed to have great strength and power.
Changing Economics page 93
1.Large populations were made possible by the success of agriculture.
3. Sumerian farmers produced extra food known as a surplus.
4. Having a surplus led to the division of labor. List the 4 other kinds of jobs
a. craft workers b. managers
c. metal workers d. merchants
5. Who did the Sumerian merchants trade with? Sumerian merchants traded with merchants throughout the Fertile Crescent.
6. What surplus did the Sumerian trade? wheat , barley, copper tools, (axheads, plows heads).
7. What resources did the Sumerian get in return? Resources they needed wood, salt, precious stones, raw copper, tin.
Divisions in Society (page 93-94)
1. What is a social class? a group that has a particular amount to importance in a society
2. Who made up the highest social class? Highest – priests, kings, important leaders and their families
3. What was the social class ranking based on? Social ranking was probably based on 1.) the amount of property you owned
2.) family’s standing in the community
4. What was a scribe? a person who writes for others
5. Why was being a scribe so important? Most people could not read and write.
6. What kind of things did a scribe write down? Kept records, wrote letters, copied stories and songs
7. Who made up the lowest class? Slaves
8. Name 3 ways people became slaves Lowest – slaves: people became slaves because they were
A. prisoners of war
B. punishment for crimes
C. pay off debts that were owed
9. Could slaves gain their freedom again ? yes How ? pay off debts that were owed
10. Who had more rights and authority in all the social classes of Sumerian society? men
11. Unlike many early civilizations women were able to
a. own property
b. divorce cruel husbands
c. own businesses
Innovations (page 95)
1. Innovation are a new way of doing things
2. In ancient Sumer, a unit of land measurement was called iku, today we call it an acre
3. To measure wheat and barley, Sumerians used the quart as the basic unit of measurement
4. One of the Sumerians greatest inventions was writing.
5. The Sumerians writing system was based on the cuneiform
6. Each wedge-shaped symbol stood for a different syllable and was based on a spoken sound.
7. Cuneiform writing has been found and we have learned about the Sumerians economic activities from their writings.
Write Like a Babylonian
See your monogram in cuneiform, the way an ancient Babylonian might have written it.
http://www.penn.museum/cgi/cuneiform.cgi