Video:
Audio:
Recommended Reading:
- Powerpoint presentation
- Amazon.com page for History Begins at Sumer, mentioned in the lecture
- One possible timeline for ancient Mesopotamia
- AncientScripts.com has a discussion of cuneiform script and the different languages that employed it.
- The complete text of the Epic of Gilgamesh can be found here.
- This website contains a discussion of Sumerian and Babylonian contributions to science.
- The British Museum’s Mesopotamia site: http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/menu.html
- The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook for Mesopotamia: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook03.html
Mesopotamia – Quiz
- In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim gives an account of an event that sounds very much like what story from the Bible?
- Name one of the agricultural technologies mentioned in the lecture that helped enable the rise of civilization.
- Temples in Mesopotamia frequently sat atop huge pyramid-type structures called ___________.
- The basic political unit of Mesopotamia was the ____________.
- The region of Mesopotamia lies between the ________ and _________ rivers.
- The system of writing developed in Mesopotamia is called __________.
- True/False Mesopotamia enjoyed several natural frontiers protecting it from outside invasion.
- _________ is the region of Mesopotamia normally cited as the birthplace of civilization.
- “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth” is a phrase describing the concept of justice found in what Babylonian code?
- Noah’s Flood
- Wheel, Plow, Irrigation
- ziggurats
- city-state
- Tigris, Euphrates
- cuneiform
- False
- Sumer
- The Code of Hammurabi