Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent (Enrichment)

Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent: the first farmers and cities, cuneiform and Hammurabi’s laws. Read one part at a time and tap “I know this”. Then test yourself in the quiz.

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From village to city

	Village	City
Size	Small	Bigger
Leaders	Family heads	Kings (kingship becomes permanent and inherited)
Work	Mostly farming	Craftsmen, scribes, officials, markets

Irrigation canals carried river water to fields further away. The wheel made carts possible. Walls protected people and grain from raids. Hazards: drought, floods and insect swarms.

A ziggurat between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

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Records and power

People needed records for trade, stores and taxes; a scribe was trained to write them. Bureaucracy: the officials and records that run a state.
The Epic of Gilgamesh was written down in Mesopotamia. Kings said the gods had chosen them.
The rich tombs at Ur show great wealth for a few powerful people.

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Remember this: your summary

Mesopotamia lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; the Fertile Crescent is a curved area of rich farmland.
Domestication: taming plants and animals; a food surplus made people with other jobs possible (craft specialisation).
Uruk was one of the first cities, with high walls and temples (ziggurats, stepped temple towers) and palaces at the centre.
Cuneiform is wedge-shaped writing pressed into wet clay; baked clay tablets last thousands of years.
Hammurabi wrote laws down so everyone could know the same rules.

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Memory trick

Meso = between, potamos = river: the land between the rivers (Tigris and Euphrates).

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Important words

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