Transcript Document
Document 1 Sumerians created cuneiform script over 5000 years ago. It was the world’s first written language. Sumerians invented this writing system to keep track of business dealings because they traded with people who loved in lands that were hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Writing was a giant leap forward in the development of civilization. People kept records and new ideas were able to be passed easily from generation to generation. Cuneiform was written on clay tablets, and then baked hard in a kiln. 1. What was cuneiform and who invented it? (2) _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. List three way the Sumerians made use of cuneiform. (3) ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ How was cuneiform an important part of Ancient Sumerian society? Why you think communication without written language would be more difficult today? Document 2 In 1754 B.C., Hammurabi conquered and united all the cities of Mesopotamia under his rule. Although he was a brutal warrior, his greatest achievement was his code of laws, which he had engraved on a towering stone monument. Hammurabi’s Code was the first most complete set of laws to survive. It is important because it created a set of rules that helped to govern a civilization while trying to protect people even if they had little political power. It called for different punishments based on the class of the lawbreaker and the victim of the crime. In the Code, punishments often fit the crime by demanding an “eye for an eye” or a “tooth for a tooth”. The following are three of the 282 laws in the Code of Hammurabi. 229. If a builder built a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, than that builder shall be put to death. 230. If it kills the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death. 231. If it kills a slave of the owner, than he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house. 1. What is the most important idea created by Hammurabi’s Code? (1) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. How were punishments different between people under Hammurabi’s Code? (1) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ We know about the pharaohs of ancient Egypt because of the written records that were left. These records were kept in hieroglyphics, a system of writing that was based on pictures. Unlike the Sumerian cuneiform writing, hieroglyphics represented ideas or objects but could also stand for sounds. They could be carved into clay or stone but could also be written onto papyrus, the first paper which was developed by the Egyptians which made it easier to keep records. 1. What was hieroglyphics and who invented it? (2) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. How was hieroglyphics different from cuneiform? (1) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. What invention did the Egyptians develop which made keeping records in hieroglyphics easier? (1) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Document 3- An account of early Sumerian Agriculture "The raw materials of the Sumerian diet were barley, wheat, and millet; chick peas, lentils, and beans; onions, garlic, and leeks; cucumbers, cress, mustard, and fresh green lettuce. Everyday meals probably consisted of barley paste or barley cake, accompanied by onions or a handful of beans and washed down with barley ale. The fish that swarmed in the rivers of Mesopotamia were also a luxury. Meat was more common in the cities than in the less populated countryside, since it spoiled so quickly in the heat, but beef and veal were popular with people who could afford them. Beef was, however, more likely to have been tough and stringy, and cattle were not usually slaughtered until the end of their working lives. Probably more tender and certainly more common was mutton, which is the flesh of sheep that is used for food. The settlers who had first put the Sumerian state on its feet were originally sheep herders." Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers:New York] 1988 (p. 47) 6. Explain how Sumerians chose what crops to domesticate. When did they eat certain foods, and what circumstances led them to chose these foods? Document 6 - Why We Choose Settled farming civilizations first appeared in river valleys, but were quickly overtaken by mid – latitude civilizations. Various authors have found, that even today, it is far more likely for countries located in humid continental climates to have sustainable agriculture than other areas of the world, including many of the original sites of human cultivation. Furthermore, forensic botanists have found that both in ancient and modern agriculture, high yield grains were selected because of the characteristics that allowed them to survive in a given climate, and their ability to feed an ever growing population. Excerpted from Origins of Agriculture, University of California Los Angeles, 9 September 2010. 11. Why do you think early agriculture first appeared in river valleys? ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ 12. Why do you think there was a transition in agricultural regions from river valleys to humid continental, mid - latitude areas? ______________________________________________________________________________________ Egyptian Trade Route “Egypt had only partial success in controlling the flow of goods from Africa to Europe and the Near East. The cheapest and fastest way of transporting merchandise was by ship, despite the cataracts of the Nile and the storms on the Mediterranean and Red Sea and the difficulty and expense of keeping the canal connecting the Nile and the Red Sea in good repair. Because of the limitations of the ships' rigging which prevented them from sailing into the wind, the prevailing winds dictated the seasons when departure and return journeys took place.” “The alternatives were the routes crossing the Eastern and Western Desert. These caravan routes through the Negev and the Libyan Desert were impossible to interrupt and difficult to administer. Even during the times when Egypt was nominally in power in these regions and sent officials there, their very distance from the central authority gave them an independence they often abused.” http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/trade/index.html Major trade routes in north-east Africa and the Middle East. The direct overseas route to India was opened up by a Greek named Hippalus ca. 100 BCE. Before that traders had been hugging the coast line. Question (1 point) Describe a major result of the development of civilization in ancient Egypt Babylonian Numerals “Sumer (a region of Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq) was the birthplace of writing, the wheel, agriculture, the arch, the plow, irrigation and many other innovations, and is often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization.“ “Mathematics proper initially developed largely as a response to bureaucratic needs when civilizations settled and developed agriculture - for the measurement of plots of land, the taxation of individuals, etc - and this first occurred in the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations of Mesopotamia (roughly, modern Iraq) and in ancient Egypt. In addition, the Sumerians and Babylonians needed to describe quite large numbers as they attempted to chart the course of the night sky and develop their sophisticated lunar calendar.” “Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics was based on a sexegesimal, or base 60, numeric system, which could be counted physically using the twelve knuckles on one hand the five fingers on the other hand. Unlike those of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Babylonian numbers used a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values. Also, to represent the numbers 1 - 59 within each place value, two distinct symbols were used, a unit symbol (Roman numerals (e.g. 23 would be shown as http://www.storyofmathematics.com/prehistoric.html 1) Mathematics plays an important role in modern society. Name two ways the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations used mathematics for practical reasons? _ 2) The counting system that the Babylonians developed is similar to the modern day counting system that we use in what respect?