Timeline Week 1

Mesopotamia is in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Outside the City Walls they used irrigation of great bodies (Tigris and Euphrates) of water to create agricultural (farming) communities

Inside the City Walls: there were trades men:

1. metal smiths working with metal (bronze) to make spearheads

2. potters making clay dishes

Sumerians populated the southeastern part of the Fertile Crescent

Sumerian city-states include: Uruk, Kish, Lagah, Umma, and Ur

Ur is where Abraham is from and was the central city with a large ziggurate (a large temple where priests lived)

Around 2350 BC Sargon of Akkad, north of Sumer defeated the city-states of Sumer and created the first empire (the Akkadian Empire)

Contributions:

1. numeric system of base 60 (60 minutes in an hour, 360° circle)

2. Architectural arches, columns, ramps and pyramids and vaults

3. Cuneiform - the first known written language

Current Day: Syria, Northern Iraq and Turkey

Egypt still exists today

Nile river is the biggest river in Africa

Egypt is a country surrounded by deserts

The Nile was used for irrigation for farming and for transport. They used it to transport the large bricks used in their construction.

Ancient Egyptians believed in many gods. Most had a human body with an animal head.

1. Sakhmet had a lioness head = "power"

2. Anubis had a jackal head

3. Horus had a falcon head

Many Pharoahs over 3000 years. Tutankhamun (King Tut) was one of the most famous simply because his tomb was discovered highly intact in 1922,

Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death. They buried the noble with all their treasures to take with them to the afterlife. They were mummified and placed in a sarcophagus or large tomb (Pyramids)

Hieroglyphics were a form of writing using pictures, often on papyrus "paper"

Indus River Valley is in what is now Pakistan, near India