Ancient Mesopotamia - Babylon

In a few months when the spring floods arrive, it will be very different. For now though it is a peaceful scene. Boats laden with trade goods float lazily down the Euphrates River. Beside the river, children play in the shade beneath date palms that wave gently in the breeze. Farmers work in their fields, finishing up the barley harvest and praising the gods for the bounty they provided. Beyond the fields stands a great wall that protects the city from invaders and the floods, and inside the wall is a city unlike any other. Once the largest city in the world. This is the great Mesopotamian City of Babylon.

Religion of Ancient Mesopotamia

Religion was an important part of daily life of ancient cultures going all the way back to the earliest hunter-gatherers. Why are we here? Why do the rivers flow? Where do the animals come from? What is that bright thing in the sky that warms us? Questions such as these led to the beginnings of organized religion. The Ancient Mesopotamians had one of the first organized religions ever, and it dominated daily life for them too.

Climate of Mesopotamia

One can tell just from looking at a satellite image of Mesopotamia that it is mostly desert.  A climate map tells us that most of the region is considered arid or semi-arid, just what we would expect.  One way to look at Mesopotamia’s climate is to examine different factors that affect climate.

Location of Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is located in Southwest Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In fact, the word Mesopotamia means “land between the rivers.” Much of the region of Mesopotamia is in modern-day Iraq, but it also includes parts of Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, and several other countries. Its location helped shape Mesopotamia’s history.

Teaching Ancient Mesopotamia - Project Ideas

As I stated in a previous post about Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory, I recently finished my unit at school on ancient Mesopotamia. As part of my “post mortem” on the unit, I made a list of project ideas for possible implementation in the future. I classified the ideas based on MI and subject matter, and perhaps next year I’ll do a differentiated, more immersive unit allowing students to choose different projects on different aspects of Mesopotamia and utilizing different intelligences. Naturally, many of the projects crossover from one intelligence to the other.

Some of these project ideas are what I would really call “mini-projects.” That is, they might take a day or two rather than a week or more. Most of them aren’t tested either, but I really think there are a few good ideas.

Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence Project Ideas

Geography of Mesopotamia

• Write poem about the Tigris and Euphrates and their importance to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.
• Write a report comparing and contrasting the geography of ancient Mesopotamia with the geography of the area today.
• Make travel brochure for a trip back to a city in ancient Mesopotamia.
• Research and write reports about different aspects of the geography of Mesopotamia - the Tigris and/or Euphrates, the Zagros Mountains, the Taurus Mountains, the Persian Gulf, etc…
• Write diary entries about an expedition from the headwaters to the delta of the Tigris or Euphrates.

Roles in Mesopotamian Society

• Write and deliver a speech convincing the citizens of ancient Mesopotamia that they should pay taxes to support government projects such as city walls, irrigation canals, roads, etc…
• Day in the life of a scribe journal entries – journal/diary entries that describe the daily tasks of a scribe or a scribe student.
• Hall of Fame Mesopotamia – biographical descriptions of important Mesopotamians (Sargon, Hammurabi, Moses, Nebuchadnezzar, etc…). Maybe have the class or groups rank them based on importance and have a debate on who should be in and who should be out.

Mesopotamian Achievements

• Write an extension story for one of the stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
• Write and perform a play retelling the Epic of Gilgamesh, or part of it, in a modern way.
• Write a radio, TV, or print ad selling one of the many Mesopotamian inventions.
• Write a proposal to King Hammurabi explaining why you like/dislike certain laws in his code.
• Have a debate on whether or not Hammurabi’s Code was a fair way to govern ancient Babylon.
• Writing in cuneiform. Provide a cuneiform style alphabet (worksheets with these are available from various sites. You can also get a computer font that allows you to type in cuneiform.) Have students decode phrases you make up and have them write/translate back and forth.
• Phoenician alphabet – Have students code phrases in the Phoenician alphabet (many textbooks have the alphabet printed in them). This is a bit easier that with the cuneiform assignment because they actually had an alphabet!
• Phoenician trade log – students make a log of imports/exports to Phoenicia including where they came from or went.

Culminating Mesopotamia Projects

• Mesopotamia Times Newspaper – write articles, want ads, classifieds, editorials, etc and create a newspaper. Maybe require that the articles each cover a news story dealing with a different aspect of Mesopotamian life – government, music, art, religion, etc…

Visual/Spatial Intelligence Project Ideas
Geography

• Compile a list of ancient Mesopotamian cities and the dates they were founded and make a timeline.
• Maps, maps, maps. Being a visual person myself, maps are always good. I have my students label a map of Mesopotamia and the surrounding area. Coloring maps is also quite satisfying. Also fun is making maps using color to show the different empires that ruled over Mesopotamia.
• Mesopotamian City Map – have students make an overhead map of what a Mesopotamian city probably looked like. Maybe they can make inset pictures on the map showing close-ups of the ziggurat, market, houses, etc…

Roles in Mesopotamian Society

• Social classes of Mesopotamia Art/Diagram – have students make a graphic organizer showing the various social classes of ancient Mesopotamia. Allow them to get “out there” if they choose and get really creative, metaphorical, and expressive in how they make their diagrams/organizers.

Mesopotamian Achievements

• Analysis of the Standard of Ur – have students look at a photo, diagram, drawing, or other representation of the Standard of Ur and have them try to figure out what is says/means. Then discuss what archaeologists/historians/etc think it means.
• Have students draw a Standard of Y (Y being whatever you want – your school, state, country, the students’ lives, etc..) The standard shows different important events, people, etc., just like the Standard of Ur.
• Epic of Gilgamesh Comic Book – students tell the story in comic book form including comic-style drawings, dialogue, and/or captions.
• Hammurabi’s Code Art – Students pick various laws from Hammurabi’s Code and depict them in visual form. As an extension/alternative to the Social Classes Diagram, they could make pictures to show how different social classes would be treated under the law according to Hammurabi.
• Visual Almanac of Mesopotamian Achievements – students draw pictures and write brief informational captions about some of the many achievements/inventions of the Mesopotamians.
• Draw a picture/diagram of a Phoenician marketplace.

Culminating Projects

• Mesopotamia Collage - Have students use the computer to find photos (or magazines, if available) to make a collage showing different aspects of Mesopotamian civilization.
• Make a picture book of Mesopotamian life to include everything from its geography to the rule of Babylon, etc…Making a PowerPoint of this might be fun too.

Bodily/Kinesthetic Project Ideas
Geography

• Make a raised relief map model of Mesopotamia.
• Create a mime or other silent drama presentation dealing with the geography of Mesopotamia. Example: A silent play depicting travel from the headwaters of the Tigris or Euphrates to the delta at the Persian Gulf, perhaps with a side trip to the desert of course.
• Build a model/diorama of a Mesopotamian city.

Roles in Mesopotamian Society

• Write and perform a skit showing interaction between the Mesopotamian social classes.
• A scribe school skit
• Dance of the Mesopotamian Farmers – showing what must have been the daily routine of Mesopotamian farmer
• Create and perform a mime showing….Mesopotamian farming, scribing/writing, a priest-king ruling his people, the role of priests/priestesses

Mesopotamian Achievements

• Build a model or make a diorama of a ziggurat.
• Build a replica of the Standard of Ur.
• Make a Mesopotamian-style sculpture.
• Create a mode/diorama of Mesopotamian farm. A real growing farm with flowing water and a irrigation system would be..HOLY COW, so cool!
• Build models/dioramas of Mesopotamian inventions (the wheel, chariot, etc…)
• Make a usable clay tablet and stylus.
• Reenact a Mesopotamian battle using figurines or make a fixed, frozen battle scene.
• Make a model/diorama of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
• Make a sculpture of Gilgamesh.
• Mesopotamian religion skit
• Hammurabi’s Code mock trial
• skit depicting Phoenician trade domination
• Create and perform an interpretative dance (with/without music) showing a Mesopotamian myth.
• dance depicting the events shown on either panel of the Standard of Ur
• Mime a Mesopotamian myth or parts of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
• Try to make a trade without saying anything (somewhat simulates trading with someone that speaks a different language).

Logical/Mathematical Project Ideas
Geography

• Use Excel to make graphs like climographs, population density graphs, harvest record graphs, or whatever other statistical data you can find on Mesopotamia.
• Use a mapping program to create maps using similar data
• Create a game in which players have to travel through Mesopotamia, facing various geographical hazards, challenges, etc…

Achievements

• Mesopotamian Math – The Mesopotamians based their math on 60. Here’s some “stuff” including a Mesopotamian math worksheet.
• Playing with cuneiform and/or the Phoenician alphabet is quite logical/mathematical. Kids tend to really like writing in and/or translating language to and from the ancient languages.

Culminating Projects

• Play Empires! – This game from Interact has a lot of math (keeping records) and logic/strategy in it. This game is better if you have a blocked style class with more than just a 50 minute period. 50 minutes is pretty short to do the lessons without rushing and stressing yourself and the students out. Having said that, it does cover most of the content of my Mesopotamia unit in a fun and engaging way.
• Design and play a Mesopotamia game – I had some students do this a few years ago in another class and on another subject. It was great! They came up with really fun (ingenious, in some cases) games to play with classmates.
• Design Mesopotamian puzzles – make word searches, crossword puzzles, vocabulary scrambles, etc…Or get pictures from the web, magazines, or other source and actually make a jigsaw puzzle!
• Make a timeline of Mesopotamian history – you can make these fairly easily on the computer with the right software, such as Inspiration 8.0

Musical Project Ideas
Culminating Projects

• National anthems can be a fun way to integrate music into the curriculum. Just have the students write national anthems for each civilization (or even city-states) of ancient Mesopotamia. This reinforces the important characteristics while providing an avenue to explore musical interests. Of course, this could also go with verbal/linguistic.
• Students these days (boy that makes me sound old) really like making raps. Raps can be about everything from how the rivers made life in Mesopotamia possible to how the Babylonians conquered Mesopotamia, etc, etc…It’s really fun if you let them dress up for their performances.
• A musical play – your students may or may not be familiar with musical theatre (i.e. The Music Man, The Sound of Music, etc.). This could be a fun way to include music in the history curriculum. Have the class write a play complete with dialogue and songs. Of course this project would require a substantial time investment to be worthwhile. I bet it would be fun though!

Naturalist Project Ideas

• Research the deserts of Mesopotamia and write a report, make a diorama, etc…
• Research the marshlands of Mesopotamia and write a report, make a diorama, etc…
• Find out what plant and/or insect species your area and Mesopotamia have in common and collect specimens.
• Examine how the Persian Gulf has receded and land reclaimed by the desert since the time of ancient Mesopotamia. Make a model, write a paper, make a poster, etc…
• Research how nature fit into the religion of the ancient Mesopotamians. Make a booklet, brochure, report, etc…
• Make a monster index of animals/monsters encountered in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Draw pictures and make a little booklet out of it. (or PowerPoint, poster, etc…)
• Make a boy/girl scout handbook of ancient Mesopotamia showing how to survive in that environment.

Interpersonal Project Ideas

• Basically any project done in a group
• Different groups with different projects, i.e. a Verbal/Linguistic group, a Visual/Spatial group, etc…
• Skits, skits, skits

Intrapersonal Project Ideas

• Any project done individually
• If I were a geographical feature of Mesopotamia, I would be…and why, of course.
• If I could travel to the region of Mesopotamia, where I would go and why.

Ancient Sumerian Religion

SERVANTS TO THE GODS

The Sumerian religion was polytheistic; they worshiped more than one god/goddess. The Sumerians believed that they were put on earth to serve and take care of the gods. If the gods weren’t happy, they became cranky and took it out on the people – or so they believed.


The Sumerians believed that if the gods were happy, everything would be great. Food would be plentiful, the flooding of the rivers would be regular and predictable, there would be no earthquakes, bad sand storms or other disasters, and life would be just great. We all know that there are periods when life is great. It always eventually takes a turn, however, and in Sumer, when life took a turn, the gods were blamed. More correctly, the people blamed themselves for doing something to upset the gods.

GIFTS TO THE GODS

The Sumerians believed that to keep the gods happy, they must sacrifice or give gifts to the gods. These sacrifices ranged from all kinds of food (grains, vegetables, etc) to live animals and other goods. The gifts were taken to the temple (called a ziggurat) and given to the priests. It was believed that the priests could speak to the gods and offer them the gifts from the people.

AFTERLIFE

In 1925, British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a tomb in the ruins of the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur. A queen of Ur was buried in the tomb, and with her were buried servants, soldiers, and even a musician with her fingers still on a lyre. The site is often referred to, quite appropriately, as the Death Pit of Ur.

The contents of the Death Pit of Ur seem to tell us that the Sumerians definitely believed in life after death. The servants may very well have taken their own life to join and serve the queen in the afterlife.

Even everyday people were probably buried with some of their belongings to use in the afterlife. For instance, a metal smith might be buried with some of his tools, or a soldier with his weapons and armor.

Teaching the Five Themes of Geography - Human/Environment Interaction

When you study geography as it relates to history, it really is all about humans' interaction with the Earth's environment. Much of the story of human history is the development of new ways of modifying, reacting to, and adapting to the environment. As such, this is probably the theme that gets the most attention in my ancient world history classroom.

Scribes and Education in Ancient Mesopotamia

You may have heard the saying, "knowledge is power." And how do we gain knowledge? Through education, of course.

For most of human history, a great majority of people were uneducated, at least in the traditional sense. By that I mean that most people did not know how to read and write, were not familiar with the workings of government or law, and could not do anything beyond the simplest math. That's not to say that they were not educated in some way.

Throughout history, most children's education came from their parents. If you were the son of a farmer in ancient Mesopotamia, you would learn the ways of a farmer. You would then take over the family farm and pass that knowledge down to your children. If you were a girl in ancient Mesopotamia, you learned the incredibly important skills of your mother - cooking, raising children, caring for the family, making clothes, possibly creating pottery, etc. In other words, you learned the occupation of your mother or father.

The Sumerians, however, created the first known formal education system (schools). These schools taught the skills of a scribe. A scribe was (and is) basically a professional writer. Learning to be a scribe was a possible pathway to the most powerful profession in ancient Mesopotamia - a priest. Priests needed to know how to read and write to keep the records of the ziggurat (a Mesopotamian temple) and to monitor the sun, moon, stars and planets. Scribes could also go to work for the government (keeping track of taxes, building projects, floods, etc.) or for business owners (sales records, harvests, etc.)

The path of a scribe was not easy, however. First, you had to be a member of a wealthy family. It is unlikely that you could get into scribe school if you were the son of a lowly farmer. By the way, scribes were almost exclusively males. Second, you had to attend school for many years to learn the written language (cuneiform), the number system (based on the number 60), and the methods and conventions of a scribe. Much of scribe school consisted of memorizing and copying cuneiform texts from one tablet to another. Scribe teachers ran a tight ship too. Beatings were not uncommon for students that did not perform well or misbehaved.

No, it was not easy, but the student that could make it through school and become a scribe earned the right for many rewards. Scribes were some of the most powerful people in Mesopotamia because they controlled information and knowledge. Anytime you can do something that most people cannot, you have a good chance to be respected, powerful, and possibly very wealthy.

Check out this site for some interesting information and activities dealing with writing and scribes in ancient Mesopotamia from the British Museum.

Introduction to Civilization in Sumer

As farming and irrigation techniques in Mesopotamia improved, more food became available. This meant that people lived longer and could have more children, and thus, they needed even more food. So, the irrigation projects of the Mesopotamians, particularly in Sumer (southeastern Mesopotamia), became more complex as the population continued to boom. The stage was set for some of the world's first known cities and the world's first civilization to appear in about 3300 BC.

Tigris and Euphrates Rivers - The Geography of Ancient Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is Greek for "between the rivers." Specifically, the rivers referenced by this term are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that run through modern-day Iraq. These two rivers, and the land between them, are often called the "cradle of civilization" because the civilization that developed there was likely the first ever on Earth.

If we go back to the characteristics of a civilization, we know that one of the first requirements is a surplus of food. It makes sense then that the people that settled in Mesopotamia did so to utilize the life (and food) giving waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Like other river valley civilizations (Egypt, the people of the Indus River Valley), the people of Mesopotamia relied heavily on fairly regular spring floods that spilled the rivers over their banks, leaving behind extremely fertile soil when the waters receded. The melting snows that fed the Tigris and Euphrates came from the Taurus Mountains to the northwest in modern Turkey and the Zagros mountains to the north in Iran and Turkey.

The Tigris and Euphrates were of course used as a water supply and to irrigate crops, but they were also important for transportation and trade. Mesoptamia was a cross-roads of the early ancient world for trade between Egypt, India and China, and the people leaving on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, a region called the Levant.

Like most of the great rivers of the world, the Tigris and Euphrates have been dammed to control flooding and harness the power of the moving waters. As a result, Mesopotamia is much less "green" in modern satellite images than it would have appeared even a few centuries ago. The deserts have reclaimed much of the land between the rivers, including much of the marshlands that were once plentiful there.


The deserts also reclaimed a chunk of the Persian Gulf, where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers join and empty. You can see this clearly on the satellite image. The area of desert all the way up to the darker, more fertile looking region was once part of the Persian Gulf.

The Fertile Crescent is a term often used to describe Mesopotamia. In fact, the Fertile Crescent actually includes Mesopotamia all the way to the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates plus the fertile plains, plateaus, and forests of the Levant region along the coast of the Mediterranean. When a line is drawn around it, the region forms a reverse crescent, hence the term Fertile Crescent. Some textbooks and maps even include the lower Nile River valley as part of the Fertile Crescent.

However you define them, the fact remains that Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent were home to some of the earliest and most powerful civilizations, and that was due in large part to the life sustaining waters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

If you are looking for some ideas for projects to do for Ancient Mesopotamia, check out this page...

Image attribution:

Top - published under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License on Wikimedia Commons

Bottom - NASA image available from NASA: Visible Earth

Farming and Food in Ancient Mesopotamia

Farming in most of Mesopotamia was a challenge. After all, away from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the region was mostly desert. The exception was the region in southern Mesopotamia where the Tigris and Euphrates deltas were. The delta region was covered with marshes and unbelievably rich soil. There, farming villages began to spring up and eventually gave rise to the first civilization - Sumer.

Irrigation in Mesopotamia

Even though the farmland of Sumer was so fertile, crops planted there still needed water, and rainfall in the area, even during ancient times, would have been very scarce. As a result, Mesopotamians developed a system of irrigation. In fact, the Mesopotamians became masters at controlling water. They had to drain marshy land to expose the rich soil, and they had to get water from the only source - the river(s) - to the crops.

Controlling water in Mesopotamia was no easy task. The land was flat, so Mesopotamian engineers had no real natural help from gravity in moving water without altering the terrain. Most water moving was done by canals. The canals then carried water from the river or the marsh to a reservoir where it could be stored until needed. More canals connected the reservoir to the farmland where it could be directed further to water the crops. Of course these networks of canals, channels, and reservoirs had to be maintained, and much of it had to be rebuilt each year after the destructive floods ended.

Likely, the water from the marshes was not very good for growing crops because it was stagnate and salty. Some evidence suggests that the river water was slightly hard or salty also, and the buildup of that salt in the soil over centuries and millennia may have helped bring down the civilizations of Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamian Food

The Mesopotamians farmed all kinds of things, but the most valuable food sources were the grains they grew. Barley was probably the most common of these. Barley could be ground into flour for bread, made into soups, or fermented and turned into beer. They also grew common vegetables and gathered wild growing (and later domesticated) fruits such as figs and dates. The Mesopotamians had herds of livestock (cattle, goats, sheep) that could used for their meat, milk, and wool or hides.

Even though they were accomplished farmers and herders, the Mesopotamians also hunted wild game and caught fish from the river and sea. Grains, however, were the staple food of the Mesopotamians. Grain could be grown in abundance and packed the most punch in terms of nutrition and calories.

First Evidence of Large Scale War Uncovered in Syria

The scene could be that of a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Hundreds, if not thousands, of warriors firing projectiles at a city's walls in preparation for an assault. Meanwhile, behind the fortifications, the inhabitants of the city, caught by surprise, are feverishly planning a defense or an escape, knowing that the next few minutes, hours, or days may be their last.

But it's not Hollywood. It's a possible scenario that archaeologists from the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities are uncovering bit by bit at a place called Hamoukar.

Hamoukar is in far northeastern Syria, not far from the Iraqi border. It is a place where archaeologists believe one of the first large-scale military engagements occurred around 3500 B.C.

It is possible that the destroyers of Hamoukar were from rival city-states in southern Mesopotamia called the Uruk culture. It was previously thought that these cities from the Southern Tigris and Euphrates valley developed first and then colonized areas further upriver, including the area of Hamoukar. Discoveries at Hamoukar during excavations from 1999-2001 seem to show that the culture at Hamoukar may have developed independently, perhaps even simultaenously, with the Uruk and other southern Mesopotamian cultures.

The fact is that Northern Mesopotamia had resources-wood, minerals, stone-that the southerners needed. The battle that destroyed Hamoukar may very well have been the culminating confrontation in a war between north and south over these resources.

The excavation at Hamoukar during October and November of 2005 uncovered the remnants of the battle. "The whole area of our recent excavation was a war zone," Clemens Reichel, Reserach Associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, said.



Among the findings at the battle site were collapsed walls that had been heavily bombarded by sling bullets. About 1200 of these inch long, inch and a half wide oval projectiles were found in addition to 120 larger round clay balls. "This was 'Shock and Awe' in the Fourth Millennium B.C.," Reichel said. (see image - a=intact sling bullet, b=sling projectile after impact, c=clay ball projectile)

Even if the Uruk people were not those responsible for the destruction of Hamoukar, they did take the area over shortly after. “Dug into the destruction debris that covered the buildings excavated this season were numerous large pits that contained vast amount of southern Uruk pottery from the south," Reichel said.

Ironically, what was likely a horrific scene of death and destruction for the people of Hamoukar actually helps archaeologists to determine what daily life at the site was like. The inhabitants of Hamoukar were frozen in time, almost like the doomed citizens of Pompeii. “Whatever was in these buildings was buried in them, literally waiting to be retrieved by us," Reichel said. Obviously these remains will be near the top of the priority list for the next season of excavations at Hamoukar.

To read more about the excavation at Hamoukar and view photos from the site, please read the press release from the University of Chicago.