2. Mesopotamia:
The land between the rivers
• Tigris & Euphrates Rivers
• Modern-day Iraq
• 1st cities appear In Sumer
LINK: Interactive Timeline & Map
3. City-States
• Earliest cities date back
to 3500 BCE
• Each city was like a small,
independent country
• Each had its own ruler
• Each had its own
farmlands
4. A Difficult Environment
Mesopotamians were farmers
Farms need water
4 Key Problems:
1. Food shortages in the hills
2. Uncontrolled water supply on
the plains
3. Difficulties building and
maintaining irrigation systems
to serve several villages at
once
4. Attacks by neighboring
communities
Q: What might neighbors fight over?
5. Food Shortages
By 5000 BCE there is not enough land in the
foothills to grow enough food for everyone
Q: Why did people move to the plains?
Climate:
Foothills: mild weather, plentiful
rain, timber for building
Plains: dry, little rain, no trees or
stones for building, rivers that
flood
The plains were called Sumer and
the people who lived there were
called Sumerians
6. Uncontrolled Water Supply
in the River Valley
• Spring: rain and melted
snow from the mountains
flood the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers
• Rest of the year: sunbaked
soil, dry, hard as stone
• Either too much water or
not enough
• Sumerians built levees &
dams
8. Building and Maintaining
a Complex Irrigation System
• Canals bring water from the river
• Irrigation passed through many villages
• Silt clogs canals
• Working together helped communities grow
SILT
VERY FINE MUD
10. Attacks by Neighboring Communities
• Cities fought over the
right to use water.
• The plains offer no
natural barriers for
protection.
• Sumerians build walls to
protect their cities.
11.
12. Was Ancient Sumer a Civilization?
CivilizationWriting
Technology
Stable Food
Supply
Social
Structure
Government
Religion
The Arts
14. Summary
1. The people of Mesopotamia solved problems
in order to live successfully in their
environment
2. Their solutions led to building large walled
city states
3. Sumer had a complex social structure,
government, religion, and culture
4. Sumer was one of the world’s first
civilizations
