2. Mesopotamia:
The land between the rivers
• Tigris & Euphrates Rivers
• Modern-day Iraq
• 1st cities appear In Sumer
LINK: Interactive Timeline & Map 2
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
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4. Southern Mesopotamia was NOT
an easy place to live!
• A lot of sun = VERY HOT
• Very little rain = not enough water
• Rivers would flood
• Soil was hard and dry
• Few trees
• Stones were scarce (very few)
• Few natural barriers
4
5. 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
6. Food Shortages
By 5000 BCE there is not enough land in the
foothills to grow enough food for everyone
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
Q: Why did people move to the plains?
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7. 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
7
9. 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
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11. 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
13. Was Ancient Sumer a Civilization?
Social
Structure
Stable Food
Government
Supply
Technology Religion
Writing Civilization The Arts
13
14. Sumerian Civilization
Social
Plow Class King
Wheel Ziggurat
Cuneiform SUMER Music
14
15. 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
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