THE FERTILE CRESCENT

Nomads from Arabia & Turkey move into Fertile Crescent Area
- Modern countries of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, & Iraq
- Many chose Mesopotamia – Eastern Fertile Crescent
- Located between Tigris & Euphrates Rivers “Land between the Rivers”

Tigris & Euphrates used for farming

- Rivers were unpredictable & flooding was dangerous
- Not as predictable as the Nile
- Farmers built dams & channels to control flooding
- Producing an abundance of grain by 4000 bc

Sumerian Civilization
- 3500 bc, people settle in Southern Mesopotamia – Sumer
- Believed to be home of first cities.
- 12 city states in T-E valley by 3000: UR, Uruk, Eridu
- Poplulation range from 20,000 – 250,000
- Shared common language, culture & religion
- Each city had a ziggurat
- -Ziggurats were raised temples to the sky
- Each city-state was independent
- Council – military leaders – kings – hereditary
- King – Military leader & Priest
- Laws involved fines not punishment
- Commerce & Trading important to Sumerians
- Developed writing – cuneiform
- - Wedge shaped marks made with stylus on wet clay
- Sumerians went to school to be writers
- Works still exist
- Poem “Gilgamesh” was written in 1850 bc.
- Similary to Hercules.
- Polytheistic Religion
- Gods represent nature
- Each city-state had its own special god
- Believed gods were vengeful
- Belived that afterlife was grim & had little control of their daily lives
- Sumerians invented wagon wheel, arch, potter’s wheel, sundial
- Number system based on 60 & 12 month calendar

Mesopotamian Empires

- 2000 BC – city-states begin to fall to invaders

- Sargon I leads Akkadians – 2300 BC
- Mother abandons him in a reed basket on the Euphrates river
 - Rescued and raised by farmer
- Established kingdom in North Mesopotamia – Akkad
- Sargon wants to expand empire
- Unites city state 800 years before Egyptian new kingdom
- Akkadian language replaces Sumerian

Amorites
- Expanded into Syria
- Overrun Sumerian city-states and capture city of Babylon
- Babylon becomes capitol and Hammurabi becomes king
- Hammurabi strengthens government
- Babylon becomes major trade center – Egypt to China
- Produced grain & cloth
- “To make justice appear in the land”
- Collected laws of different city-states
- 282 law sections dealing with daily life
- Penalized wrongdoers severely
- “eye for an eye”
- Laws were written to protect the less powerful
- Three classes of Babylonian social classes – Kings, priest, nobles- artisans,
farmers – slaves
- Most slaves were captured in war
- Used cuneiform for writing
- Babylonian empire declines after Hammurabi’s death
- Hittites break empire apart