Mesopotamia

Today in Western Civ, we took notes on Mesopotamia. I learned that the district known as Sumer occupied the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Their population increased dramatically due to new irrigation techniques. Also, cities and towns were founded, some with as many as 40,000 inhabitants. They found that better food storage allowed for diversity in professions. Kings emerged as did family dynasties and the concept of a "city-state." Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as "cuneiform." A pantheon of Sumerian Gods and Goddesses emerged, with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world. The worlds first surviving epic was the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" which told of a great flood. Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds. They also organized a calendar based on the moon cycles. The Ziggurat was a Sumerian Temple built on top of a "mountain" of Earth. The civilization in Mesopotamia was starting to come along. Wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals in many areas, especially south of Sumer in Arabia. Sumer was conquered by Akkadians, their Gods took the place of previous Gods and all were forced to worship them. King Hammurabi created a series of laws known as Hammurabi's Code - laws included eye for an eye, and regulations for marriage, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of crimes.