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Group of people:
RELIGION, success in life was dependent on keeping the gods happy, each family had a duty to make appropriate sacrifices, polytheistic, pyramid-like ziggurats (temples, tombs, associated with Tower of Babel), 1st wheeled vehicles (helped with war, transport and trade), Cuneiform (for keeping track of business inventories, started with pictograms-> ideograms, ability to read and write this was key to success and advancement)
Sumerians
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Group of people:
conquerors move capital to Akkad then Babylonia, king Sargon continually conquers new territories with standing armies-had people keep conquering lands to pay for war, king Hammurabi pinnacle 1st Babylonian period, royal servants, Code of Hammurabi - earliest known set of laws (similar to Mosaic Law) used to ensure a measure of uniformity and inclusion, Babylonian number system based on 60
Semitic period
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Group of people:
spoke Indo-European language and conquered from North, brought in the Iron Age (used superior weapons etc. over Mesopotamian bronze), then used it for farming tools to up agricultural activity, tried to protect knowledge of iron smelting until Phoenicians rise to power in 1200 bc
Hittites
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Group of people:
alphabet based only on consonants used for business (as opposed to pictograms of Cuneiform)—confusing but precursor to Greek, invent purple dye, glass, shipbuilding, vast trading,
Phoenicians (Philistines)
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Group of people:
rise to power with kings Saul, David and Solomon (otherwise under Mesopotamian empires)
Israelites
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Group of people:
minor power till 900 bc, warlike, occupy conquered lands bringing new people to live there and carrying off residents (lost ten tribes)
Assyrians
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Group of people:
brief Babylonian rule (Chaldean Empire), conquered by Medes who merge with Persians=Persian Empire (largest known yet), king worship then ethical monotheism (Zoroastrianism: fire as element of worship), astrology=astronomy,
Later Babylonians, Medes, Persians
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Group of people:
Persians still powerful and control territories for some time
Greeks (Alexander the Great):
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stories explaining the cause or origin of things (can be fictitious or factual)
Etiologies
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Mesopotamia in Greek
between the rivers (larger region of the Fertile Crescent)
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flooding didn’t coincide with growing season which led to irrigation canals (dams and catch basins) but salt built up making the soil ineffective for growing,they thought maybe needed to move to new land (too costly), then thought maybe flush soil with large amounts of water to drive it into the ground (poor drainage), eventually this led to new irrigation that flushed the water from the Euphrates (higher) to the Tigris (lower)—swept salt out to sea
Mesopotamia
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