SOCIAL STUDIES OUTLINE
CHAPTER 2 THE FERTILE CRESCENT
Section 1: Land Between Two Rivers
I. Writing
-The first known schools were set up in _________________ over
___________________ years ago.
-Sumerian schools taught boys-and possibly a few girls - the new
invention of ___________________________.
-Graduates of the school became ________________, or professional
_______________________
-_____________________ were important because they kept records
_______________________________________________________.
-The writings ____________________________left behind help to
tell the story of this early civilization.
II. The Geographic Setting
-Sumer was located in a region called _________________________.
-____________________________ had rich soil and life-giving rivers.
-Sumer’s central location within the ancient world drew many
_____________________________ from other regions.
-Sumer became one of the most ________________________ areas
of the ancient world.
-Mesopotamia’s name describes its location. The word Mesopotamia
comes from two Greek words that mean ______________________ “_______________________________________________________.
-Mesopotamia lay between the ______________________ and
____________________ rivers
- Mesopotamia is part of the ____________________________, a
region in Southwest Asia that was the site of the world’s first
civilization.
-The area eastward from the Mediterranean Sea to the coast of
Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf is shaped like a ______________
______________________. The rivers of this _________________
_____________________________region helped to make it one of
the best places in Southwest Asia for ________________________.
-The _________________ and _____________________ rivers were
the source of life for the peoples of Mesopotamia. In the spring,
________________________________ picked up tons of topsoil as
it rushed down from the mountains and flooded the
land. Farmers grew ___________________ in this soil.
-The rivers also supplied _____________, ___________ for building,
and tall, strong reeds used to make _____________________.
-The floodwaters, racing down without warning, also swept away
people, animals, _________________, and ________________.
III. The First Cities
-As farming succeeded in Mesopotamia, food surpluses encouraged
the __________________________________________________.
-By ___________ B.C., some of the earliest known cities arose in the
southern region of Sumer, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
-Each Sumerian city acted as a _____________________________,
with its own special _________________________, its own
_____________________, and, eventually, its own _____________.
-Sumerian houses faced away from the crowded streets onto inner
courtyards where families are and children played. On hot nights,
people slept outdoors on their ____________________________.
_______________ supplied light for Sumerian homes.
-IV. Sumerian Religion
-Religious, social, and economic activities all took place at the
__________________________.
-Ziggurats were __________________________________________
and some were more than ____________ stories high. At the top of
each was a ___________________. The Sumerians believed that
gods descended to the earth using the ziggurat as a ____________.
-The people of Sumer were ____________________, that means
they worshiped many gods and gods and goddesses.
-Poly-, a Greek prefix, means “________________.” Theism means
_____________________________________________.
-The Sumerians honored their gods in religious ceremonies. Temple
priests washed ______________________________ before and
after each meal was offered.
-Food was often eaten after it was presented to the gods. Perhaps
the worshippers thought that by eating the offering, they would be
______________________________________________________.
-Unfortunately for Sumer, its _______________ became its downfall.
-Sumerian states fought each other over __________ and the use of
___________________________________.
-Around 2300 B.C., Sumer was conquered by the armies of
neighboring ________________________. Their ruler, _________
_______________, united the Sumerian
city-states and improved Sumer’s government and its military.
-Sumer remained united for about _______ years. It fell to a
northern rival, ______________________, in the 1700s B.C.
Section 2: BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
I. The Two Empires of Mesopotamia
-The biggest and most important Mesopotamian civilizations were the
empires of _____________________________________________.
-The beautiful city of ___________________ was the center of the
Babylonian empire. This empire reached its height around ________
B.C.
-The Assyrians, named after the northern city of _____________,
began expanding their lands in the ___________’s B.C. By the
___________’s B.C., they controlled a large empire.
-The Babylonians and Assyrians had two things in common. In their
quest for riches, _______________________________________.
And in the enjoyment of their riches, they built ________________
where _________________________________ were highly valued.
II. The Babylonian Empire
-A Babylonian king named ___________________________ created
the Babylonian Empire by uniting the cities of Sumer. Then he
conquered lands all the way to _____________________________.
-Under Hammurabi’s steady rule, Babylon created a system of
___________________________________ throughout the empire.
-Babylon’s location made it a crossroads of _________________.
-In about 1760 B.C., Hammurabi conquered the city of _________
and seized ____________________________________________.
-By about ______________ B.C., the empire first conquered by
_____________________ had shrunk and was finally destroyed.
III. The Empire of the Assyrians
-Since they were constantly defending themselves, the Assyrians
became ____________________________________.
-By 650 B.C., Assyria had conquered a large empire that stretched
across the Fertile Crescent, from the _________________________
_______________________________________________________.
-The Assyrians were clever warriors. They invented the ___________
__________________and had expert _________________________
and ___________________________________________________.
-Assyria’s capital of ______________________ became a city of
great learning. It had a remarkable library that held thousands of
clay tablets with writings __________________________________.
-The ___________________ and ___________________ joined
together to defeat the Assyrian Empire in _____________ B.C.
IV. Babylonia Rises Again
-Under the _________________________, Babylon rose again to
even greater splendor. It became the center of the New Babylonian
Empire.
-King Nebuchadnezzer II rebuilt the city of Babylon which the
_______________________________ had destroyed.
-Under the rule of the Chaldeans, the New Babylonian Empire
became a center of learning and science. Chaldean astronomers
charted __________________________________________ and
____________________________________________________ .
-In 539 B.C., the New Babylonian Empire fell to the ___________
led by ______________________________, but the city of Babylon
was spared.
SECTION 3: THE LEGACY OF MESOPOTAMIA
I. Hammurabi’s Code
-Hammurabi ruled __________________________ from about 1792
to 1750 B.C. He set down rules for everyone in his empire to follow.
These rules are known as _________________________________.
The Code told the people of Babylonia how to settle conflicts in all
_________________________________________.
-Hammurabi’s Code, which was based partly on earlier
____________________ codes, contained ________ laws organized
into categories such as trade, labor, property, and family.
-Hammurabi’s Code was based on the idea of “_________________
_________________.” In other words, punishment should be similar
to the crime committed.
-However, the code did not apply ______________ to all people. The
harshness of the punishment depended on how important the victim
and the lawbreaker were. The higher the class of victim, _________
_______________________________________________________.
II. The Art of Writing
-Writing first developed in _____________________________
around _________________ B.C. Long before Hammurabi issued his
code, the people of _________________ had developed a system of
writing.
-Writing met the need _______________ had to keep ___________.
-Since only a few people could write, it was one of the most valuable
skills in the ancient world. ____________________ held positions of
great respect in Mesopotamia.
-The scribes of Sumer recorded sales and _____________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________.
-None of these records were written on _______________, however.
________________ had not yet been invented. Instead, the scribes
of Mesopotamia kept their notes and records on _______________.
-The Tigris and Euphrates rivers washed __________ down from the
mountains each year, and scribes shaped the soft, wet _______ into
tablets. When the ____________ dried, it was a permanent record.
-Like most inventions, writing developed _____________________.
Long before the Sumerians invented writing, they used shaped
pieces of clay as _____________ or _________________ to keep
records of how many animals were bought and sold or how much
food had been grown. By_____________ B.C., this form of
recordkeeping had developed into writing.
-At first, written words were symbols that represented ___________
___________. As people learned to record ideas as well as facts, the
symbols changed.
-Eventually, scribes combined symbols to make groups of wedges
and lines known as ___________________.
SECTION 4: MEDITTERRANEAN CIVILIZATIONS
I. Phoenician Sea Power
-_______________ was the major city in a region called Phoenicia.
-Phoenicians had settled in a land that had limited but very important
resources. Besides the murex snails from whose glands they
extracted _____________________ to color clothes, they had a
great amount of dense _____________________. They sold their
dyed ___________ and ______________ to neighboring peoples.
-In time, the Phoenicians controlled ________________ throughout
much of the Mediterranean. From about ________ to __________
B.C., Phoenicia was a great sea power.
-Trade brought valuable goods from lands around the Mediterranean
Sea to the Phoenician cities of ____________ and ______________.
-The Phoenicians relied on ___________ to help them conduct trade.
They developed a writing system that used just _____________________ symbols to represent the sounds of the language. It forms the basis of many ________________________ used today, including _________________.
-In the Phoenician alphabet, each letter stood for ________________
_______________________ sound.
-The simpler Phoenician alphabet was far easier to learn than
____________________. Before the alphabet, only highly educated
scribes were ______________________________. Now many more
people could write using the new alphabet.
-The alphabet simplified _________________ between people who
spoke different __________________. The Phoenician sea trade, in
turn, helped the alphabet to _____________________.
II. The Rise of the Israelites
-South of _______________________, a small band of people settled
in the hills around the Jordan River valley. Called Hebrews at first,
they later became known as _______________________.
-Much of what is known about the early history of the Israelites
comes from stories told in the _______________ or Hebrew Bible.
-The Israelites traced their beginnings to ______________________.
For hundreds of years, they lived as ______________________ and
_____________________ who grazed their flocks outside Sumerian
cities.
-According to the Torah, a leader named Abraham taught his people
to practice _____________________________, a belief in one god.
-The Torah says that God told Abraham to leave ________________
and settle elsewhere.
-The Torah goes on to say that _______________________ led the
Israelites from Mesopotamia to settle in the land of _____________.
-According to the Torah, a __________________ then spread across
Canaan. The _______________ caused the Israelites to flee south to
________________________.
-In __________________, the Israelites lived well for a few hundred
years. But then, an ______________________ king forced them into
labor after he got suspicious of their power.
-According to the Torah, an Israelite leader named _____________
led his people out of Egypt. The Israelites departure out of Egypt is
called the ______________________________.
-For the next forty years, the Israelites wandered through the desert
of the __________________________________________________.
-The Torah says that while in the desert, God gave the Israelites the
__________________________________________, a code of laws.
-Eventually, the Israelites returned to __________________. As they
moved farther north, they were able to settle in many parts of
_____________________________.
-They united under their first king, ______________, who defended
them against their ____________________.
-The next king, _______________, established his capital in the city
of _______________________________.
-After David ___________________, his son, __________________,
inherited the kingdom. After _______________________ death, the
country split into ______________ kingdoms. The northern
kingdom was called ____________________. The southern kingdom
took the name of _______________________.
-The divided kingdom was ripe for invasion. Its neighbor, _________,
conquered the Israelites and gained control of _________________.
-In _________ B.C., the Israelites resisted _____________________
rule. In response, the _______________________ exiled thousands
of people to distant parts of their empire.
-The _________________ controlled ______________ until 612 B.C.,
when Assyria was conquered by the _________________________.
Judah then fell under the control of the Chaldean Babylonians.
-Later, in __________ B.C., the King of _________________ rebelled
against the Chaldeans. King ________________________________
responded by destroying the capital city of ____________________
and exiling the people of Judah to Babylonia.
SECTION 5: JUDAISM
I. The Beliefs of Judaism
-The early _____________________ came to believe that God was
taking part in their ________________________.
-The Torah records events and laws important to the Israelites. It is
made up of five books. They are called _______________________
_______________________________________________________
and _________________. Later, Christians adopted these books
as the first five books of the ________________________________.
-Most ancient people thought of their gods as being connected to
___________________________________. The Israelites, however,
believed that God is ____________________. They believed that
God knows ___________________ (omniscient) and has complete
__________________________ (omnipotent).
-According to the Torah, God promised Abraham that his people
would become _____________ and build __________________.
-At the heart of Judaism are the ___________________________.
The Israelites believed that God delivered the _________________
to them through _______________.
-Some _________________________ set out religious duties toward
God. Others are rules for ______________________________.
-In addition to the ____________________________________, the
Torah set out many other laws. Some had to do with everyday
matters, such as how ____________________________________.
Others had to do with ______________________.
-Some laws protected ______________. One of the Commandments,
for instance, requires that __________________ be treated with
_______________________. But, as in many other religions, women were considered to be of lower ______________________ than men.
-Prophets are ______________________________ who are regarded
as speaking for ________________.
-The Israelites were told by their _________________ that all people
were ___________________ before God. In many ancient societies,
a ruler was seen as a _______________. To the Israelites, however,
their leaders were _______________. King’s had to _____________
God’s law just as shepherds and merchants did.
II. The Effects of Judaism
-After their exile from _________________ in 587 B.C., the Jews, or
people who followed _____________________, saw their homeland
controlled by various foreign powers, including the _____________.
-The _______________ drove the Jews out of their homeland in A.D.
135. As a result, the Jewish people scattered to ________________
________________________________.
-The Romans carried on the Jewish _______________________, the
scattering of a group of people begun by the ___________________
and _____________________.
-Wherever they settled, the Jews preserved their _______________.
They did so by living together in ____________________________,
taking care to obey their ________________________, worshipping
at their _________________, and following their _______________.
-__________________ marks a time when Israelites believed their
children were spared from _____________________. Death “passed
over” them, and they were led out of __________________ by
________________________.
-Judaism had an important influence on two later religions,
____________________________________. Both religions have
their beginnings in ________________________.
-Both faiths originated from the same _________________________.
–Both were _____________________________.
-Jews, Christians, and followers of Islam all honor __________________, _________________, and the ____________________.
USE YOUR NOTES TO COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SECTION.
-The first _____________ of the Torah are Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
-Genesis comes from a Greek word that means ________________
_________________________________.
-Exodus comes from a word that means _______________________.
-Leviticus means “________________________________________”.
It was a manual for ______________________________________.
-Numbers comes from the Greek word _____________________,
which means ___________________. It is called this because it
contains the figures for a __________________.
-Deuteronomy comes from a Greek word that means
______________________. It is the _________________ giving of
the ______________________.