| Term | Definition |
| 4 W’s Akkadians | World's 1st empire & ruled by King Sargon, with his powerful army in tight formations with shields and spears. Appointed loyal governors & had his sons take over after he died. Collected tributes from the people he conquered. Steles (3D sculptures). |
| 4 W’s Babylonians | Hammurabi wrote his Code of Laws which brought order & unified the empire. Punishments were harsh ("eye for an eye") where penalty fit the crime. Built roads & created the postal service. Great place to be a woman or a slave because they had many rights. |
| 3 W’s Assyrians | Cruel fighters who used horses with war chariots, iron weapons, battering rams & moveable towers to lay siege to a city (attack over and over until the city falls). Capital city was Nineveh. Empire was the largest of all 4 and too large to protect |
| 4 W’s Neo-Babylonians | Nebuchadrezzar II built inner & outer city walls, created towers for archers, dug moat, rebuilt the ziggurat, created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his Persian wife who was homesick. Advancements in math & astronomy (1st sundial) |
| S... W... A... G... S... T... R... | Stable Food Supply, Written Language, Arts, Government, Social Structure, Technology, Religion |
| Stable Food Supply | Allows people to put energy into other areas other than getting food. (Specialization) Didn’t have to always worry about food. Didn’t have to just hunt or farm. Jobs: kings, priests, skilled craftsmen, scribes, merchants, traders, burguls, and many more. |
| Written Language Part 1 | Allows people to communicate and pass ideas down through generations (Collective Learning). Allows us to record history, laws, lists of sales, poetry etc. Kept track of items people traded and wrote down government records. |
| Written Language Part 2 | Scribes wrote on clay tablets with a stylus. People wrote works of literature, stories, proverbs, and songs. They wrote poems about the gods and military victories, and they even created epics, which were long poems that tell the stories of heroes. |
| Written Language Part 3 | Cuneiform means “wedged shape”. Was first written language. Invented by Sumerians. Words or ideas were represented by characters made up of triangles and lines. |
| Arts Part 1 | Specialization allows humans to get really good at things like architecture, weapon making, music, sculpture, painting etc. They created a ziggurat, or pyramid- shaped temple tower, which rose above each city. |
| Arts Part 2 | Examples would be the potter’s wheel, sculptures in temples and palaces, engraved cylinder seals which could be used as jewelry, a way to show ownership, or a way to depict a scene or story, and many more. |
| Arts Part 3 | Another example of arts that was commonly used by many people in Mesopotamia was jewelry, which was a popular item made from imported gold, silver, and gems. |
| Government | Governments provide organization and security to its people. In a city-state, there is one king. The king and the rest of government provide organization by making the citizens pay taxes to the king. There are laws that provide security to the citizens. |
| Social Structure Part 1 | Your class is determined by your job in society, and its importance to the group. Top: most power, least people. Bottom: least power, most people. Generally broken into high, common, poor and slave classes during ancient times. |
| Social Structure Part 2 | First in the Mesopotamian social structure would be kings. Then the priests would come next, then the skilled craftspeople, merchants and traders, then the large working class of farmers and laborers, and finally, the slaves. |
| Social Structure Part 3 | Men generally held the political power and made laws. Education was generally reserved for men, but some upper class women were educated. |
| Technology | Advancements in tools that make life easier like the wheel and plow. Examples: wheel, potter’s wheel, boat, plow, stylus, calendar, sundial, irrigation system, all the types of siege weaponry, and more. |
| Religion Part 1 | Provides something for people to believe in that is bigger than themselves. Sumerians believed in a polytheistic religion, with many gods that control their life. The gods were very important and they prayed to them every day. |
| Religion Part 2 | Abraham created the first monotheistic religion, Judaism. Hebrews followed Abraham and Moses as they taught the Hebrews Judaism. Christianity and Islam branched off of Judaism. Religion huge part of lives even today. |
