Mesopotamia Vocabulary
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Ancient Mesopotamia
By Liane Hicks
Ancient Mesopotamia, “the land between the rivers” was the world’s first civilization. This region that lay along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in modern-day Iraq is also nicknamed the “Fertile Crescent” for its crescent moon shape and cultivable land. Learn more with Storyboard That!
What is Vocabulary?
by Lauren Ayube
Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and what they mean. Learning and using new vocabulary is something that continues and expands throughout our lives, and is way more than simply looking up and memorizing a definition.
Storyboard Description
Students can create a visual vocabulary spider map to highlight key terms relating to Mesopotamia.
Storyboard Text
- CYLINDER SEAL
- FERTILE CRESCENT
- EPIC OF GILGAMESH
- ISHTAR GATE
- Cylinder seals were a type of stamp with intricate designs that would be rolled onto the moist, impressionable clay of the document and was used as an official, binding signature.
- The area in the Middle East that runs from the Persian Gulf, along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile River. It is shaped like a crescent and despite the surrounding deserts, was fertile for farming due to the rivers.
- Gilgamesh was a Sumerian King of the city-state of Uruk who ruled sometime between 2900-2350 BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a poem that describes his supernatural feats and adventures with his sidekick Enkidu. He was supposedly related to the gods and had superhuman strength.
- HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON
- King Nebuchadnezzar II ordered the construction of the Ishtar Gate in 575 BCE as part of an elaborate processional way into the city of Babylon. The King's inscription on the gate is above.
- “I laid had [the gates] built out of pure blue stone. I covered their roofs [with] majestic cedars. I hung doors of cedar adorned with bronze ... I placed wild bulls and ferocious dragons in the gateways and thus adorned them with luxurious splendor that people might gaze on them in wonder.”
- ZIGGURAT
- MESOPOTAMIA VOCABULARY
- CUNEIFORM
- One of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, legend says Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II had them built in 600 BCE for his wife, Amytis, who missed the beautiful vegetation of her native Media. The huge terraced garden was watered by irrigation pumps from the Euphrates River.
- Ziggurats were large temples usually located in the center of the city where it was believed the gods resided. Only the priests and priestesses were allowed in the top portion that was reserved for the gods.
- Invented by the Sumerians, cuneiform is one of the earliest forms of writing. A wedge-shaped tool was used on wet, impressionable clay tablets to make pictographs. It was used to write Hammurabi's Code of Laws and the Epic of Gilgamesh, but was mostly used for record keeping.
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