Guided Reading Activity 2-1

Because this land had rich soil and abundant crops.

The Sumerians were the creators of the first Mesopotamian civilization.

Uruk was encircled by a wall six miles long with defense towers located along the wall every 30 to 35 feet (9.1-10.7 m).

They invented the arch and the dome, and they built some of the largest brick buildings in the world.

The temples served as the center physically, economically, and politically.

The Sumerians believed that the gods ruled the cities, making the state a theocracy.

The wheel, which led to the conversation of wheeled carts.

An empire is a large political unit or state, usually under a single leader, that controls many peoples or territories.

Sargon, leader of the Akkadians, overran the Summerian city-states around 2340 B.C.

The principle of retaliation, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

Human beings were created to the manual labor the gods were unwilling to do for themselves

The greatest invention was their writing, an cuneiform "wedge shaped" system of writing.

It allowed a society to keep records and to pass along knowledge from person to person and generation to generation.