Ch. 4 Notes
Mesopotamia: An area that includes: Zagros Mountains, Zagros
foothills, Tigris and Euphrates River, Sumer
Problems in Mesopotamia:
Food shortages
Attacks by people in and out of Mesopotamia
Uncontrolled water supplies
Big Move from the Zagros Foothills to Sumer:
Foothills were nice, so nice that the area became
overpopulated and there was not enough area to grow enough crops. So people
moved to Sumer.
Sumer:
It was a plain between the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers. The major problem there is that it would flood during the rainy
season, then be dry the rest of the year. So they needed to find ways to
control the water supply.
Sumer’s Water Supply:
They created levees, dams, canals, irrigation,
reservoirs. Because of that, various villages had to work together to
make it work, since they were all accessing the same rivers. This created
larger villages, which became what we call “city-states”.
Trouble in Paradise:
Some of the city-states got in to disputes over the
water. Sometimes someone upstream would get greedy and fighting would
ensue. As a result, city-states would build walls and dig moats to
help keep attackers away, or at least slow them down! Farmers would run
to the walled cities for protection.
From the Zagros Foothills to the City-States of Sumer:
In short, food shortages caused people to move from the
foothills to Sumer, then once there, people had to work together to maintain
the irrigation systems, which enable larger communities (city-states) to form.
A “City-State”:
A city that is independent and has its own laws and
government. In Sumer, it was often walled.
Have a good evening,
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