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Sumerian Politics and Society
1. Who held the most land?
2. What was slavery in Sumer like?
3. What ranks of women enjoyed privileges and why?
4. How would you generally describe the social structure of ancient Mesopotamians?

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Writing, Mathematics, and Poetry
1. What was Cuneiform?
2. What are epic poems?
3. What are some examples of epic poems?
4. Describe at least two specific ways writing was crucial for the development of Mesopotamian society.

5. Why did Sumerians need to study math? What was it used for?

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Empires in Mesopotamia
1. Who was Sargon and what regions did he conquer?
2. What were the benefits Sargon brought to the people under his rule?
3. Describe Sargon's strategy when conquering Sumerian and other Mesopotamian cities
4. How long did Sargon's empire last and what was the cause of its collapse?

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The Rise of States, Laws, and Social

Hierarchies
1. How did state leaders emerge?
2. How did militaries form?
3. In what ways was writing used in early societies?
4.What do laws tell us about the ancient world?

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1. Life Under Hammurabi

1. How did Hammurabi’s code protect people?

2. What were some dominant topics in Hammurabi’s code?

3. What other specific topics did his code cover?

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As cities grew, they required more organization of power than smaller foraging or agricultural groups required. This is what many political scientists call "the state", and based on the different hierarchies or division of labor that the groups had held in the past, certain family or kin groups grew to hold more power than others. These groups would facilitate the organization that the state needed to function well. Shamans would've likely carried their important role throughout the development of city-states and continued to hold power as priests. The rise of kings isn't as clear to scientists, but it is likely that in the case of some disaster such as a drought, a temporary leader was nominated to lead them thru a crisis, and then his leadership likely remained even after the crisis and was passed down by generation.

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Looking back on the ancient world, we can learn a lot about it by knowing about the kinds of laws made. A lot of times, laws where made to specify what sort of behavior is pleasing to the Gods and other supernatural forces. Laws where also made to create social hierarchies and create elite groups and common groups of people. Laws most of the time favored certain people and genders. For example, most laws were in the favor of men when it came to marriage.

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Cuneiform was a Sumerian form of writing. They were wedged shaped symbols used to represent words. These Wedge shaped marks/ symbols were carved into a tablet by a stylus. Cuneiform was found on many tablets that were dated back to 3200 BCE.

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As explained earlier, epic poems are typically narratives of a hero and their journey.

Some examples of epic poems are:
1. Gilgamesh - a collection of ancient Mesopotamian mythology books about Gilgamesh and  his journey
2. The Mahabharata - a major epic poem in Sanskrit about the struggles of the Kurukshetra war. This poem is commonly referenced in Hinduism.
3. The Illiad - the precursor to The Odyssey, this epic poem is about Achilles and his struggles during the Trojan War.
3. The Odyssey - This epic poem follws the Illiad and is about Odysseus and his 10 year plight while trying to return home from the Trojan War.

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Contrary to what most people believe, writing was not used to tell stories at the very beginning of it's creation, however it marked transactions and from that simple record-keeping it evolved in stages and soon was recorded using tokens.

Another use for writing, was also for food rations as there were societies with hierarchies and food would be distributed based on a hierarchical standing. Tablets of writing helped people keep organized with pretty much everyhting.

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An epic poem is an lengthy speech or writing of someones achievements and failures. These epic poems were usually written about heroes. An example of one is the Epic of Gilgamesh. In this epic poem it narrates all that Gilgamesh succeeded in, while also sharing his failures. It also narrates his challenges and hardships while he was trying to succeed.

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Slavery in Sumer was more based on debt, crime, and prisoners of war.

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The Sargon was Akkad and he conquered all of southern Mesopotamia, parts of Syria, and Elam.

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Sargon helped boost trading, encouraged science and art, and built infrastructure like roads and canals.

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Sargon sent his Akkadian governors to tear down the walls surrounding Sumer and made Akkadian the language of Mesopotamia. By doing this, it unified his troops and left them in control while everyone else had to succumb to it.

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Sargon ruled for 55 years and his empire collapsed due to drastic climate change. The land became dry which made the crops die and cut off almost all trade for the empire because they had nothing really to trade.

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As civilizations and states emerged, they needed a better way to record data. Writing was developed to record information, data and eventually, speech. This system made it easy to keep records and to preserve them for future reference, records were constantly recopied. The earliest writing documented people and goods but the system developed and people started writing laws, treaties, political/military events, religious traditions, laws, or other generally significant things. The more minor day-to-day activities weren't preserved, though. All this was done using pictures/symbols to represent objects and later, sounds.

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Because early writing was mostly bookkeeping, Sumerians wrote numbers in addition to words on clay tablets, and some tablets show multiplication and division problems. The Sumerians and Mesopotamians made significant advances in mathematics using a numerical system based on units of sixty, ten, and six from which we derive our division of hours. They also developed the concept of place value.

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most elite land owners were male, and owned most land but some women with important roles such as priestesses or queens ran their estates separately from their father or husbands. sons and daughters inherited land from their parents. They took care of their own accounts and distributed it to their offspring.

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Hammarubi's Law Code was set into place to develop hierarchies within Babylon. It divided people into three groups - superiors, commoners, and slaves. And it made men more powerful than women. It is unknown if it was enforced, but it was considered very important to farm, because the law focused heavily on agriculture. It also put an emphasis on marriage and reproduction, and sets societal norms on how marriages and childbirth should take place. The law code helped to protect people, by making sure they were eating, and that there were new generations. Another part of the code, which is not as emphasized, was the relationship between children and parents should be one of respect.

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men owned the most land and were the main landowners of Mesopotamian society.

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Ancient Mesopotamia was patriarchal, but social standings were also dependent on wealth, and occupation.