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The form of writing in Mesopotamia was called cuneiform. The way they did it was to carve symbols and letters with a tool called "reed stylus" onto a rock. It was the scribes that did the writing in Mesopotamia and they  were in the upper - middle class. Writing was a very important job and you needed to be really educated to be able to be a scribe. The purpose of writing was to inform other people about things that are happening. The scribes wrote letters to other cities, they recorded daily events of things that are happening( including business exchanges) in Mesopotamia, and they wrote the laws of Mesopotamia.

In the image below I wrote, " HELLO MR BELL HOW ARE YOU." This form of writing isn't effective because it takes a long time to write, on the other hand, it gets the job done.

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Painting, architecture and music are all examples of Mesopotamian art. Architects made temples and Ziggurats, that were used to worship the gods and to show them respect.  Musicians used different instruments to create music that could be anything from worshipping the gods to a lovesong at a wedding feast. The purpose of music was to make the gods happy, and to make the people happy.  Sculptures were also a form of art that could be used as a decoration in ziggurats and other religious sites.
It is important to study art in the past because it gives us clues to how life was in the past. For example ; we can learn about the culture that produced the art by looking at the symbolism, colors and material of it. By looking at art  from ancient Mesopotamia and analyzing the details of the art, we can look back in time and experience what it's like to live in a time period different from what we are used to. It also shows what they valued and what people and objects they thought were important.

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The religion that people in mesopotamia had was a polytheistic religion. This means that they believed in and worshipped more than one god. Each city in Mesopotamia had it's own god and people thought the gods influenced their lives in many ways. In the center of each city in Mesopotamia, there was a ziggurat. A ziggurat was a religious building built for the gods. It was about the same as a temple, and that's where the priests live and make sacrifices to the gods. They were like step pyramids with a flat top. The people of Mesopotamia believed in demons, evil spirits and genies too. People of mesopotamia believed that the world floated on an ocean of fresh water. For the people of Mesopotamia the gods were very important because they believed that they had an impact on their lives. Although there aren't many ziggurats still today, there are a few left primarily located in Iran and Iraq. The ziggurats were located in the middle of the city because they were very important to the people. The ziggurats were built with a core of mud brick and an outside of baked brick.

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In Mesopotamia,  there are a lot of different types of jobs. There are also three class divisions; upper class, middle class, and lower class.  A job from the upper class is to be a priest. To be a priest was considered very good ad it is means that you are very wealthy. To be a priest, you had a lot of responsibilities, like; caring for the gods by feeding and  clothing them, some sang songs and made music and hymns, and some provide religious services to the people. In middle class, there were scribes, among other jobs. Scribes were important people that recorded daily events , wrote letters and wrote stories. The scribes were usually the upper middle class. To be a scribe, you needed to have certain skills, like; to be very specific, patient and careful with  your work. In the lower class, there were not many jobs, you could be a farmer or a slave. Slaves were considered the worst job you could have and they weren't very wealthy at all. Slaves were mostly captured in battle and did whatever the owner of the slave told them to do. They sometimes helped on the farm and they had to do cleaning around the house. To be a slave you didn't need to have any specific skills, but you needed to be able to do what the owner told you to do. The benefits from being a priest is that you got a lot of money and you got to be very liked by the people. The drawback of being a priest is that they have a big responsibility. The benefits of being a scribe was that they were pretty wealthy and they were very important to the people. Drawbacks of being a scribe is that you needed to work very hard and spend a lot of time on writing. There aren't that many advantages of being a farmer in Mesopotamia because farming is in the lower class, and they don't get paid much at all and they have to work really hard. In all, the different class divisions made Mesopotamia thrive, because they had room for lots of jobs and they could have special jobs that helped Mesopotamia get ahead in society.

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Laws and governments are important because they make the society more safe and controlled so that people can't just go doing anything they want, but that they have rules to follow. For example; if we didn't have laws to tell us what we aren't allowed to do, people might think they can steal or murder and that it's not so bad to do so. But the people of mesopotamia had laws, so they kept it more controlled and more safe. Hammurabi's code of laws tells us that Mesopotamia was safe and that it was a controlled city that had laws that could handle crime.  Hammurabi's code of laws were important to mesopotamia because they made the area safer and more fair and made it so that there was less crime. Laws are important today because they help control what people are and aren't allowed to do and they make it more safe and fair, just as it did in Mesopotamia.  The crime and punishments were very clear and specific, to make sure that people knew the consequences for certain deeds.
The code of laws resolved some conflicts, such as what a punishment should be, but there were still conflicts in mesopotamia. The laws made Mesopotamia thrive because they had a more controlled society that was advanced and fair.

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2 geographic features that helped cities settle in Mesopotamia are; there is a river that surrounds the city, used for protection and a water supply for the people living in Mesopotamia. This is useful because it can help them from getting attacked by other civilizations, and they can get enough water to be able to survive, and have water to use for other things. They can also use the water to get food, like fish and other sea creatures, and also to water the crops that they had. The river can also be used as transportation so it was easier to trade amongst other cities. The soil is also really rich in mesopotamia, which is another reason why people live there because they can get  good, tasty food and have a lot of it so that they can get full too. These two features made Mesopotamia thrive, because the had all of the resources they needed.