A Mesopotamian Quiz!
"
On a piece of notebook paper, please put your first and last name, period number, and the date, and title it “Mesopotamian Quiz”. Then I
would like you examine the illustrations (by me, yes) and answering #1-4, describe what you see. Please use complete sentences, and do
your best. Remember what I’ve tried to teach you about writing, about being complete, but keeping it simple. We will grade this together in
class on Friday. Don’t worry about the grade, just try to remember what we’ve learned so far.
1.
2.
A
B
3.
1. Please describe what you see here. There are two types of geography, labeled A & B, that affected early life in Mesopotamia. I would
like you to explain where early Mesopotamians lived, why they left, and where they went when they did leave. "
2. Please describe the problems you see here. On one hand Mesopotamians faced one problem, and then on the other, as pictured, they
faced another problem. What was going on?"
3. There are several things here that were done to fix the problems from Question #2. Please describe what people did to solve those
problems. The red arrows are there to point out important things to include in your description. *Ahem*. "
4. Please describe what happened when villages started cooperating with each other. What did this lead to?
Answers: "
1. For number one I was asking you to tell me that the Mesopotamians lived in the foothills (A), but because of
overpopulation and not enough food or land to grow food, they had to move to the river valleys or
plains (B). "
2. Here I was asking you to recall that the Mesopotamians living on the plains had either too much or too little
water. Either it was too hot and dry, or as is shown in the picture, the rivers flooded and destroyed crops.
Remember, the rivers are seen as unpredictable. "
3. In this last picture, I was asking you to describe how the Mesopotamians built levees (earthen walls) to
keep the flood waters controlled, canals to bring water to their fields, and reservoirs to hold water for later
use. "
4. The last question is asking you to recall that the Mesopotamian villages had to work together to maintain the
canals, which lead to a growth in population, and then towns, which grew into cities, which as they
sometimes fought each other had to build defense, and became city-states that were like small, independent
countries.