Notes.

Sumer – between Tigris and Euphrates

Cities became as big as 40,000 people

Better food storage means not everyone had to hunt for food so people could have different jobs

Sumerians invented cuneiform: earliest form of writing

Mesopotamia

Pantheon – most powerful Gods and goddesses

Organized calendar based on moon cycles

Divided hour – 60 minutes; minute – 60 seconds

Epic of Gilgamesh – first epic written down; told of great flood

wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals into many animals

King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws – Hammurabi’s Code; “eye for an eye”, “tooth for a tooth”

Expansion of Mesopotamia Civilization

People moved around and set up new communities that eventually got bigger