What do you think?
Rate this book
Mesopotamia: A Middle Schooler's Guide to History
A quick, simple, and humorous middle-school guide to ancient Mesopotamia.
Written BY AN EIGHTH GRADER for sixth to eighth graders!
SAMPLE:
You must be wondering, “What is Mesopotamia, and why is it important?” Perhaps even, “Why the heck am I sitting here wasting my time?” and “What use is this to me?” The fact is, if your history teacher assigned this to you, it’s probably for more than the traditional reasons: to be nasty, or make you waste your time and fry your brain doing homework. She/He probably would have a better, at least a…err… more civilized and appropriate manner toward you.
This is actually the key to your success through the ‘Mesopotamia’ section in your book. This will tell you ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW! It will be your guide and won’t let you down until you delete it.
I hope you take the time to read this (and not just say you did). If you do not fully understand this, bring this to your teacher’s attention and ask her/him to explain it to you, or advise him/her to get a new guide through history.
Life in the Past:
Life in the time of Mesopotamia was very different than our lives now. For one, anyone who isn’t downright stupid would know that they didn’t have electricity, light bulbs, cars, newspapers, airplanes, road pavers, or any other thing of the sort. What may surprise you, though, is that they did have roads. No, I am not talking about paved roads. I am talking about dirt roads that people could travel on. Also, in ancient Mesopotamia, women did not have the rights that they have today.
As you live in America, you may not know yet that people in other countries do not have the freedom we do. That was true for Mesopotamia too. In Mesopotamia, there was no power spread among the people. There was one ruler only who controlled everything. He was known as King. If the king said, “Cut that person’s head off,” that is what would happen. If the king said, “We will go to war!” that is what would happen, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Wow. That sounds good. If everyone just obeyed and whatever you said would happen.” Before you start to think, “I wish I were king of metscho..whatsitcalled,” I’ll tell you that you needed to be king by blood, and the fact is, it wasn’t good for the people. If you didn’t obey, off went your head!
The people back then didn’t really even have a system of writing. They wrote things down in pictograms at first, but their writing wasn’t perfected until about 2400 B.C. Then they wrote in cuneiform writing, which was wedged shaped figures that they pressed into clay tablets.
Also back then, the people believed in many different gods. They worshipped just about everything: the sky, the sea, the trees, etc. While now, in the present, people generally don’t. Also they would sacrifice people to the ‘gods’! Back then, if you didn’t worship the ‘gods’…. off went your head! (deja vu… huh?)
Geography:
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers have flowed through what was Mesopotamia for thousands of years. They are the two major rivers that flow through Mesopotamia, or The Cradle of Civilization, or the Fertile Crescent. “Mesopotamia” is a Greek word meaning “between the rivers” (talking about the Tigris and Euphrates, of course) Mesopotamia is also known as the Cradle of Civilization because it is where real civilization started.
Written BY AN EIGHTH GRADER for sixth to eighth graders!
SAMPLE:
You must be wondering, “What is Mesopotamia, and why is it important?” Perhaps even, “Why the heck am I sitting here wasting my time?” and “What use is this to me?” The fact is, if your history teacher assigned this to you, it’s probably for more than the traditional reasons: to be nasty, or make you waste your time and fry your brain doing homework. She/He probably would have a better, at least a…err… more civilized and appropriate manner toward you.
This is actually the key to your success through the ‘Mesopotamia’ section in your book. This will tell you ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW! It will be your guide and won’t let you down until you delete it.
I hope you take the time to read this (and not just say you did). If you do not fully understand this, bring this to your teacher’s attention and ask her/him to explain it to you, or advise him/her to get a new guide through history.
Life in the Past:
Life in the time of Mesopotamia was very different than our lives now. For one, anyone who isn’t downright stupid would know that they didn’t have electricity, light bulbs, cars, newspapers, airplanes, road pavers, or any other thing of the sort. What may surprise you, though, is that they did have roads. No, I am not talking about paved roads. I am talking about dirt roads that people could travel on. Also, in ancient Mesopotamia, women did not have the rights that they have today.
As you live in America, you may not know yet that people in other countries do not have the freedom we do. That was true for Mesopotamia too. In Mesopotamia, there was no power spread among the people. There was one ruler only who controlled everything. He was known as King. If the king said, “Cut that person’s head off,” that is what would happen. If the king said, “We will go to war!” that is what would happen, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Wow. That sounds good. If everyone just obeyed and whatever you said would happen.” Before you start to think, “I wish I were king of metscho..whatsitcalled,” I’ll tell you that you needed to be king by blood, and the fact is, it wasn’t good for the people. If you didn’t obey, off went your head!
The people back then didn’t really even have a system of writing. They wrote things down in pictograms at first, but their writing wasn’t perfected until about 2400 B.C. Then they wrote in cuneiform writing, which was wedged shaped figures that they pressed into clay tablets.
Also back then, the people believed in many different gods. They worshipped just about everything: the sky, the sea, the trees, etc. While now, in the present, people generally don’t. Also they would sacrifice people to the ‘gods’! Back then, if you didn’t worship the ‘gods’…. off went your head! (deja vu… huh?)
Geography:
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers have flowed through what was Mesopotamia for thousands of years. They are the two major rivers that flow through Mesopotamia, or The Cradle of Civilization, or the Fertile Crescent. “Mesopotamia” is a Greek word meaning “between the rivers” (talking about the Tigris and Euphrates, of course) Mesopotamia is also known as the Cradle of Civilization because it is where real civilization started.
28 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 21, 2015
1 person is currently reading
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.