Assignment (Due Friday, November 20)

Students will be creating an Akkadian style stele to highlight one of the accomplishments of one of the great Fertile Crescent empires. A stele is a slab of stone on which artists would carve relief sculptures of military battles or other major achievements.

The stele should show an important person, place, or thing related to the history of the Fertile Crescent. Along with a picture, students will also write a caption explaining the picture.

Files

• Stele Template (right-click and save the file to your home folder)
• Stele Project Directions (Periods 3-6)
• Stele Project Directions (Period 2 Spectrum)
• Stele Research Sources (Spectrum only)

Research Links

These links will take you to the Eck208 Delicious page with more links about each empire.

• Akkadian Empire
• Babylonian Empire
• Assyrian Empire
• Neo-Babylonian Empire (a.k.a. Chaldean Empire)
• Phoenicians
• Persian Empire

Last week we learned about the seven characteristics of a civilization.  Historians consider a society to be civilized when it has these characteristics:

1. A stable supply of food
2. A complex social structure
3. Government
4. Religion
5. Makes contributions to the arts
6. Makes advancements in technology
7. Develops a system of writing

To apply their knowledge, students looked at artifacts from ancient Sumer, (in Mesopotamia) and wrote about their relationship to the characteristics of civilization.  Next, students wrote about whether or not these artifacts prove that Sumer was truly a civilization.

Assignment Due November 13, 2009

• Civilization Response Paper (Regular Version) – students must rewrite the sentences as a final draft that is typed or written in black ink.
• Civilization Response Paper (Spectrum Version)

• The British Museum: Mesopotamia 6000 – 1500 B.C.E.
• The British Museum: Mesopotamia 1500-539 B.C.E.
• Life in Mesopotamia Artifacts

Here are some interactive web sites where you can learn more about life in Mesopotamia:

• Ancient Mesopotamia: Dig into History
• Farming and Irrigation Challenge: how well can you manage your water supply to help crops grow?