| A | B |
|---|
| fertile crescent | area of Middle East named for rich soils and wheat fields |
| Mesopotamia | "between the rivers" |
| Sumer | world first civilization / southeast Mesopotamia |
| The Epic of Gilgamesh | narrative poem, telling of a great flood that destroys the world |
| hierarchy | system of ranking groups |
| ziggurat | a large stepped platform / dedicated to a city's chief god or goddess |
| cuneiform | earliest known writing/ Sumerian's used wedge-shaped marks in clay tablets |
| Sargon | ruler of Akkad invaded / conquered the neighbor of Sumer |
| Hammurabi | King of Babylon / controlled much of Mesopotamia |
| codify | arrange and set down in writing all laws that would govern a state |
| civil law | branch of law dealing w/ private rights and matters |
| criminal law | branch of law deals w/ offenses against others such as robbery |
| Nebuchadnezzar | ruthless second King of Babylon |
| barter economy | exchange one set of goods/ services for another |
| money economy | goods/ services paid for w/ the exchange of some token of agreed value (coin/ bill) |
| Zoroaster | religious beliefs put forward by Persian thinker - helped unite the Empire |
| colony | a territory settled and ruled by people from another land |
| alphabet | a writing system in which each symbol represents a basic sound (consonant or vowel) |
