| A | B |
|---|
| Moats | Helped protect city dwellers from enemies |
| Levees, canals, and dams | Controlled the amount of water in the valleys |
| Zagros foothills | Had natural barriers to keep out enemies |
| City-states | Had their own rulers and farmland |
| Irrigation systems | Required people to work together to maintain them |
| Food shortages | Led people in northern Mesopotamia to move south |
| Mesopotamia | Means "land between the rivers" |
| Irrigation systems and plows | Helped provide a steady supply of food |
| Copper blades | Proof that Sumerian society developed after the Stone Age |
| Sumerian government officials | Threw lavish parties where servants served food on gold plates and cups |
| Sumerian kings | Believed they got their power from the gods |
| Wheels | Made it possible for Sumerian armies to use chariots |
| Written laws | Prove that Sumerians were not prehistoric |
| Temple-building | One of the Sumerian king's duties |
| Ziggurats | Sumerian structures that honored the gods |
| Priests | Part of the Sumerian upper class |
| Standard of Ur | Most famous artifact ever recovered in ancient Sumer |
| Akkadian empire | World's first empire |
| Sargon | Akkadian military leader and king |
| Stele | Stone monuments carved in bas-relief |
| Hammurabi | King of ancient Babylon |
| Code of Laws | Hammurabi's attempt to create a justice system |
| Babylonian women | Could not choose their own husbands |
| Mesopotamian empires | Collapsed when they couldn't control the large territories they conquered |
| Assyrians | Built palaces on tall mounds |
| Nebuchadnezzar | Reputed to have built the Hanging Gardens for his wife |
| Neo-Babylonian empire | Developed astronomy and the sundial |
| Assyrian empire | Developed battle strategies including battering rams and moveable towers |
| Babylonian empire | Developed a postal service |
| Babylonian slaves | Could buy their own freedom |
