| A | B |
|---|
| drought | a long period of dry weather |
| famine | a widespread lack of food resulting in hunger and starvation |
| surplus | an extra supply of something such as food |
| barter | trade of one kind of product for another without the use of money |
| Fertile Crescent | a fertile region in the Middle East, an important birthplace of civilization |
| Mesopotamia | "the land between two rivers", referring to the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East |
| city- state | a self-governing city and the lands surrounding it |
| ziggurat | a large temple built by the ancient Sumerians to worship their gods and goddesses |
| cuneiform | a system of writing developed in ancient Sumeria that used wedge-shaped symbols |
| Code of Hammurabi | the world's first system of laws, recorded by Hammurabi, king of Babylonia |
| Hammurabi | Babylonian ruler, recorded the first system of laws, known as the Code of Hammurabi |
| Sumer | an ancient civilization in southern Mesopotamia, the first civilization to emerge in the Fertile Crescent |
| Babylon | an ancient city in Mesopotamia and the capital of a vast empire that covered the Fertile Crescent |
