| A | B |
|---|
| Fertile Crescent | strip of fertile land that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf |
| Mesopotamia | low lying plain between the Tigris and Euphrates (means land between the rivers) |
| River Valleys | location of all early civilizations |
| Sumerians | a people from central Asia or Asia minor that arrived in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE |
| Sumer | birthplace of the world's first cities |
| city-state | consisted of a city and the land surrounding it |
| ziggurat | sumerian temple situated in the center of sumerian cities |
| theocracy | government by religion |
| cuneiform | world's earliest form of writing developed in Sumer |
| Epic of Gilgamesh | oldest recorded story in the world |
| stylus | writing utensil used for making cuneiform |
| Sargon I | the first empire builder in Mesopotamia |
| Akkadians | semites who migrated from the Arabian Peninsula to the Fertile Crescent |
| Babylon | capital of the empire founded by the Amorites |
| Hammurabi | developed the first codified law |
| codified | means written down |
| Hittites | conquered Babylon after the decline of Hammurabi's empire (about 1600 BCE) |
