Mesopotamia's Culture
Skyler C, Isabella I, Elizabeth W
Culture Introduction Paragraph
Culture is the way of life for people. It is the combination of human beliefs and behaviors. Culture influences learning styles, views on raising children, expectations, rules, religious beliefs, etc. A group of people with the same culture share the same beliefs, traditions, clothes, foods, language, music, games, and holidays. We have culture to connect people. It can feel as you have a sense of unity and belonging within a group when you are with a group of people of the same culture. It also provides a wide variety of different people of the world. Finally, culture gives character to a place. Without culture there would be no celebrations, music, games, holidays, and other fun aspects. Life wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t have different cultures around the world. Culture impacted the way the people of the River Valley Civilizations lived. Religion controlled and determined most of daily life activities. For example, this would determine if people had to obey leaders or have to pray to the gods daily. Writing changed the way business dealings were done and history was kept. This helped with tracking how much food was grown and kept accounts organized. Architecture impacted the study of mathematics, science and engineering. Different buildings were designed in different ways and made with different materials. Innovations allowed for the creation of job specialization and a wider gap between social classes. This helped things get done quicker and easier. Achievements paved the way for more complex economic and military systems. Some things that people achieved determined how time was kept. To conclude, the culture developments during the River Valley Civilizations made the largest impact on people.
Mesopotamian Bas-Relief
The Standard of Ur
Ziggurat
Men's Wardrobe
Hammurabi
The Wheel
Slaves
Pottery
Feast
Innovations
The Mesopotamians created the first clock, the sundial. The Sundial helped them tell what time it was so they could be more organized, and so they could do specific things at specific times.
The Mesopotamians created the first government system to run a city, this included laws. Their government system helped keep the crimes down to a minimum because of Hammurabi's code.
The Mesopotamians created basic tools, which helped the farmers farm, and these tools also helped with cooking.
The Mesopotamians created the calendar, the calendar helped the people keep track of days, this kept the people very organized, because they could keep track of time.
The Mesopotamians created hours, minutes, and seconds. This helped keep the people very organized because they could keep track of time, and so they could know what time to do certain things.
They created the wheel which we still use today. We use the wheel for transportation. Without the innovation, we wouldn't be able to go places today.
Created basic tools to make their life easier.
Achievements
Architecture
The people in Mesopotamia made beautiful things one of the things that they built was a temple, they were very religious so they thought that if they made a temple then they can be closer to all of their gods, they built the temples with stone and it was so beautiful on how they made it.
The type of social class that you were in determined what type of house you lived in and the highest class had houses with paved brick and they had a 2 story house too. The middle class would have a house too but it wasn’t a 2 story house it was like a shed. And the lowest class had a mud brick house.
All of the buildings were either made out of clay silt or mud brick they had all of their buildings like that so if it rained then the people living in the house wouldn’t get wet, some people had houses made out of cloth but that was if you were a slave and when it rained they would get so wet.
- The temples would have a big layer of stones one the bottom layer and then as each layer went by the stones would get smaller, and at the top there would be one stone and that was where the gods were at the top of the temple.
Conclusion
The culture developments during the River Valley Civilizations made the largest impact on people. The developments included religion, writing, architecture, innovations, and achievements. Religion impacted the people because they had to obey their gods and pray to them. It impacted their daily life. Writing impacted the people because they could make business deals, keep track of accounts, and it changed how history was kept. Someone could also get a good job if they knew and understood writing. Mesopotamia had a very developed writing system which became more complex over time. Architecture impacted the study of engineering, math, and science. It impacted the way buildings were designed and built. Innovations allowed life to be easier. For example, creating the sundial (a clock) helped keep track of time and the days. This allowed the creation of specialization of labor because people had more time to do other things since things could be done quicker. Lastly, achievements paved the way for more complex government and military systems. They developed the first government system to be able to run a city. This helped the city have less crime and chaos since laws told the people what they can and can’t do. They also created social classes which organized the people into groups. Both of these things organized their world which helped pave the way for more complex systems. To conclude, the culture developments of Mesopotamia impacted the people and led to more complex things.