The Fertile Crescent
"We're in that Fertile Crescent"
Fertile, luscious land in the middle of the desert? That’s right. This song takes you back to the Fertile Crescent civilizations, those city-states located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Explore the important contributions that the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians made to our modern world: wheeled vehicles, arches and the written language of cuneiform.
Intro
A Sumerian:
We’re chilling like it’s summer, in our Sumerian city-states,
Inventing the arch, we put it on our city gates.
We built the temples, ziggurats,
We’re swimming when it’s very hot,
In the Tigris and Euphrates, baby.
In the Tigris and Euphrates, baby.
In the Tigris and Euphrates, baby.
Each city is unique, we don’t have to wear a uniform,
But when we’re writing it, we write it in cuneiform.
Sargon:
I roll through, invading them; I’m Sargon the Great,
Empire builder for the Akkadians.
Hammurabi:
Sorry Sargon, your empire couldn’t last,
I babble on these tracks, put Babylon on the maps.
I’m Hammurabi, you can call me Papi,
Made a strict code, ’cause your laws were sloppy.
Hammurabi’s Code matches tooth for tooth,
Poke an eye out and get yours poked out too.
An Assyrian:
We’re the Assyrians, assassins,
Seriously dangerous when we're blasting, we took your men captive.
Burnt Babylon, built a library instead,
With that old book: Epic of Gilgamesh.
What? We’re in that Fertile Crescent,
Sargon, you smell, need some Herbal Essence.
I keep it quick, like a turtle’s breakfast,
Time’s up, better learn your lessons.
Nebuchadnezzar:
Nobody ruled better, I’m Nebuchadnezzar,
Me and my Chaldeans are sharper than cheddar.
We’re so holy like Swiss cheese,
One day my wife said, "Neb, I miss trees.
This city life is too hard for me,
All is see is brown, baby, I need garden-green."
So I built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for my girl,
It’s one of the seven wonders of the world.
A Phoenician:
Phoenicians: Where we get our alphabet from.
Phoenicians: Trading, and standing strong.
Phoenicians: We set sail on seas,
Built ships with ease, sail from Sidon to Sicily.
The best craftsmen, we make the best crafts,
We blow the most glass, we make the most cash.
Trade the glass and crafts, watch our paper stack,
Dye cloth, people like, "I got to have that."
What? We’re in that Fertile Crescent,
Sargon, you smell, need some Herbal Essence.
I keep it quick, like a turtle’s breakfast,
Time’s up, better learn your lessons.
A Hebrew:
You don’t have to barter, Lydians made cents,
’Cause Lydians printed coins like a mint.
Between Egypt and Babylon, we’re the Hebrews,
Tribes and crews; today we’d be called Jews.
Wandering the desert, avoiding bandits,
Till Moses showed us Ten Commandments.
Divided into 12 tribes, we got lost,
Until King Saul finally reunited us.
Next, David built Jerusalem,
In the Bible, he defeats Goliath, ya heard of him?
His son Solomon built the temple, we weren’t saved,
Chaldeans invaded and made us slaves.
What? We’re in that Fertile Crescent,
Sargon, you smell, need some Herbal Essence.
I keep it quick, like a turtle’s breakfast,
Time’s up, better learn your lessons.
Flocab Spits Facts:
Inventions
History Speaks
Discussion Questions
Check out the complete Fertile Crescent lesson plan.
Welcome to the birthplace of civilization. That's what many historians consider the Fertile Crescent, a large chunk of land between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. Surrounded by desert and irrigated by two mighty rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Fertile Crescent occupies the region we now know as Iraq and Iran. These two rivers snake down the mountains of the north and drain into the Persian Gulf. They frequently overflowed their banks, leaving behind a rich soil that was ideal for growing crops. As is always the case, it was water that allowed powerful civilizations to grow.
On the Persian Gulf end of Mesopotamia was a region called Sumer where farmers built villages that grew and grew, just like the grains being planted. These early settlers built homes using bricks made from the mud the Tigris and Euphrates left behind, and by about 3000 BC there were enough houses to make small cities. Farmers worked together to create irrigation and drainage ditches to direct water where they wanted it and help prevent the great rivers from flooding the cities.
By this time, many city-states had grown in the Fertile Crescent: Babylon, Ur, Uruk, Eridu. City-states were just as they sound - cities so large and independent that they became much like states are today, governed by a single ruler and each with their own justice system, trade and military.
By this time, many city-states had grown in the Fertile Crescent: Babylon, Ur, Uruk, Eridu. City-states were just as they sound - cities so large and independent that they became much like states are today, governed by a single ruler and each with their own justice system, trade and military.
The Sumerians are credited with some of the most amazing inventions in human history. They invented the arch. They made wagons, the first-ever wheeled vehicles (the wheel itself was probably invented earlier). They accurately tracked the stars. And they decided to divide time into blocks of 60: They put 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour.
Sumerians were a polytheistic people - they believed there was not just one but many gods, whose favor they needed to live good lives. Each city-state had a particular favorite or patron god. In honor of these deities, the people built huge temples, like pyramids with stairs up the sides. These were ziggurats, and they were often the centerpieces of city-states.
The Mesopotamians used etchings on stone tablets to tell their stories and display their rules. They developed some of the earliest forms of writing. The system used by Sumerian scribes was called cuneiform, and it used small geometrical shapes scratched into wet stone that later dried and hardened to recount stories and keep track of trade, taxes, military issues, and more. Thanks to the widespread use of cuneiform, historians know much about Mesopotamian culture and the many transformations it went through over the centuries.
Sargon is thought to be the first ruler in world history to have a permanent, standing army at his command, an army that was one of the first to use bows and arrows. He was the emperor of the Akkadians around 2000 BC. Sargon used his troops to create the world's earliest empire, a huge territory in the Middle East. For the x, it was a vast kingdom; the world had never seen anything like it.
Impressive as it was, Sargon's empire didn't last. All empires were (and still are) based on power, which is based on the threat of violence: Whoever has the strongest army will rule. The Babylonians were the next power-hungry army to conquer Mesopotamia.
The Babylonian army was led by a mighty leader named Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). He rose to power much like his predecessor Sargon, driving wedges between the cities of Sumer and systematically conquering each one in turn. He had a well-trained army of ax- and spear-toting foot soldiers.
Mesopotamia became famous for what was long thought of as the first written code of laws in the world. (Historians now say there were earlier codified laws.) These laws were brought into being by Hammurabi. Hammurabi's Code, etched into a tablet, included 282 laws based largely on the principle of retribution: If you poke out a free person's eye, your eye is poked out, too. It meted out harsh punishments for crimes, especially when they were committed by people of the lower class. Mesopotamian society was strongly / by class. and it gave men far more rights than women.
In about 700 BC the Assyrians, a people who lived in the hills at the end of the Tigris River, moved into the area that Hammurabi had ruled. Using iron weapons (like the Hittites to the north), they soon acquired all of the Fertile Crescent and much of the surrounding territory. They did this the way most conquering happens: by killing people. Luckily for their enemies, the Assyrian empire lasted less than a century.
When your army enters a city, you, as general, had three basic choices: You could occupy this, take everything valuable and leave it, or burn it to the ground. When the Assyrians invaded Babylon, they chose option number 3. But all wasn't lost. One of the great things they did was build a royal library, which housed a copy of one of the oldest stories ever written down: the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a long poem about a legendary king named Gilgamesh who may or may not have existed. Regardless, the epic tale written down most certainly contained some myths (made-up stories) as well.
The Assyrians were toppled in part by the Chaldeans, who came from present-day Syria. It was their King Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC) who was the next great ruler of the area. He rebuilt Babylon, making it once again the most important city in the region. The Greek historian Herodotus described it as having walls 56 miles long and 320 feet high (though archaeological evidence has them at about 10 miles long and not nearly as high). According to the Bible, the city-center was dominated by the enormous Tower of Babel.
It was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon that became one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Legend has it that they were built to please Nebuchadnezzar's wife, who missed the green, mountainous land that she came from. So her husband had a terraced garden, overflowing with plants, constructed for her. By all accounts it was extraordinary - from a distance the greenery seemed suspended in air. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by earthquakes around 200 BC.
Along the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East, a unique civilization was doing things a little differently. They were the Phoenicians. One of their legacies is our modern-day alphabet. Their alphabet was adapted by the Greeks and then the Romans; it's not too different from the one we use today.
The Phoenicians realized that power wasn't just about having the biggest army; it was also about having the most money. So they built a trading empire that connected various tribes and civilizations around the Mediterranean. But what's the best way to get goods from one place to another? Not on rickety old carts where bandits can rob you at every turn, but on fast ships.
The Phoenicians built a lot of impressive ships. Their ships made it all the way to Britain and the west coast of Africa, bringing wood, slaves, and glass to the Greeks and North Africans.
The Phoenicians invented glassblowing, but the truly hot product everyone just had to have was purple dye. They got the dye from a special kind of sea snail that basically sneezed it out. Only the Phoenicians lived near the snails, so only they had the royal purple dye. Apparently, it was so expensive, it was worth its weight in silver. In fact, the word Phoenician means "purple people" in Greek.
In nearby Turkey in 687 BC, the Lydians rose to power. Their king was Gyges, who was friendly with the Greeks (who were gaining power to their west). The Lydians wrote themselves into history by issuing the first gold coins. Before then, no government had ever come up with its own single currency.
Meanwhile, on the Mediterranean coast in a place known as Canaan, the Hebrews were organizing a state under a series of kings. The Jews differed from other cultures in the region because they were monotheistic - they worshipped a single god, known as Yahweh - and they were nomadic, following their herds.
According to the Bible, the Hebrews weren't always monotheistic. At one point they worshipped many different deities. That changed when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from a mountain, and the Hebrews agreed to worship only one god.
In the mid-1000s BC, King Saul united them, getting all the tribes together to face the Philistines, who lived on the same seacoast. This began a battle that still continues to this day in the Israeli-Arab conflict in Middle East.
After Saul, King David defeated the Philistines and other enemies and conquered the city of Jerusalem, which he made his capital.
In about 965 BC, King Solomon, David's son, came to power.. King Solomon made Hebrew control over the area complete. He built an empire for his people and, according to the Bible, the First Temple in Jerusalem.
Problem #1
Walls are preventing my armies from entering a city to conquer it.
Solution
Dig under the walls to make them crumble, and use battering rams, large logs carried by several soldiers to ram and destroy gates and doors.
Inventors
The Assyrians
Problem #2
Bronze is expensive to make. It requires copper and tin, and I can't find much of either one.
Solution
Use iron instead. It's nearly as strong, and much easier to produce. Soon this will start the Iron Age, during which almost all weapons and armor will be made from iron.
Inventors
The Hittites, the Chinese
Walls are preventing my armies from entering a city to conquer it.
Solution
Dig under the walls to make them crumble, and use battering rams, large logs carried by several soldiers to ram and destroy gates and doors.
Inventors
The Assyrians
Problem #2
Bronze is expensive to make. It requires copper and tin, and I can't find much of either one.
Solution
Use iron instead. It's nearly as strong, and much easier to produce. Soon this will start the Iron Age, during which almost all weapons and armor will be made from iron.
Inventors
The Hittites, the Chinese
"If you lie and then tell the truth, the truth will be considered a lie."
- Sumerian Proverb
"When man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not look like a leg."
- Guillaume Apollinaire
- Sumerian Proverb
"When man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not look like a leg."
- Guillaume Apollinaire
1. Why did historians call the Fertile Crescent the cradle of civilization?
2. Hammurabi's Code has been compared to an old saying in the Bible. What is it that familiar saying and what are the similarities?
3. Why do we know Gilgamesh's name thousands of years after his death?
2. Hammurabi's Code has been compared to an old saying in the Bible. What is it that familiar saying and what are the similarities?
3. Why do we know Gilgamesh's name thousands of years after his death?
Click here for the complete lesson plan.
How did the Sumerian people divide their territory?
By using city-states
Who built the Akkadian Empire?
Sargon the Great
Who invented the code that demanded an eye for an eye?
Hammurabi
What type of educational facility did the Assyrians build?
A library
Which civilization did the Assyrians defeat with their powerful army?
Babylon
According the rapper, which ruler was smelly?
Sargon the Great
Which ruler built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his wife?
Nebuchadnezzar
Which civilization do we get our alphabet from?
The Phoenicians
What was the important activity that helped the Phoenician civilization stand strong?
Trading
What text did Moses introduce to the Jews?
The Ten Commandments
