Western Civilization Blog

Today in class we continued to write notes. We went over the powerpoint and had interesting discussions about the gods of ancient egypt. Mummification sounds gross but I am intrigued, there is a video apparently. The way of the Ancient Egyptians sounds really nice and simple, there was no one to oppose the pharaoh, it all relies on the crops and the weather. There's no one to start a riot or try to impeach the pharaoh. They all put their full trust in him or her. Sounds nice. Thanks Mr. Schick.

Today we took the quiz. We had 10 minutes to review in the beginning of class which was useful as I didn't study. We took the quiz and it was relatively easy. After the quiz we took notes on the pyramids of mesopotamia.

Today in class was fun. Mr. Schick assisted us in reviewing for the test and it was not boring. Thank you for that Mr. Schick.

Today I realized I do not know what I'm talking about. I definitely need to study for this quiz coming up (it's a big one). I actually do now know most of the vocab since we reviewed it and I'll be fine for the quiz but when I got called on I did not know the answer. I'll work on it.

Today in class we took short notes. We also discussed about Hammurabi's code. We read lots of laws and talked about them. I think walking around in ancient Sumer there would be a lot of people missing limbs. This is actually pretty interesting and I think it would be cool to live back then. The rules are so specific about certain things so obviously this stuff has actually happened before.

5. Hammurabi's code covered mostly punishments. He seemed like he wanted to have a fair set of rules. The only thing that seemed unfair is that the punishment varies based on your rank in society.

1. Fertile Crescent: The regions curved shape and the richness of its land - faces the red sea. Mesopotamia: Land in the middle - east framed by the Tigris and Euphrates river. City-State: Area that functions similarly to how an independent country does today. Dynasty: Hereditary rulers of a country. Cultural Diffusion: The spread of culture from one area to another. Polytheism: Belief in multiple gods. Empire: Multiple states or countries under one government rule. Hammurabi: Ruled Babylon which peaked at his rule. 3. Disadvantages of the Sumerians in the Fertile Crescent are: unpredictable flooding/ period of drought, no natural barriers for protection, scarce amount of natural resources & building material.