Introduction You are an archaeological historian and are about to embark on a fantastic journey into the past to discover the mysteries of ancient Mesopotamia. Your goal is to achieve an understanding of what life was like, what the culture consisted of, how the government developed, details about the religious beliefs, the development of trade, the development of specialization and social classes, and how the first written language looked. You will discover that much of what we in the twenty-first century take for granted in our civilization has roots in the Mesopotamia of 5000 years ago. You will be asked to explore a number of web sites and will be asked to complete a variety of tasks. These will be completed in your IN on the next available left side. Title it "Webquest" add to your TOC. Label each Task as you complete them.
Task 1 - "Cuneiform" Read the story about the development of writing from the British Museum (Links to an external site.). Answer the following questions in your IN on the left side. Use "quanswers" when appropriate (Be sure to restate the question with your answer so that it makes sense to someone who hasn't read the questions.) 1. What time period did people start to record the amounts of different crops? 2. Draw the symbol for barley. 3. What was usually next to the barley sign? 4. What is the Sumerian word for fig cakes? 5. Beside business and trade, what was cuneiform used for? 6. Cuneiform script was used to write what other languages? 7. Write your name in cuneiform using the following website.http://www.penn.museum/cgi/cuneiform.php (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Task 5 – "The Royal Tombs of Ur" Click on the Royal tombs of Ur. http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/index.html What was the name of the scientist who found the tomb and what did he find? 1. Scientist - _______________________________________________________ 2. What he found - __________________________________________________ EXPLORE tomb number 800 or 779. List anddescribethree things you found in either tomb. 1. _____________________________________________________________ 2. _____________________________________________________________ 3. _____________________________________________________________