DPHC

==**DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING THAT SOMEONE TYPED! LEAVE A NOTE IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM OR DO NOT AGREE. DONT DELETE MISTEAKS. HIGHLIGHT IN YELLOW I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE NARRATION PART IN SCRIPT. WTITE HERE IF YOU AGREE AND I WILL ADD IT IN. (NARRATION SO IT WOULD BE EASIER TO UNDERSTAND THINGS LIKE PLACES OR SOMETHING) **== Hetvi, Dwayne, Philip, and Cassidy Great site - []

Hetvi will be teal. Philip will be Pink. Dwayne will be purple ( : What we all write will be red. Cassidy will be light green.

Hey Cassidy, We decided we will be making our podcast idea as a book and we get into it. (like in the setting) Anyway, we each assigned some work to you. Just choose a color that you like and write in above like we did! Your assignment is to write about the Artistic and Intellectual Activities of Mesopotamia.(Like inventions or artisans). Make sure to make a connection and support it well. Also, write about the lower class of the social structure of Mesopotamia. (Like slaves) Also, find some images for Artistic and Intellectual Activities of Mesopotamia & for the Lower class people. Save the pics on your flashdrive. Chose a time slot that you can work in. These are the ones already assigned: Philip: 6-8 AM, Weekends Dwayne: 10 AM- 12 PM Hetvi: 1-3 PM Cassidy: Anywhere after Well see you on Monday.

Main idea: We all are tired of learning about Mesopotamia and don't want to study for our test. We fall asleep and wake up in the setting of our textbook!

Narration: On Saturday morning at the Bensalem Public Library. ..

DJ: UGH! This is sooo boring. I really could be at home sleeping but i'm stuck studying at the library. Hetvi: Well we do have a big test about Mesopotamia next week and we have study for it. Philip: But this textbook is way to boring. Why can't this be more exciting and life like. Cassidy: I totally agree! DJ: (snoring.) Hetvi: Look! DJ fell asleep! Philip: Maybe a little nap won't hurt. Cassidy (yawns)

Narration: In a short time, all the kids were asleep on the table. But all of a sudden they hear a noise of a clock ticking loudly. Cassidy: What's happening?! Narration: The pages in their textbook began to flip around and a sudden breeze was coming in the library. The weird thing was that nobody else was noticing except for them four. And in a quick second, the kids were sucked into their textbook.

DJ: Where are we? Hetvi: It looks like we're in Ancient Mesopotamia! Cassidy: Nuh uh! How did we end up here? Philip: Who cares? We got our wish so lets go look around! All but Philip: Fine.

Narration: The kids headed towards the the nearby river.

Hetvi: Hey, I know what river this is. Its the Euphrates River. DJ: The Euphrates River? Hetvi: Yep, it helped give Mesopotamians a stable food supply. Cassidy: Isn't the Tigris River on the other side of Mesopotamia? Philip: Yes, Mesopotamia is in between two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. Thats what the name "Mesopotamia" literally means. DJ: I remember now. Mesopotamia is also in the Fertile Crescent, making the soil good for growing crops. When ever the rivers unexpectedly overflowed, new topsoil was brought up. Cassidy: What kind of crops did the Mesopotamians grow? Philip: Let's go ask the woman over there about what crops her family grows. From the looks of her, it seems as she is a farmers wife. Narration: The kids head over to a woman with black hair, dark skin, and looks like she is short, but strong. Hetvi: Excuse me, what kinds of crop do you and your family mainly grow. Woman : Kids these days! They seem to be getting dumber and dumber. Anyway, my family mainly grows barley, as do other families. Barley, incase you didn't know, is a type of grain used to make bread. We also grow sesame, fruit, dates, palms, and veggies. Well, I must be going. Philip: With all the crops they grow, and the water from the rivers, the Mesopotamians have a pretty good food supply. It reminds me of the farmers back home who also grow crops. DJ: Yeah, we also have rivers that sometimes flood, such as the Delaware River. And we do get a lot of food and water from the crops and rivers nearby. Cassidy: I guess were not all that different from the Mesopotamians. Hetvi: Come on! We still have a lot more to explore.

Narration: The kids begin to walk towards the cir of Ur. They see a gigantic crowd around a pyramid shaped building with a lot of steps.

Cassidy: Why is EVERYONE crowded around that thing? Hetvi: Its not a just a thing, its a ziggurat. Cassidy: A what? Hetvi: A ziggurat. It was the main religious structure and urban focus of all Mesopotamians. Cassidy: Explain this a little more clearly, because I'm getting confused. Why was the ziggurat just so important? Narration: A man over hears her talking and is greatly surprised. Man : An urban focus is something the whole community works on! We work together on the ziggurat because its our main place for religion. We have of 3000 gods! In our ziggurat we offer them food that we eat, wonderful music, poetry, and insense, which is a perfume. The ziggurat is where we all gather together and pray and talk. DJ: What's up with the weird step thingy on the ziggurat? Man: Well uptop there is a shrine to the gods. A priest, who is very important in our society, goes up there. He does all kinds of religious ceromonies and he is the ONLY one allowed up there. We believe that the gods use our ziggurat as a stairway to Earth. Cassidy: I remember reading that the gods have different names in the different city states. The city staes also have their own patron or patroness. I'm pretty sure that the patron of Ur is Nanna, the moon god. Man: You are correct young lady. Our ziggurat is for our patron and is the best in all of Mesopotamia! The gods give and cause everything, humans are just their humble servants. They bring the sun, and the droughts, and the rain, and the floods. DJ: Well actually, the sun is just a star and rain is caused by a whole system of precipitation and. .. . Man: Young man, what are you talking about. I'll forget that nonsense that came out of your mouth. Hetvi: I don't think Mesopotamians were scientific. . . . Man: I must go back to the ziggurat, we have to make it more stable. Goodbye young ones, and I'm glad I could share information with you. Narrator: The man leaves to go work on the ziggurat, which dozens are already doing. Cassidy: You know, the Mesopotamian ziggurat is kind of like our churches and temples. I mean at church, I always see a bunch of people together and working on plans. A church is like our urban focus. We all pray to our own gods there too, and learn, so our churches are a very religious place. Hetvi: You're right about that Cassidy. DJ: Come on! I want to go climb those hills over there!

Narration: So the kids begin to the beautiful hills nearby. At the top, they see and old woman looking down at the city of Ur.

Philip: Escuse me, but is that Ur down there? Woman: Yes it is. Beutiful, isn't is? DJ: Well the middle is. All the big houses with the balconies and two stories are there in the middle of the city. The rest is just okay. Woman : Those "big" houses belong to the rich of our city. The poeple that are higher up in the social. And the ones around those "okay" houses around them belong to the middle class. And the people you see on the outskirts are just slaves, who have been given a break from their masters. Poor things belong to their masters, live on their masters' property, and have none of their own. They are the lowest class. Cassidy: What kind of people live in each class? DJ: I think that the people who are in the highest class are priests, landowners, and sometimes even government officials and merchants. Philip: And I'm pretty sure that the people who live in the middle class are shop keepers, artisans, farmers, and fishers. Woman: You are both correct. And as the I said before, the lowest class is just poor slaves. DJ: Its unfair that there are slaves here Woman: It sure is. DJ: Back home they outlawed slaves after a major war. But back home, we also have certain kinds of classes. Some people just make more money than others. And the richer you are, the more likely you are to have a better home. At least, back home everyone is free to say what they want and are independent. Woman: Your home sounds wonderful. Cassidy: Good connection DJ. . . So which class are you in, miss. Woman: My father was a landowner, who was going to marry me off. I ran away and built a cottage not too far away from these hills. Its out of town, but wonderful all the same. I get the things that I need from the city. That's the only ime I visist the city, other than for praying at the ziggurat. I just like looking down at the ciziliztion we built. Would yoy like to see my home. Philip: Sure.

Narrator: The kids walk half a mile, until they reach a small cottage. Around it they see a couple of more people. Woman: All those people ran away from their homes too. And some are just nomad. We work together to keep our cottage intact. Since, you four seem to want to know a lot about Ur, and the rest of Mesopotmia, go talk to Joe over there. He has an interesting story. Hetvi: Really? Philip: Hey Joe, come over here! Joe: Yes? Cassidy: The woman says you have an interesting life story, even though you look only about twenty. Would you mind telling us? <span style="color: #a02afe; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Joe : I wouldn't mind at all. A couple years back, I was just a farmer's boy. Poor, but happy with life. I though my life would be easy, and that I would be a farmer like my pa. But that all changed when the king's men came. We were at war with a nearby place. The king was short on soldiers, he needed more. His main job lead the army and collect taxes. His advisors advised him to force the poor into battle. And so he did. He took me, my brother, and the rest of the young sons of farmer. Never asked our opinion. We were put into war, without much training, just axes, spears, swords, and arrowheads made out of copper and bronze. A terrible war it was. People began to suggest we use the newly founded melted iron to make shields and make horses pull was chariots. So we did, and in battle many lives died, including my brother's. I felt terrible grief and got angry. A war for land and river use? Ridiculous! We had enough. I left the battlesite and traveled for days, until I came upon the woman. She led me to the cottage, where others were already. My anger faded, but grief is still in my heart, no matter how hard I try to hide it. All the memories. The war is done, but people are building a protective wall around our city, for what if invaders come? Even now I can never go back to the farms, what if me or any future family I had was taken. I was too cowardly to go back. Life is hard, it always had its bumps along its way. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hetvi: That's a sad story. Your military sure seems strong, with the weapons and shields, the chariots and walls. But your political structure is just a almighty king and his advisors, no voice from the poeple of a poor or middle class. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: Sure glad our like isn't like this at home. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: Well at home, there is war going on, where people die. We do have weapons, but their more like guns and tanks and grenades and bombs. And our president does make a lot of important descions like the king does and our president take advice from his advisors like the king. But we have a voice in our country; we elect who runs it and we have people who can overrule the presidents choice, such as the the houses of the three bracnches <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Joe: Your home sounds wonderful. With your own rights and everything. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: Yeah, America really is.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Narration: After their talk with Joe, the kids head back to the cottage. The woman prepares lunch and all crowd around a table.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DJ: Who's that person over there? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Woman: He is a scribe from a different area. He has come to help the king. Scribes learn how to read and write at a school at a young age. Mostly they are men, but I wish I could have learned. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: I'm pretty sure scribes are important in the society because they reading and writing is considered for the gods. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DJ: I'm going to go talk the scribe. He seems interesting and I want to learn more. Hey, scribe, can you tell me about yourself. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Scribe : I learned cuneiform, or the writing, at a young age at a school house. Only the sons of the rich, like me, learn. Cuneiform is wedge shaped and written on clay with pointy reeds. Before, there were over 2400 pictographs, but now there is only 700 symbols. Mainly, we use for reciepts for trade, but some people write for temples, churches, government, merchants, army, or just for the fun of it. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Someone recorded a writing long ago called Gilgamesh. Its about a selfish king Gilgamesh, his friend Enkidu who passes away, and a quest for immortality. Gilgamesh is part god and part man while Enkidu is part animal and part man. Gilgamesh was cruel towards his people, while Enkidu cared for animals in the wild, where he lived. When Enkidu was fetched out of the wild forest by a woman, he came into the kingdom. There he met Gilgamesh. Equal in strength, they fought, but at the end no one won and they became good friends. They went on a quest to get seater wood from a forest, and kill the forest's guardian Humbaba. They succeeded, but Enkidu was injured. After that, Ishtar, the godess of love and war, wanted to marry Gilgamesh, but he rejected. She got angry and sent the Bull of Heaven, a drought, to Gilgamesh's kingdom. The Bull of Heaven is also killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu, but Enkidu's wounds deepen and he dies. For the first time, Gilgamesh experiences a terrible grief and sets out to find immortality. Its a terrific story about friendship grief, compassion, and immortality. Teaches you to appreciate life. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DJ: Cool, at home we also have stories. Back home we use writing too to communicate. We also, use it to write down receipts and everyone uses it in everyday life like you do. The government uses writing, so do store owners, and so does everyone else. At home, however, we all learned writing. Boys and girls, rich or poor. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: Thats an interesting relation. I get what you mean. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: Come on, we have to get a move on. We still have a little more to see. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Woman: Goodbye children, it was nice meeting you.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Narration: The kids head back down the hill and to the Euphrates river. There they see a lot more farmers than before.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: It looks like the farmers used an irrigation system to water their plants. They work it all by themselves. Thats pretty intellectual. Its like a gigantic system or network of canels and dams. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a02afe; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Farmer : Well thats a pretty good observation. I'm Timmy the farmer. We use a lot of intellectual thinking for farming. We also made a plow to return soil for planting. And we were able to turn a wheel around even out the soil too. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: So what else do you do in your freetime. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Timmy the Farmer: A lot of like playing music such as harps. We also talk to the artistic metalworkers who make mirrors and jewelry for the rich, and weapons and materials for us. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hetvi: Back home, farmers also use irrigation systems, but they are not exactly the same. We also have different instruments, like harps and also drums and guitars and violins. And we use plows and other inventions and intelluctual thinking. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: Thats true. We learned a lot! This is going to help us on the test! So glad we came here, but how do we get back. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Narration: The wind starts blowing and the kids go up in the air. The close their eyes, because the wind is hurting their eyes, and they end up in the library.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DJ: We're back! But its only be 10 minutes! That's crazy! <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: Who cares? We learned a lot from our test. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: We learned about religion, writing, intelluctual thinking, urban focus, food, social structure, and the political and military structure. That's a lot! <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hetvi: And we learned that Mesopotamians aren't that different from us! <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: Don't forget we learned about the five themes of geography too. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hetvi: We did? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: Yeah. The location of Ur, or Mesopotamia was in Iraq, but in ancient times and B.C. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: The region is a tropical climate and there is a dessert near Mesopotamia. Also, Mesopotamia is in the Fertile Crescent, <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DJ: Isn't the movement of things by chariots or horses? I'm also pretty sure boats are a good way of movement too because of the rivers around Mesopotamia. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hetvi: I know that the Euphrates and Tigris River surround Mesopotamia. That is a landform that defines the place of Mesopotamia. And the ziggurats are special buildings that are mainly in Mesopotamia. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cassidy: And the interaction between Mesopotamia in its environment is them using their rivers and building dams to stop them from flooding. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philip: That will help us a lot! <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DJ: Well since its still Saturday morning, I'm going home and to sleep. Bye everybody:

= = = = = =

Philip info- Ziggurats are the urban focus of mesopitamia. Most of their activities happen their. This is their religious structure too. Everyone in their city-state eats at the ziggurat like us at our cafeteria exept they give food offerings, play music, wash statues, and read poems. The mesopitamians had a stable food supply, but only if you live within the Fertile Cresent. Their main food was barley, a grain, which was grown in their rich soil crops. This is the reason why this is called the Fertile Cresent. The only problem with this is that no one could control the floods, it was unpredictible. When it flooded people, houses, and crops we washed away. The only upside was new topsoil.

<span style="color: #a02afe; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The earliest signs of war dates from around 3200 B.C. Cylinder seal impressions illistrate people being harmed or put to death while a king looks at what is happening with a spear or firing arrow. By 2500 B.C, there are written accounts of city states fighting. There are stone sculptures that show a king leading his army into battle holding a spear in his hands. Armies were sent out to get land for their city state. Sometimes the conflicts between these two city states would last for many generations. Sumerian images show that the twp main weapons for soliders were spears and axes. Axes, spearheads, swords, and arrowheads were made out of coppper or bronze. By 1700 B.C, horse drawn chariots became one of the most important forms of attack. By the end of the second millennium, iron was being smeled and gradually became the material they used to make armor. Assyrians goals were to gather metal for weapons and bullion and to collect horses for chariots. Assyrian reliefs came up to the city walls that they were fighting at in seige towers. They batter of sap the walls to relive them.

<span style="color: #a02afe; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Shop keepers, artisans, farmers, and fishers are examples of people that are in the middle class. The houses they lived in were built around the open courtyards but were only one story high. Artisans worked with metals like gold, silver, tin, lead, copper, and bronze. With these materials they made swords and arrowheads for armies. They also made tools for farmers like plows and hoes. For the upper class, they make luxury items like mirrors and jewelry. The farmers and fishers lived in mud-brick house at the edge of the city. Farmers were also given the task of building and or repairing irrigation systems. When the city-state army was short on soliders, they forced farmers to work.

Writing in Mesopotamia was called cunieform. It basically was wedge shaped wrtings wrote on clay tablets with pointy reeds. It was taught to the rich boys at schools. If a boy was especially good at cuneiform, he could become a scribe. Scribes were writers who worked for temples, churches, governement, army, merchants, or just for the fun of writing. Cuneiform started off as more than 2400 pictographics, but in time it became it became more abstract with less then 700 symbols. It began around 2400 B.C., for trading reciepts and to show who bought and sold what. Kings and priests thought reading was for the gods, and to read you also need to know how to write so writing was intellectual.

At the top of the social structure was the high class. They were mainly priests, landowners, and sometimes even government officials and merchants. They had the biggest and best houses in the middle of the city. The houses they had usually had two stories and balconies. The balconies looked over magnificent courtyards that let air and sunlight into their houses. To make sure their house stay fresh, clean, and not too warm, outside walls of high class houses had no windows.

Behind the houses of the middle class lived the lower class. This contains the slaves, farmers, unskilled workers and fishers. They lived in owner's homes and had no property of their own. The arts contained creative forms of expression such as painting, architecture and music. There were many kinds of artists and artisans in ancient Sumer. All civilizations created new forms of technology to help with modern day things. The Sumerians made several of these. the most important Sumerian invention was the wheel. The Sumerians invented two key things to help create a stable food supply. One of these inventions is their irrigation systems. They built networks of canals, dams, and reservoirs to provide their crops with water. The second invention was the plow. A plow is a tool used for tilting or turning the soil to prepare it for planting. The first plow was made out of wood. One end of it was bent for cutting into the ground to turn the soil. Farmers themselves pushed and pulled the plow along the ground, or they used animals such as oxen to pull it.