book notes pt2

• The regions curved shape and the richness of its land led scholar's to call it the fertile crescent
• It includes the lands facing the Mediterranean sea and a plain that became known ad Mesopotamia
• The rivers that frame the Mesopotamia are the Tigris and the Euphrates
• Unpredictable flooding combined with a period of little or no rain. The land sometimes became almost desert
• with no natural barriers for protection a samuerion village was nearly defenseless
• The natural resources of summer were limited. Building material's and other necessary items were scarce
• To provide water they dug irrigation ditches that carried river water to their fields and allowed them to produce a surplus of crops
• For defense they built city walls with mud bricks
• Sumerians traded their grain cloth and crafted tools with the peoples of the mountains and the desert in exchange the received raw material's such as stone, wood, and metal