According to ancient Egyptian mythology, or at least some versions, Osiris was the first pharaoh. He was given the throne by his father Ra.
Teaching Ancient Mesopotamia - Project Ideas
As I stated in a previous post about Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory, I recently finished my unit at school on ancient Mesopotamia. As part of my “post mortem” on the unit, I made a list of project ideas for possible implementation in the future. I classified the ideas based on MI and subject matter, and perhaps next year I’ll do a differentiated, more immersive unit allowing students to choose different projects on different aspects of Mesopotamia and utilizing different intelligences. Naturally, many of the projects crossover from one intelligence to the other.
Some of these project ideas are what I would really call “mini-projects.” That is, they might take a day or two rather than a week or more. Most of them aren’t tested either, but I really think there are a few good ideas.
Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence Project Ideas
Geography of Mesopotamia
Roles in Mesopotamian Society
Mesopotamian Achievements
Culminating Mesopotamia Projects
Geography
Roles in Mesopotamian Society
Mesopotamian Achievements
Geography
Geography
Culminating Projects
Some of these project ideas are what I would really call “mini-projects.” That is, they might take a day or two rather than a week or more. Most of them aren’t tested either, but I really think there are a few good ideas.
Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence Project Ideas
Geography of Mesopotamia
- Write poem about the Tigris and Euphrates and their importance to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.
- Write a report comparing and contrasting the geography of ancient Mesopotamia with the geography of the area today.
- Make travel brochure for a trip back to a city in ancient Mesopotamia.
- Research and write reports about different aspects of the geography of Mesopotamia - the Tigris and/or Euphrates, the Zagros Mountains, the Taurus Mountains, the Persian Gulf, etc…
- Write diary entries about an expedition from the headwaters to the delta of the Tigris or Euphrates.
Roles in Mesopotamian Society
- Write and deliver a speech convincing the citizens of ancient Mesopotamia that they should pay taxes to support government projects such as city walls, irrigation canals, roads, etc…
- Day in the life of a scribe journal entries – journal/diary entries that describe the daily tasks of a scribe or a scribe student.
- Hall of Fame Mesopotamia – biographical descriptions of important Mesopotamians (Sargon, Hammurabi, Moses, Nebuchadnezzar, etc…). Maybe have the class or groups rank them based on importance and have a debate on who should be in and who should be out.
Mesopotamian Achievements
- Write an extension story for one of the stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
- Write and perform a play retelling the Epic of Gilgamesh, or part of it, in a modern way.
- Write a radio, TV, or print ad selling one of the many Mesopotamian inventions.
- Write a proposal to King Hammurabi explaining why you like/dislike certain laws in his code.
- Have a debate on whether or not Hammurabi’s Code was a fair way to govern ancient Babylon.
- Writing in cuneiform. Provide a cuneiform style alphabet (worksheets with these are available from various sites. You can also get a computer font that allows you to type in cuneiform.) Have students decode phrases you make up and have them write/translate back and forth.
- Phoenician alphabet – Have students code phrases in the Phoenician alphabet (many textbooks have the alphabet printed in them). This is a bit easier that with the cuneiform assignment because they actually had an alphabet!
- Phoenician trade log – students make a log of imports/exports to Phoenicia including where they came from or went.
Culminating Mesopotamia Projects
- Mesopotamia Times Newspaper – write articles, want ads, classifieds, editorials, etc and create a newspaper. Maybe require that the articles each cover a news story dealing with a different aspect of Mesopotamian life – government, music, art, religion, etc…
Geography
- Compile a list of ancient Mesopotamian cities and the dates they were founded and make a timeline.
- Maps, maps, maps. Being a visual person myself, maps are always good. I have my students label a map of Mesopotamia and the surrounding area. Coloring maps is also quite satisfying. Also fun is making maps using color to show the different empires that ruled over Mesopotamia.
- Mesopotamian City Map – have students make an overhead map of what a Mesopotamian city probably looked like. Maybe they can make inset pictures on the map showing close-ups of the ziggurat, market, houses, etc…
Roles in Mesopotamian Society
- Social classes of Mesopotamia Art/Diagram – have students make a graphic organizer showing the various social classes of ancient Mesopotamia. Allow them to get “out there” if they choose and get really creative, metaphorical, and expressive in how they make their diagrams/organizers.
Mesopotamian Achievements
- Analysis of the Standard of Ur – have students look at a photo, diagram, drawing, or other representation of the Standard of Ur and have them try to figure out what is says/means. Then discuss what archaeologists/historians/etc think it means.
- Have students draw a Standard of Y (Y being whatever you want – your school, state, country, the students’ lives, etc..) The standard shows different important events, people, etc., just like the Standard of Ur.
- Epic of Gilgamesh Comic Book – students tell the story in comic book form including comic-style drawings, dialogue, and/or captions.
- Hammurabi’s Code Art – Students pick various laws from Hammurabi’s Code and depict them in visual form. As an extension/alternative to the Social Classes Diagram, they could make pictures to show how different social classes would be treated under the law according to Hammurabi.
- Visual Almanac of Mesopotamian Achievements – students draw pictures and write brief informational captions about some of the many achievements/inventions of the Mesopotamians.
- Draw a picture/diagram of a Phoenician marketplace.
- Mesopotamia Collage - Have students use the computer to find photos (or magazines, if available) to make a collage showing different aspects of Mesopotamian civilization.
- Make a picture book of Mesopotamian life to include everything from its geography to the rule of Babylon, etc…Making a PowerPoint of this might be fun too.
Geography
- Make a raised relief map model of Mesopotamia.
- Create a mime or other silent drama presentation dealing with the geography of Mesopotamia. Example: A silent play depicting travel from the headwaters of the Tigris or Euphrates to the delta at the Persian Gulf, perhaps with a side trip to the desert of course.
- Build a model/diorama of a Mesopotamian city.
- Write and perform a skit showing interaction between the Mesopotamian social classes.
- A scribe school skit
- Dance of the Mesopotamian Farmers – showing what must have been the daily routine of Mesopotamian farmer
- Create and perform a mime showing….Mesopotamian farming, scribing/writing, a priest-king ruling his people, the role of priests/priestesses
- Build a model or make a diorama of a ziggurat.
- Build a replica of the Standard of Ur.
- Make a Mesopotamian-style sculpture.
- Create a mode/diorama of Mesopotamian farm. A real growing farm with flowing water and a irrigation system would be..HOLY COW, so cool!
- Build models/dioramas of Mesopotamian inventions (the wheel, chariot, etc…)
- Make a usable clay tablet and stylus.
- Reenact a Mesopotamian battle using figurines or make a fixed, frozen battle scene.
- Make a model/diorama of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
- Make a sculpture of Gilgamesh.
- Mesopotamian religion skit
- Hammurabi’s Code mock trial
- skit depicting Phoenician trade domination
- Create and perform an interpretative dance (with/without music) showing a Mesopotamian myth.
- dance depicting the events shown on either panel of the Standard of Ur
- Mime a Mesopotamian myth or parts of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
- Try to make a trade without saying anything (somewhat simulates trading with someone that speaks a different language).
Geography
- Use Excel to make graphs like climographs, population density graphs, harvest record graphs, or whatever other statistical data you can find on Mesopotamia.
- Use a mapping program to create maps using similar data
- Create a game in which players have to travel through Mesopotamia, facing various geographical hazards, challenges, etc…
- Mesopotamian Math – The Mesopotamians based their math on 60. Here’s some “stuff” including a Mesopotamian math worksheet.
- Playing with cuneiform and/or the Phoenician alphabet is quite logical/mathematical. Kids tend to really like writing in and/or translating language to and from the ancient languages.
- Play Empires! – This game from Interact has a lot of math (keeping records) and logic/strategy in it. This game is better if you have a blocked style class with more than just a 50 minute period. 50 minutes is pretty short to do the lessons without rushing and stressing yourself and the students out. Having said that, it does cover most of the content of my Mesopotamia unit in a fun and engaging way.
- Design and play a Mesopotamia game – I had some students do this a few years ago in another class and on another subject. It was great! They came up with really fun (ingenious, in some cases) games to play with classmates.
- Design Mesopotamian puzzles – make word searches, crossword puzzles, vocabulary scrambles, etc…Or get pictures from the web, magazines, or other source and actually make a jigsaw puzzle!
- Make a timeline of Mesopotamian history – you can make these fairly easily on the computer with the right software, such as Inspiration 8.0
Culminating Projects
- National anthems can be a fun way to integrate music into the curriculum. Just have the students write national anthems for each civilization (or even city-states) of ancient Mesopotamia. This reinforces the important characteristics while providing an avenue to explore musical interests. Of course, this could also go with verbal/linguistic.
- Students these days (boy that makes me sound old) really like making raps. Raps can be about everything from how the rivers made life in Mesopotamia possible to how the Babylonians conquered Mesopotamia, etc, etc…It’s really fun if you let them dress up for their performances.
- A musical play – your students may or may not be familiar with musical theatre (i.e. The Music Man, The Sound of Music, etc.). This could be a fun way to include music in the history curriculum. Have the class write a play complete with dialogue and songs. Of course this project would require a substantial time investment to be worthwhile. I bet it would be fun though!
- Research the deserts of Mesopotamia and write a report, make a diorama, etc…
- Research the marshlands of Mesopotamia and write a report, make a diorama, etc…
- Find out what plant and/or insect species your area and Mesopotamia have in common and collect specimens.
- Examine how the Persian Gulf has receded and land reclaimed by the desert since the time of ancient Mesopotamia. Make a model, write a paper, make a poster, etc…
- Research how nature fit into the religion of the ancient Mesopotamians. Make a booklet, brochure, report, etc…
- Make a monster index of animals/monsters encountered in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Draw pictures and make a little booklet out of it. (or PowerPoint, poster, etc…)
- Make a boy/girl scout handbook of ancient Mesopotamia showing how to survive in that environment.
- Basically any project done in a group
- Different groups with different projects, i.e. a Verbal/Linguistic group, a Visual/Spatial group, etc…
- Skits, skits, skits
- Any project done individually
- If I were a geographical feature of Mesopotamia, I would be…and why, of course.
- If I could travel to the region of Mesopotamia, where I would go and why.
Amazon River Once Flowed Backwards
Sediment along the Amazon River indicate that the river once flowed from ancient highlands on the eastern coast of South America to the west. This contrasts the current flow of the Amazon from its headwaters in the Andes Mountains to the Atlantic ocean to the east.
The discovery was made by a graduate student of geology, Russell Mapes, and his advisor, Dr. Drew Coleman, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
By analyzing the age of sediment along the Amazon Basin, the two researchers confirmed previous research indicating reverse flow along portions of the river but also found that at one time, the Amazon’s reverse flow was actually continent-wide.
If the Amazon had continuously flowed eastward, as it does now, Mapes and Coleman would have found much younger mineral grains in the sediments from the Andes.
“We didn’t see any,” Mapes said. “All along the basin, the ages of the mineral grains all pointed to very specific locations in central and eastern South America.
Mapes explains that these sediments of eastern origin were washed down from a highland area that formed in the Cretaceous Period, between 65 million and 145 million years ago, when the South American and African tectonic plates separated and passed each other. That highland tilted the river’s flow westward, sending sediment as old as 2 billion years toward the center of the continent.
A relatively low ridge, called the Purus Arch, which still exists, rose in the middle of the continent, running north and south, dividing the Amazon’s flow - eastward toward the Atlantic and westward toward the Andes.
Toward the end of the Cretaceous, the Andes started growing, which sent the river back toward the Purus Arch. Eventually, sediment from the mountains, which contained mineral grains younger than 500 million years old, filled in the basin between the mountains and the arch, the river breeched it and started its current flow.
“It was a surprise, just because I didn’t have any idea what to expect,” Mapes said. “I didn’t know it would work out so perfectly.”
The finding, Mapes said, helps illustrate that “the surface of the earth is very transient. Although the Amazon seems permanent and unchanging it has actually gone through three different stages of drainage since the mid-Cretaceous, a short period of time geologically speaking.”
Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The discovery was made by a graduate student of geology, Russell Mapes, and his advisor, Dr. Drew Coleman, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
By analyzing the age of sediment along the Amazon Basin, the two researchers confirmed previous research indicating reverse flow along portions of the river but also found that at one time, the Amazon’s reverse flow was actually continent-wide.
If the Amazon had continuously flowed eastward, as it does now, Mapes and Coleman would have found much younger mineral grains in the sediments from the Andes.
“We didn’t see any,” Mapes said. “All along the basin, the ages of the mineral grains all pointed to very specific locations in central and eastern South America.
Mapes explains that these sediments of eastern origin were washed down from a highland area that formed in the Cretaceous Period, between 65 million and 145 million years ago, when the South American and African tectonic plates separated and passed each other. That highland tilted the river’s flow westward, sending sediment as old as 2 billion years toward the center of the continent.
A relatively low ridge, called the Purus Arch, which still exists, rose in the middle of the continent, running north and south, dividing the Amazon’s flow - eastward toward the Atlantic and westward toward the Andes.
Toward the end of the Cretaceous, the Andes started growing, which sent the river back toward the Purus Arch. Eventually, sediment from the mountains, which contained mineral grains younger than 500 million years old, filled in the basin between the mountains and the arch, the river breeched it and started its current flow.
“It was a surprise, just because I didn’t have any idea what to expect,” Mapes said. “I didn’t know it would work out so perfectly.”
The finding, Mapes said, helps illustrate that “the surface of the earth is very transient. Although the Amazon seems permanent and unchanging it has actually gone through three different stages of drainage since the mid-Cretaceous, a short period of time geologically speaking.”
Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Vikings' Jim Marshall Runs Wrong Way on Fumble Recovery 1964
On October 25, 1964, Jim Marshall, defensive-end for the famed "Purple People Eaters" of the Minnesota Vikings, recovered a fumble against the San Francisco 49ers and ran the wrong way, scoring a safety for the opposing team. The Vikings did go on to win the game, but "Wrong Way" Marshall's mistake will forever be remembered in NFL lore.
I happened to comment to my wife during the NLCS between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals that Mets pitcher Steve Trachsel was the pitcher that gave up Mark McGwire's 62nd homerun in 1998. Or how about Tim Wakefield giving up the game winning homerun to Yankee Aaron Boone in the ALCS a few years back. Then there was Cleveland Brown Ernest Byner's infamous fumble against the Broncos in the AFC Championship Game in 1988. And oh yeah, Buckner. And the list goes on and on...
Why do we always remember the goats in sports? I think people take a bit of solace in the fact that even elite athletes make mistakes. I always tell my students that people usually don't mistakes unless they're trying. Mistakes are a part of life, and being afraid to make them leaves us paralyzed.
So Wrong Way, on this 42nd anniversary of your mistake, I toast you. You still made a great play, and who knows, had you not, the 49ers might have scored a touchdown on that possession and beat you.
I happened to comment to my wife during the NLCS between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals that Mets pitcher Steve Trachsel was the pitcher that gave up Mark McGwire's 62nd homerun in 1998. Or how about Tim Wakefield giving up the game winning homerun to Yankee Aaron Boone in the ALCS a few years back. Then there was Cleveland Brown Ernest Byner's infamous fumble against the Broncos in the AFC Championship Game in 1988. And oh yeah, Buckner. And the list goes on and on...
Why do we always remember the goats in sports? I think people take a bit of solace in the fact that even elite athletes make mistakes. I always tell my students that people usually don't mistakes unless they're trying. Mistakes are a part of life, and being afraid to make them leaves us paralyzed.
So Wrong Way, on this 42nd anniversary of your mistake, I toast you. You still made a great play, and who knows, had you not, the 49ers might have scored a touchdown on that possession and beat you.
Ancient Sumerian Religion
SERVANTS TO THE GODS
The Sumerian religion was polytheistic; they worshiped more than one god/goddess. The Sumerians believed that they were put on earth to serve and take care of the gods. If the gods weren’t happy, they became cranky and took it out on the people – or so they believed.
The Sumerians believed that if the gods were happy, everything would be great. Food would be plentiful, the flooding of the rivers would be regular and predictable, there would be no earthquakes, bad sand storms or other disasters, and life would be just great. We all know that there are periods when life is great. It always eventually takes a turn, however, and in Sumer, when life took a turn, the gods were blamed. More correctly, the people blamed themselves for doing something to upset the gods.
GIFTS TO THE GODS
The Sumerians believed that to keep the gods happy, they must sacrifice or give gifts to the gods. These sacrifices ranged from all kinds of food (grains, vegetables, etc) to live animals and other goods. The gifts were taken to the temple (called a ziggurat) and given to the priests. It was believed that the priests could speak to the gods and offer them the gifts from the people.
AFTERLIFE
In 1925, British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a tomb in the ruins of the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur. A queen of Ur was buried in the tomb, and with her were buried servants, soldiers, and even a musician with her fingers still on a lyre. The site is often referred to, quite appropriately, as the Death Pit of Ur.
The contents of the Death Pit of Ur seem to tell us that the Sumerians definitely believed in life after death. The servants may very well have taken their own life to join and serve the queen in the afterlife.
Even everyday people were probably buried with some of their belongings to use in the afterlife. For instance, a metal smith might be buried with some of his tools, or a soldier with his weapons and armor.
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