Humanities CLASS DISCUSSIONS 2 MESOPOTAMIA
1. Ancient Mesopotamia was, for the most, situated between two bodies of water. What are the modern names for these two bodies of water?
a.The Caspian and the Antioch
b.The Nile and the Black Sea
c.The Nile Delta and the Aegean
d. The Tigris and the Euphrates

2. Fiero credits these people with creating a twenty-two sign alphabet that became the basis of all Western alphabets. Which group is this?
the Phoenicians
the Chaldeans
the Persians
the Egyptians

3. Fiero writes "whereas in Babylonian myth the universe is spontaneously generated and initially chaotic, the Hebrew Creation describes a univese that is…" WHAT?
"systematically planned and invested with a preconceived moral order."
"created by God, but left in the hands of humans."
"peaceful, but becomes chaotic because of greed and war."
"a combination of fate, free-will and destiny."

4. Fiero writes, "unlike the Egyptian pyramids, which functioned as a tomb, the ziggurat served as a WHAT"?
"shrine and temple."

"site for cremation ceremony."

platform for politcal speeches."

"home for the family of the dead."

5. Hebrew monotheism focused on devotion to a single Supreme Being. This God came to be called Yahweh. What is the Latin name for Yahweh?
Sumeria
Abraham
Jehovah
Asseria

6. Scholars disagree about its place in the history of literature. It is, perhaps, the oldest written story on earth. We know that it comes to us from Ancient Sumeria and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cuneiform script. Gloria Fiero writes in The Humanistic Tradition that the central motifs in this work are "the theme of human vulnerability and the search for everlasting life." It is thought to be the first story in the world to have a protagonist with a name and a personality. What is this work?
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Babylonian Creation
The Book of the Dead
The Code of Hammurabi

7. The book of Psalms is:

the first chapter in the Babylonian creation myth

a collection of songs, praise, thanksgiving,
confession and supplication

the last chapter in the Babylonian creation myth

the first recorded laws

8. The most famous early image of a human, a woman, is the so-called "Venus" of Willendorf is:

Probably the most famous early artistic image of a human, a woman

The first female leader in Ancient Greece

An early Greek sculpture

a painting on a cave wall in what is now Germany

9. What ancient text — a long poem — recounts the formation of the universe?
It is sometimes called Enuma Elish. Characters in in include Tiamat and Marduk. Fiero writes that "like the environment of Mesopotamia, its gods and goddesses were fierce and capricious, its mythology filled with physical and spiritual woes." What is this work?

The Epic of Gilgamesh

THe Babylonian Creation

The Book of the Dead

The Code of Hammurabi

10. What best descibes The Ark of the Covenant?

The name of the boat the Hebrews took from Egypt back to Mesopotamia

A song/poem performed at the death of Mesoptamian royalty

a chest or box containing the tablets of The Ten Commandments

the Biblical name for Noah’s Ark

11. What do cantors do?
build ships
create iron molds
guard the Assyrian aqueducts
Chant biblical passages as part of the Hebew liturgy

12. What is a shofar?
A ram’s horn, used as a trumpet, to call the faithful to prayer
the clay tablets containing the Epic of Gilgamesh
a prayer cloth
A harp from Ur

13. What is antiphonal?
a belief that singing should not take place during religious services

A type of music in which two or more groups of voices or instruments alternate with one another

the belief in only one god

a seven-branched candelabrum

14. What is not true of a ziggurat?

it is often a large terraced tower of rubble and brick.

According to Fiero "no ziggurat remains in the 21st Century and scholars now believe they might never have existed."

The height of these structure, Fiero writes symbolizes "the sacred mountain linking the realms of heaven and earth."

they often contained steep exterior stairwells.

15. What is the first book of the Torah?
Genesis
Exodus
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Numbers

16. What is the Standard of Ur?

A double-sided wooden panel executed in shell, mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli. It appears to commemorate a Sumerian victory.

Strict Asseryian laws that predate the Code of Hammurabi.

multiplication tables devised in Babylon.

Statuettes from the Abu temple.

17. What or who is Ishtar?
a storm and rain god
the goddess of the moon
the goddess of grain
the goddess of love, fertility and war; Queen of Heaven

18. Who is the Mesopotamian god Nisaba?
goddess of the moon
father of the gods, god of heaven
storm and rain god
goddess of grain

19. Who were the first of the Iron-age empire builders?
The Assyrians
The Robbins
The Baskins
The 3rd century b.c.e. Greeks

20. Who/what is Sin (Nanna)?

a carving system, incorporating sharp rock and

flowing water

the name for the Lydian’s standard coinage

storm and rain god

Goddess of the moon

21. According to Mr. Butterly, who was Gilgamesh’s great friend?
Akkadian
Enkindu
Moses
The "Queen of the Night"

22. Around 2100 B.C. king Ur-Nammu built a ziggurat in honour of the god Sin in the city of Ur. It was called ‘Etemennigur’, which means what?
‘Where the sun shines always’
‘House whose foundation creates terror’
‘Place of love and gods’
‘Mud and water on land’

23. Mr. Butterly tells us that Gilgamesh was a real person, fictionalized in the Epic of Gilgamesh. According to Butterly, what were the attributes of the fictional Gilgamesh?

He was two-thirds adult and one-third child

He was two-thirds god and one-third man

He had the head of a human and the body of a lion

The was two-thirds god and one-third lion

24. What is a stelae or stela?

contract; the bond between the Hebrew people and their God

a ritual for public worship

an upright stone or slab with an inscribed or sculptured surface, used as a monument or as a commemorative tablet in the face of a building

a state achieved militarily by the unification of territories under a single sovereign power

25. Who was C. Leonard Woolley?

Archeaologist. Ziggurat excavator circa 1920’s.

. Bought the Standard of Ur at auction for 12,500,000 in 2002.

Translator of The Humanistic Tradition: Prehistory to the Early Modern World

First English translator of the Torah