The Ancient Mesopotamians: The City of Ur

Last week we learned that ancient hunter-gatherers were nomadic and lived in small groups, whereas people who lived in the first civilizations (like Mesopotamia) began to live in much larger groups.

These permanent settlements -- with houses, shops, streets, and organized systems of government -- were (and are) known as cities (notice that the word "civilization" has the same root as the word "city").

One of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia was Ur (which Mr. Richmond likes to pronounce as "Urrrr").

Today in class, the students talked about ways that Ur was similar to -- and different from -- Charlottesville.

Halle made the insightful point that Ur and Charlottesville both have places of worship, but the temples in Ur (known as ziggurats) were open only to the priests and appear kind of intimidating.  Places of worship in Charlottesville, said Halle, tend to be more welcoming and inviting.

This is a picture of an ancient ziggurat that is still standing.

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Lots of great questions today, including:

Katherine: What kinds of merchandise did the shopkeepers in ancient Ur sell?

Sophie: What were the rules about going outside of the large walls that surrounded Ur?  Did most of the animals live within the city walls, or outside of the walls?

Jeremy: Does the city of Ur still exist?

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Musical Mondays:

Our musical selection for today was Beethoven's 7th Symphony.

This is another performance of the 7th Symphony, with the famous conductor Leonard Bernstein. Do you notice anything different about this performance?

Ethan: Did people in Beethoven's time listen to other kinds of music, or did they only listen to classical music?