Sumer & Babylonia contains 12 full-color transparencies (print books) or PowerPoint slides (eBooks), 4 reproducible pages, and a richly detailed teacher's guide.

Civilization was born eight thousand years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period and explores the political and social systems, as well as the technical and cultural innovations, which made this land extraordinary. At the heart of this book is the story of Babylon, which rose to prominence under the Amorite king Hammurabi from about 1800 BCE. Even as Babylon's fortunes waxed and waned, it never lost its allure as the ancient world's greatest city. Engaging and compelling, Babylon reveals the splendor of the ancient world that laid the foundation for civilization itself.

The rediscovery of Babylon and Assyria in the 1840s transformed Western views on the origins of civilisation. The excavation of Nineveh proved that even the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians together did not constitute the ancient world. These peoples had nothing to do with the beginnings of civilisation on Earth. It was in Mesopotamia that humanity took the first steps on its path towards the society we know today. The Sumerians inaugurated civilisation itself, but it was the Babylonians and then the Assyrians who fulfilled its potential. Their early experiments in state formation remain fascinating to us today: just like our governments, for a thousand years Babylon and Assyria grappled with the challenges of organising central power, administering distant territories, and engineering social harmony in empires and their cities. These achievements form one of the momentous episodes in human history; the Mesopotamian invention of writing revolutionised our minds and increased our intellectual possibilities a hundredfold. The First Great Powers is a revelation: of kingship, warfare, society and religion. Here at last we can discover what it meant to be an ancient Mesopotamian living in such an extraordinary world.

Our popular Illuminating History series is now available with PowerPoint CDs! Welcome to ancient Mesopotamia - home of the world's first cities. This strip of land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers is often called the "Cradle of Civilization." Mesopotamians were among the first to use the wheel and the written word. In mathematics, they used place value and were comfortable with quadratic equations. They had libraries that included everything from recipe books to directions for making glass. People still read Gilgamesh, their great epic poem. The activities in this book provide insight into the history, technology, laws, economy, literature, and art of ancient Mesopotamia. The PowerPoint slides included on the CD can be used alone or with specific activities listed in the table of contents. To order the eBook version, please see EMP4822 (standard) or EMP4822i (enhanced).

Explore the Captivating History of Babylon The Babylonian influence upon its successors and even modern society knows no bounds. One of the leading civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Babylonians provided the fundamentals of mathematics, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, and other influential and necessary fields required to develop other great civilizations such as the Greeks, Romans, and even contemporary nations like China and the United States. Without them, no neoteric world could exist. In Babylon: A Captivating Guide to the Kingdom in Ancient Mesopotamia, Starting from the Akkadian Empire to the Battle of Opis Against Persia, Including Babylonian Mythology and the Legacy of Babylonia, you will discover topics such as The Land of the Babylonians Life, Culture, and Gender Roles Throughout the Years Where Superstition Met Science Babylonia Before the Babylonians The Amorite Dynasty or the First Babylonians The First Fall of Babylon and the Rise of the Kassites Assyrian Domination and Rule, 911-619 BCE The Neo-Babylonian Empire The Persian Conquest and Hellenistic Period Religion, Mythology, and the Creation Myths The Short Version of the Biblical Babylonians And much, much more! So if you want to learn more about Babylon, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button!

This civilization is single-handedly responsible for some of the most major innovations in nearly every field relevant to maintaining a civilized society - this includes religion, lawmaking, architecture, schooling, art, literature, and even entertainment.

The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. "There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. . . . One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation."—American Journal of Archaeology "An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity."—Library Journal