Unit Study: Mesopotamia

We've been doing ancient civilizations for our history segment. We finished up Ancient Egypt (and thoroughly enjoyed that one!) and have since moved on to Mesopotamia -- a Greek word which means "land between rivers". Mesopotamia is a fascinating land which included the Babylonians, Assyrians and other cultures (with lots of Biblical threads running back and forth).

Here are the resources we've used so far:

• Gilgamesh the King
• The Revenge of Ishtar
• The Last Quest of Gilgamesh

These three books are the Gilgamesh epic retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman. They are fabulous retellings of this oldest epic ever told. Gilgamesh is half-god, half-man but learns to love humans through his friends, Enkidu and Shamat. Ishtar, a goddess who loves (but is thwarted by) Gilgamesh is the villain in these stories. The illustrations in this series are wonderful – funny, detailed and historically accurate. Great reading!

Eyewitness Books: Mesopotamia by Philip Steele this wonderful DK book includes a CD-rom of various images (including unlabeled maps) from the book. This is a great overview book and the CD was lots of fun to investigate! A wall-chart gives a quickie overview of the highlights of Mesopotamian history.

Ancient Mesopotamia (vhs) – led by “Arizona Smith”, the viewer is taken on a tour of Mesopotamia. This is a great video not only about the ancient culture, history and tales of Mesopotamian societies, but is also a great introduction to archaeology.

Hercule Poirot: Murder in Mesopotamia (dvd) – we are big Agatha Christie fans around here and I couldn’t resist adding this to our unit. Christie herself was a hobbyist-archaeologist (accompanying her husband on digs) and so the information contained in this story is very well done.