Unit 1 study guide:

From the Richardson article on Mesopotamian warfare:

You don’t need to know the fine details of chronology (eg. When “Neo-Assyrian” is) or all the terms
defined. Here’s what I’ll be asking about:

• Be able to find Mesopotamia (a geographical region) on a map. You don’t have to be able to
label each city-state; just know what region we’re discussing.
• By the end of the unit, be able to integrate this picture of military structure in Mesopotamia
with the arrival of chariot technology in the region.

Here’s what you should extract from the article, in order of appearance:

1. What’s the difference between old and new military history? (a general idea about “top down”
vs. “bottom up” history is fine.)
2. What’s the relationship between a state (eg. A kingdom, empire, city-state) and the military in
general, and how did that relationship work in ancient Mesopotamia?
3. How did the relationship between agriculture, labor, and the military develop in ancient
Mesopotamia? Know what ilku is, generally.
4. Be able to describe how soldiers were paid and supported besides ilku lands. Focus on section 4.
5. Pay attention to pg. 31-3 (issues this pay structure created in the military itself), and section 7
(difficulties posed to soldiers and commanders in this system)
6. Finally, be familiar with the degree to which this military system did (and didn’t) impact the way
Mesopotamian societies saw gender.

Terms to remember from the lecture:

• Wagon vs. chariot

• Przewalski's horse
• Bit, harness (horse-riding gear)
• Donkey/ Ass vs. mule vs. horse
• City-state
• Nomadic society
• Gender constructs (eg. “masculinity”)
• Sumer (know it’s in Mesopotamia)
• Akkadian (see Sumer)
• Babylon (also Mesopotamia)
• Tarim basin (NOT Mesopotamia)
• Circumvallation (it means to build a wall around something to defend it)
• Levy (as in “to levy troops”)
• Recurve bow (archery), long bow

Concepts to Know:
• What technologies had to be developed to invent the chariot.
• How old are the world’s oldest pants? Why does that matter? Where were they found?
• What logistical problems the chariot addressed.
 • How we know when and where this technology was created.
• What Mesopotamians used before the chariot’s introduction and why the chariot was a game
changer.
• The dates for the invention of the chariot, about when it spread to Mesopotamia, and when and
why it became essentially obsolete around the 900 BCE mark.
• What we do (and do not) know about the people who invented the chariot, and how the
example of the proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) complicated the idea that the “winners write
history”
• Besides the chariot, what else did the PIE language speakers give us? (Hint: The answer’s in the
prompt)

Finally, review the study slides. Every image with a label, esp. dates and culture labels, is fair game for a
quiz question.