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Article: City life.(cities of ancient Mesopotamia)
- Article from:
- Appleseeds
- Article date:
- October 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Carus Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What makes a place a city? Most experts agree that the first cities developed in ancient Mesopotamia about 5,500 years ago. At that time, large numbers of people began living closely together. Unlike the small villages where people had lived for thousands of years, in these new cities as many as 40,000 people lived together in one area. Often, the first city dwellers built a wall around the temple, palace, and houses that made up their large community.
What if you had grown up in a Mesopotamian city? Perhaps your father was a baker or a barber. Or he might have been a builder, using clay bricks to build houses. He could have been a priest, studying the stars to ...