Question

Located across the Red Sea and the Syrian Desert from Kush, there was the famous region of the Fertile Crescent called Mesopotamia. Framed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, it occupied what is now Iraq. The area experienced the same cyclical flooding periods that ancient Egypt and Kush did, and thus had to learn to adapt. The difference is, this “land between rivers” (the meaning of the origin of the name “Mesopotamia”) had the flooding of not just one waterway but an entire flowing border to harness. However, like ancient Egypt and Kush, its location made it an ideal site for irrigation practices: as the people of the Nile did, Mesopotamians coaxed water into typically drier regions with canals. The land was routinely fertilized by rich silt washed up by the rivers; Mesopotamia supported the harvest of barley, onions, grapes, apples, and turnips. Cattle and sheep grazed on fertile grassland, and fishermen made a living selling and trading their catch. Based on the reading passage above answer the following question: The Tigris and Euphrates rivers experiences "cyclical flooding," what is the significance of the flooding to the survival of the people of mesopotamia?

Answer 1

In Mesopotamia, "cyclical flooding" made possible natural irrigation of cropland and grazing land, which led to an agricultural development that did not need a large infrastructure, as in other cultures of the world, which had to build watering canals and crops. For the cultures from the Land Between Two Rivers, more than six thousand years ago, creating such channels would have been very difficult, but since the rivers overflow periodically, this allowed the farmers of the first cities of the Sumerians (such as Eridu, Uruk, and Ur) know when to plant, when the waters of both rivers arrive, and prosper in States Cities, beginning the sedentary life, and the first civilizations of the world.