After Sumer: Akkad, Assyria and the Babylonian empires

Grade 6 Social Studies Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Assyria, an empire on the Tigris

   Topic	What we know
   Homeland	the city of Ashur, on the west bank of the Tigris River in northern Mesopotamia
   Capitals	Ashur stayed the old religious capital; kings also ruled from Nimrud (Kalhu), Khorsabad and then Nineveh
   Strong kings	from the 800s to the 600s BCE, Assyrian armies controlled the main trade routes
   Running the empire	governors ran the provinces; under Ashurbanipal, no governor was appointed without the king being consulted
   The library	Ashurbanipal (ruled 668 to 627 BCE) collected texts at Nineveh into the first systematically organized library in the ancient Middle East
   The end	Babylonians and Medes together brought the empire down; Ashur and Nineveh fell in 612 BCE

   Below the chart: about 20,720 tablets and fragments from the library are now in the British Museum in London. Sennacherib (ruled 704 to 681 BCE) made Nineveh the capital. The Assyrian king Sargon II (ruled 721 to 705 BCE) is a different person from Sargon of Akkad.

2. 1.

   Beside which river was Assyria's homeland, Bo asks?

   • The Euphrates, beside Babylon in the south
   • The Tigris, in northern Mesopotamia
   • The Tigris, in southern Mesopotamia
   • The Nile, in northern Egypt
3. 2.

   Which list is in time order, earliest first, Kira asks?

   • Sennacherib, the fall of Nineveh, then Ashurbanipal
   • Ashurbanipal, Sennacherib, then the fall of Nineveh
   • Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal, then the fall of Nineveh
   • The fall of Nineveh, Ashurbanipal, then Sennacherib
4. 3.

   Who ruled first, Sargon II or Ashurbanipal, Luz asks?

   • Sargon of Akkad, from about 2340 BCE
   • They ruled Assyria together
   • Ashurbanipal, from 668 BCE
   • Sargon II, from 721 BCE
5. 4.

   About how many years passed from the end of Ashurbanipal's reign to the fall of Nineveh, Milo asks?

   • About 56 years
   • About 15 years before his reign ended
   • About 15 years
   • About 1,239 years
6. 5.

   What brought the Assyrian empire down, by the chart, Noah asks?

   • Cyrus II of Persia
   • Babylonians and Medes, together
   • The Medes, alone
   • The Babylonians, alone
7. 6.

   Ashurbanipal gathered a library. Which effect does the note show, Pia asks?

   • Most texts from Mesopotamia survive today
   • The library made Nineveh the capital
   • About 20,720 of its tablets and fragments survive
   • The library brought the empire down in 612
8. 7.

   Why can we study Ashurbanipal's library today, Ren asks?

   • The library still stands open at Nineveh
   • The Akkadians copied it for later readers
   • Ashurbanipal wrote the texts himself
   • Thousands of its tablets survive in a museum
9. 8.

   A museum label written this year describes a library tablet. What kind of source is the label, Tala asks?

   • A secondary source, written much later
   • A primary source, since it hangs in a museum
   • Not a source, since museums do not write
   • A primary source, since it is about an old tablet
10. 9.

    What kind of source are the library's own clay tablets on Assyrian learning, Zee asks?

    • Secondary sources, since this chart describes them
    • Secondary sources, since they are in London now
    • Primary sources, made at the time
    • Not sources, since clay cannot hold writing
11. 10.

    Which is a primary source on Ashurbanipal's reign, Ari asks?

    • A clay tablet from his library at Nineveh
    • This compare chart about Assyria, made for the class
    • A museum web page about the library, written this year
    • A modern map of where Nineveh stood long ago