Tag Archives: Social Studies 6

My Life in the Qin Dynasty

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     Since I’m a woman, when we battle in wars I’m not at the front, so I won’t get killed easily. But my grandfather, husband and brother died because of the wars of conquest. Millions died… I was forced to leave my family to fight. I hate it.

     The emperor Qin ordered that measuring cups are the same size so they held the same amount. And to standardize weights, metalworkers made bell-shaped out of bronze or iron in different sizes. For money, people used, pearls, silver, tin objects, and coins. He also deleted not needed Chinese characters. A later dictionary listed 9,000 approved characters. Under Emperor Qin, only gold or bronze coins are accepted.

      The life here is VERY unhappy. There are harsh punishments. Even if the emperor THOUGHT, just THOUGHT, you were a threat he would exile or kill your whole family. He even exiled his own mother because he feared she was plotting against him.

And he is so scared of being threatened that he divided China into 36 districts, with 3 officials guarding them. We can only learn Daoism, and Legalism. All the Confucian books where burned, JUST because one Confucius soldier threatened him. People who still followed Confucianism were buried alive or beheaded. We were also forced to 700,000 workers to build the terra-cotta army to protect his tomb. If this was supposed to be done in 2013 it would be much easier. Except all soldiers would probably look the same. 

     When I was forced to leave my family to build the Great Wall, I was horrified. Only my children at the house! The oldest only 12. Will they survive??? I had to work ALL DAY. Hundreds of people died while building it. But I refused to be one of them. I had to survive this. I wish that my family will be okay. People who died were buried right into the wall. When we were done 10 years later, the Wall proved to be quite affective. No invasions, no nomads. 🙂

Which Mesopotamian Empire accomplished the most?

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I think the Neo-Babylonian Empire accomplished the most, there are many reasons why I think so.

One example is that they were the most protected empire. The walls were so thick two chariots could pass each other on top of them. They also had moats with crocodiles in them. When there’s no war, there is a bridge, but when there is war, the bridges are taken down so enemies can’t get past easily. Another example is that they invented the 60-minute hour and the 7-day week. That is a great accomplishment because now we don’t need to say something like, “School starts when you wake up.” Or “School starts after the rooster says, ‘cockle doodle doo!!!'” Now we just say, “School starts at 8:00AM on Mondays.” They also invented the sundial. It allowed them to know the time. They were also famous for their Hanging Gardens. That meant that they had planted beautiful gardens that hung over buildings. To make it even more amazing, they did that in the middle of a desert.

You might say, “But Assyrians have new weapons made of iron, they were cruel, and had new military strategies!” But the Neo-Babylonians still got control over the Assyrians. They had better protection, so they didn’t need that much people fighting. You also might say, “The Akkadians wrote on steles, that gave us a writen history of them!!! Isn’t that more important?” Well, if an empire isn’t protected, then we can’t write on steles either. Didn’t you think of that?

I guess you know why I think the Neo-Babylonians accomplished the most now. I hope this essay helps!!!

Hammurabi’s Code

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I chose rule #126 on the list of rules on Hammurabi’s Code. If any one who has not lost his goods state that they have been lost, and make false claims: if he claim his goods and amount of injury before God, even though he has not lost them, he shall be fully compensated for all his loss claimed. It means that if someone says something like, “I lost my bag of corn while I was sleeping! Somebody robbed my house!!!” but later someone sees a bag of corn under his bed. His punishment is to lose that bag of corn.

I also chose rule #127 on the list of rules on Hammurabi’s Code. If any one “point the finger” (slander) at a sister of a god or the wife of any one, and can not prove it, this man shall be taken before the judges and his brow shall be marked (by cutting the skin, or perhaps hair.) It means that if someone accuses a sister of a god or a wife of anyone, and you don’t have proof that you didn’t do it, for example, someone accuses a sister of god of not being fair, then his punishment is so be taken to the judges and his eyebrow will be marked either by cutting the skin or the hair.