6.6c - Mediterranean World: Feudal Western Europe - The Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic Caliphates - Practices A through E

Too many forests blocking access to the river

Unpredictable floods and uneven access to water for crops

A shortage of metal tools for hunting

A decline in long-distance sea trade routes

“Year of high floods.”

“Canal workers widened the east canal.”

“Water gates closed at dusk.”

“Each farm sends 2 baskets of barley as tax.”

Officials organized canal labor to manage floodwaters and irrigation.

Farmers depended only on rainfall and avoided changing the landscape.

Trade merchants controlled the river and set all farming rules.

The society valued fishing more than farming, so canals were unimportant.

It lists a sequence of actions people took to control and use river water.

It explains that farming succeeded only because the climate never changed.

It shows that trade, not farming, was the society’s main concern.

It proves the river flooded only once and then stopped flooding.

“Fields flooded” and “Harvest Month”

“Workers raised earth dikes” and “canal gates opened for irrigation”

“Day 3” and “Day 10”

“Grain stored” and “tax recorded”

Because water management helped produce crops that could be counted and taxed.

Because taxes caused the flood to happen each year.

Because recording taxes replaced the need to irrigate fields.

Because dikes were built mainly to improve sea travel.

Seasonal weather changes made planning for water and food necessary for large populations.

Constant winter snow forced people to build igloos near rivers.

Desert societies avoided rivers because water was considered unsafe.

River valley cities could not grow crops, so water systems were unnecessary.

Source A focuses on organized food storage, while Source B focuses on building shared water access.

Both sources describe rulers banning all changes to the landscape.

Source A explains sea trade, while Source B explains mountain mining.

Both sources show that farming depended only on rainfall and required no planning.

“after monsoon”

“grain measured for the town”

“New well lined with bricks”

“water shared by work crews”

To drain floodwater toward a marshy area

To move people quickly between two mountain towns

To bring salt water inland for fishing ponds

To mark a religious boundary around temples

Canal 1 delivered irrigation water to farm plots away from the river.

Canal 1 was built mainly to increase sea trade with distant ports.

The northern fields could only be farmed with rainfall and needed no canals.

Canal 1 carried water away from fields to stop all crop growth.

The river’s curved path

The earthen levee near the town mound

The grid pattern of fields

The label naming the map

Collecting taxes and using resources to support canal maintenance

Ending all trade so people rely only on local goods

Letting each farm manage water with no shared system

Replacing farming with hunting as the main source of food

Require each farm to contribute grain or labor for canal repairs each year

Stop collecting any taxes so canals repair themselves naturally

Use only rainfall and abandon all water-control structures

Limit canal access to merchants instead of farmers

Leaders collected farm goods and redistributed them to support public labor

Money-based markets replaced all government planning

Irrigation work was done only by visitors from other regions

Farms produced no surplus beyond what each family ate