21 Fascinating Ancient Civilizations Facts for Kids

Start each history lesson with a FASCINATING fact about Ancient Civilizations!

If your child (or you) dreads another boring history study, I dare you to read these surprising and unbelievable true stories of the people of Ancient Mesopotamia! This quick guide was made to use with the
FREE Ancient Civilizations and the Old Testament Curriculum (or just to read for FUN!).

Bites of information seem to stick in our brain for some reason. Maybe it’s because these little bits of trivia spark our interest and make us hungry for more. That is why I wanted to write this series of posts. Start each lesson with one of these amazing facts and get EXCITED about learning this year!

If you’d like the Printable PDF of this for quick reference without need of your computer or to print for your history binders you can find it here—-> 21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Civilizations PDF Version
**NEWLY ADDED!!
I just added printable Facts Cards for each day’s facts! You can print them, laminate them if you want, and then stick them in a basket on your kitchen table for history starters or just plain history trivia FUN!! I think you will love these!

*You can find the other posts in the Fascinating Facts History Starters About the Ancients below-
+21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Civilizations
+21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Egypt
+21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Greece
+21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Rome
+ 21 30 Fascinating Facts About the Middle Ages

*Week 1: The Beginning of Civilization-

Day 1- Kid Archaeologist Extraordinaire- Fun Fact !

Did you know that one of the most significant archeological finds in recent years was discovered not by a famous archaeologist, but by a kid ? When a shepherd boy tending his flock near the Dead Sea, lost one of his animals, he found something pretty amazing! Later named the Dead Sea Scrolls, the discovery included over 200 ancient scrolls containing every book (except Esther) from the Old Testament !

Want to know more?
+Discover The Dead Sea Scrolls

+Kids Discover Archeology Activities Online

Want to know more?
+Discover The Dead Sea Scrolls
+Kids Discover Archeology Activities Online

Day 2- Clever Creation Fun Fact !
Have you ever thought about how perfectly the Earth was created for life?
The Earth (while rotating at almost 67,000 miles per hour!) and the sun were created just the right distance apart. They continue this precise and intricate cycle of rotation every single day to heat and cool the Earth.
If the Earth was positioned closer to the sun, we’d come too near to the sun and all burn up! If it was postponed any further, we’d all freeze!

Want to learn more?

+How Far Away Is The Sun?
+God Created The Sun, Moon, and Stars

Day 3- Thanks Ancient Sumerians…Maybe – Fun Fact !
You can thank the ancient Sumerians for the first schools!
But be glad that teachers today aren’t as strict!! The Sumerians believed that in order for a lesson to be completely “learned”, it had to be BEATEN in. Children were frequently punished by being whipped with a bamboo pole for making even the smallest mistake! Maybe it was harder to erase when writing in cuneiform ?!

Want to read more?

+School Days In Ancient Mesopotamia
+Scribe School- Ancient Mesopotamia

*Week 2: The Sumerians & the Babylonians-

Day 1- Who Invented the Wheel ?

What comes to mind when you think of the very first people? Do you think of scientists, inventors, dentists, and architects? Or do you think of “Neanderthals” and grunting cave men? Did you know that the people of the very first civilizations were some of the most brilliant inventors ? Do you know who invented the first written language? Or the first sailboats? Or the chariot? Or a way to tell time ? What about the WHEEL? Imagine life without those!
You guessed it ! The people of Ancient Mesopotamia!

Want to find out more?
+The Wheel: Great Inventions That Changed History
+11 Inventions And Discoveries Of Ancient Mesopotamia

Day 2- The Hanging Gardens of Babylon Fun Fact !

Have you ever heard of The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? They are considered among the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. These “gardens” covered the entire palace of the famous King Nebuchadnezzar. There were fruit trees, beautiful flowers, and even waterfalls! It is thought that the King built them for his wife who missed her beautiful green, mountainous homeland. No one is sure how people so long ago were able to build these huge gardens or water them!
The ruins of the gardens have still not been discovered.
Do YOU want to become an archaeologist?
Maybe this could be your first find!

Want to see what some think the gardens looked like ?
+Did The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon Really Exist?
+ The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon
(This is a good video for your younger students wanting to know more. Done in story form!)

You can read more here-
+ Nebuchadnezzar’s Hanging Gardens

Day 3- A Library of Heavy Books Fun Fact !

Imagine a trip to your favorite library. How many books do you think there are in the library?
Now imagine that all of those books are written on large clay tablets… 30,000 clay tablet books to be exact ! They were part of the amazing Library of King Ashurbanipal, found in northern Iraq, in what used to be the city of Nineveh. (Yep! Same Nineveh that Jonah went to) It took almost 90 years (beginning in 1840) to dig them all out, but it was worth the wait! There were books about medicine, religion, history, astronomy, daily life, and more! Much of what we know about Ancient Mesopotamia and the Assyrian Empire came from the translation of those books.

What else did they find-

+ Ashurbanipal’s Library

+ What Did They Find In Ashurbanipal’s Library?

+ The Library of Ashurbanipal

(This is an audio done by the British Museum of History.
If you’re very interested in this library and it’s history, you might
enjoy this more detailed explanation! It’s about 8 minutes)

Week 3: The Ancient Chaldeans & Abraham-

Day 1- Abraham’s Favorite Board Game ?

Do you like to play board games? What is your favorite? Do you know who invented it?
Can you imagine Abraham (or the oldest historical person you can think of) playing Monopoly? Ok. So maybe not Monopoly, but archaeologists have uncovered many games that show us that people have pretty much always enjoyed challenging each other to table top games!
One game that has lasted a very long time is called the Royal Game of Ur (that’s the city Abraham was from). We know just what this game looked like (at least in Ur) when a beautiful and perfectly preserved game board was found in the Royal Cemetery of Ur in 1920 during an excavation.
How do we know the rules of play? Read the Week 2, Day 3 Fun Fact !

You can read more and try making this game-
+20 Squares or The Royal Game of Ur

+Watch this video for some history of the Royal Game of Ur and How To Play!

(From the British Museum. Best for older students.)

+Print and create your own Royal Game of Ur to play at home!

You can read more and try making this game to play at home-

+20 Squares or The Royal Game of Ur
+Watch this video for some history of the Royal Game of Ur and How To Play!
(From the British Museum. Best for older students.)
+Print and create your own Royal Game of Ur to play at home!

Day 2- Gilgamesh, the Man Behind the Myth

‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ seems like a pretty far out tale of adventure! A sleepy king who is part human and part god, who travels through some pretty fantastical lands, meets some quite unbelievable creatures, and searches for the secret to eternal life. We know that the story isn’t true, but was Gilgamesh a REAL person? Lots of experts think he was. What do you think ?
*Note:
Did you also know that the Epic of Gilgamesh also contains a flood story, with many similarities to the Biblical account? It’s amazing to see how peoples from almost all parts of the known world at the time have their own way of trying to describe the cataclysmic flood!

Day 3- Ancient Air Conditioning and Flushing Toilets ?

When we think of Ancient Civilizations, we don’t think about such modern improvements as air conditioning and TOILETS ! But, the people of the ancient Indus Valley town of Harappa were pretty ahead of their time! They had excellent city planning and built all of the houses in their city facing just the right direction so that the wind would blow through the front and out the back door… voila! Ancient air conditioning. Well, pretty close anyway. AND they did have real “flushing” TOILETS! Archaeologists have discovered that most of the homes uncovered in Harappa had a private area with a toilet that connected to a sewer system which carried the waste away from their homes!

If you want to know more-

+Harappa’s Ancient Modern Amenities

+Life In Ancient Harappa

+The History Of Toilets

(Because that is HISTORY too of course!! 😀 )

*Canaan & Israel- Week 4:

Day 1- Bible Guy Fun Fact #1- Hello…My Name is Laughter Loving.

When God promised Abram that He would make his descendants as many as the stars that filled the sky, Sarai, Abraham’s wife, laughed. She was already really old (90!!) and they had no children. Abram, who was 100 years old, laughed at the thought of it all too. God heard them laughing… “God told Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” (Genesis 18:13-14). Of course we know that God ALWAYS keeps His promises!

And so when it finally did happen that Abram and Sarai had their precious baby boy, they named him Isaac. Choosing a name for your babies was a very important event back then. Parents named their children to reflect a certain who they hoped they would become. And in this case, it was actually GOD who was doing the naming… and baby Isaac wasn’t the only one in the family who God named. He changed Abram’s name to Abraham, and Sarai’s name to Sarah, and told them that the name of their baby was to be Isaac.

And do you know what the name Isaac means? Laughter loving!!
I think we can learn a bit about God here too- seems like He has a really good sense of humor, and maybe enjoys LAUGHTER as well!

You can read more here-
+Read the whole story of God’s Promise and Abraham’s Laughter
+The Story Of Abraham and His Son
+BimBam Jewish Baby Naming (A short animated video to explain importance of names)

Day 2- Bible Guy Fun Fact #2- A Midnight Wrestling Match & A New Name

In Day 1, we learned that names were super important to the ancient People of God.
Sometimes parents named their children a very descriptive name like Laughter Loving (Isaac) or Red Hairy (Esau). And other times, the names were just as descriptive, but weren’t quite as flattering. Isaac had 2 twin sons. He named them Jacob (Deceiver) and Esau (that’s the Red Hairy one). Wow. Deceiver.
That had to be a tough name to live with. Imagine the introductions…
Hi, my name is John, what’s yours? Hi, I’m Deceiver… nice to meet you!

So anyway, one night Jacob was all alone. A Man appeared out of nowhere. He started to wrestle with Jacob. It was such a fight that the two wrestled all the way through the night until very early in the morning. When the two had finally stopped the wrestling match, the Man asked Jacob what his name was… and of course, he had to reply,

My name is Jacob… aka “Deceiver”.

But the Man Jacob had been wrestling with wasn’t just any man. Jacob the deceiver, had been wrestling with God Himself!! He told Jacob, that his name would no longer be Jacob (Deceiver), but he would now be called Israel, which means God Prevails, or one who struggles with God and overcomes.

Just like in yesterday’s fascinating Bible Guy Fact #1, GOD was doing the naming!!
God changed Isaac’s parents’ names, and then named Isaac, and now He had come to Isaac’s son Jacob, and changed his name too!!
And so, Jacob the deceiver became known as Israel. And Israel became the father of a 12 sons whose descendants we still to this day refer to as… Israel!

Want to know more?
+Jacob Wrestles With God
+At Least Your Name Isn’t Oobleck

Day 3- Bible Guy Fun Fact #3- A Baby Named ‘May God Add To’

Last of the Bible Guy name trivia!
Can you guess who this Ancient Mesopotamian person from the Bible is?

+He was joyously “added to” his very well known family.
+He was “added to” a total of 11 brothers and at least 1 sister.
+He was his father’s favorite child, but his brothers didn’t like him very much.
Perhaps he“added to” the dislike of his brothers by telling them about a dream he had in which they all bowed down to him, and because he loved wearing a very regal coat given to him by his father.
+His NAME means ‘May God Add To’.
Though his life was very hard at times, he “added to” the blessings wherever he went.

Can you guess what this person’s name is?

Find out here !

+May God Add To

+LISTEN to the whole story HERE

*Life of the Ancients- Week 5:

Day 1- People From Ur Were Never BOARD!

The people from Ur sure did love games! Especially BOARD games!
We read earlier about one game they really liked to play.
You may be surprised to know that another game that you have surely played was invented by the people of Ur.
Checkers !
Archeologists discovered a variation of this familiar game in an excavation. It was the same game called Alquerque by Egyptian Pharaohs who also really liked to play games!

You can read more below-
+The History of Checkers!

+Try playing a game of Checkers online!

Day 2- The First Fish Keepers

When did people start having pets?
You might have guessed Adam and Eve as they named all the animals in the Garden.
After that however, the Ancient Sumerians were the first people that we know of, that started thinking of animals as more than dinner, and decided to keep them as pets! When we think of pets, we usually think of puppies, cats, rabbits, and maybe even a hamster. But those cuddly animals aren’t what the Sumerians thought of! Their idea of having a pet was to collect fish in small ponds, enjoying feeding them and watching them swim around. This even became connected with part of their religious practices! Wait until you hear what kinds of pets that the Ancient Egyptians kept!!

Learn more about how they did this here-
+The History of Fish Keeping

*You can find out about what kinds of pets the Ancient Chinese kept in the 21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Egypt & China post!

Day 3- Beeswax, Barley, and Cedar Oil

Have you ever had a toothache? That pain is awful!
Today we have many tools and trained dentists to fix our dental problems in a jiffy. But what did the Ancients do when they had a bad cavity, or a cracked tooth? Surely this happened quite a lot without the benefit of fluoride or regular dental visits…or TOOTHBRUSHES!

You may be surprised to know that the even many thousands of years ago, there were some brave folks who had their teeth worked on by their fellow Ancients. Some of the remedies included things like “drilling” out problem areas with flint-tipped bits, stuffing cavity holes with beeswax, ground barley mixed with honey, and cedar oil!

Perhaps an even more FASCINATING FACT is that these somewhat rude kinds of treatments actually worked!

The beeswax was likely sterile, the honey can work like an antibiotic, and cedar oil is a natural antiseptic and pain reliever!… I’m not sure how to defend those flint-tipped drills however!

You can read more here-
+ Ancient Dentistry

*Ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley- Week 6:

Day 1- Oh My! Lions, and Tigers, and… Unicorns ?

Did unicorns really exist in Ancient Mesopotamia? It is apparent from the art and ancient writing that many wild animals roamed around the region, some of which we don’t recognize as animals we know today. The people of that time seemed quite familiar with some common animals like lions, elephants, large birds, hippopotamus, and unicorns ? UNICORNS?!?!
Fascinating Fact about Ancient Civilizations #16…
A mysterious script written on square plaques may hold the secret about the existence of the unicorn. What did the ancient language on the tablet say? What was the one horned animal in the engraving? We’ll have to wait to find out for sure because as of now, no one has been able to decode the language!
What do you think?
Maybe you will be the one who can figure out the cipher and finally solve the mystery of unicorns!

+Listen to this Kids Podcast about The History of Unicorns

+See the famous Ancient Indus Valley Unicorn Seal

Day 2- Ancient Fashionistas!

We know the Ancient Egyptians loved beauty products, makeup, and jewelry. But what about the people of Ancient Mesopotamia? Did you know that piles of exquisite jewelry has been discovered in the Indus Valley? Jewelry made our of beautiful stones and gold! These discoveries have told us a lot about the people who lived there, and even have influenced what our modern jewelry looks like !

You can see some pictures of this jewelry here-
+Ancient Indus Jewelry
+Images of Ancient Indus Valley Jewelry Discovered

And read more about what we can learn from it here-
+The Indus Valley People

Day 3- Barley Mush & Beer

What’s for breakfast? Oatmeal.
What’s for lunch? Oatmeal.
What’s for dinner? Oatmeal.
For many years archeologists thought that the people of Ancient Mesopotamia mostly ate a kind of porridge much like our oatmeal, except made from barley and beans. And their daily beverage choice was a fermented concoction that is technically beer. This is because the crop that grew best there was, you guessed it, BARLEY! And barley makes decent porridge, bread, and beer!
For all of their amazing advancements…dentistry, city planning, written language, even TOILETS…this diet doesn’t sound very advanced (or tasty)!

However, just recently, an archeologist cracked the code on another one of those mysterious ancient clay tablet, and found a list including the names of hundreds of types of soups and breads, and even cheeses ! Now that sounds more like it!!

Want to read more?
+What Did The Ancient Mesopotamians Eat?
+Try making this 3 ingredient Mesopotamian Bread Recipe!
(I was going to link to the Sumerian Pigeon Stew recipe I found, but figured I’d play it safe with a bread recipe 🙂 )

*Final Facts- Week 7:

Day 1- Bomb the Ziggurat ?

Did you know there are different types of pyramids? One type looks like a giant triangle shaped set of steps. It is called a ziggurat. The Great Ziggurat of Ur is one of the best examples of this type of pyramid anywhere in the world. It has survived thousands of years of wars and weather.
You may already know about ziggurats, but did you know that The Great Ziggurat of Ur was almost destroyed in the 1990’s during the Gulf War? Then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, intentionally parked his war planes beside the Ziggurat in confidence that ally forces would not bomb them and risk damaging the archeological site. His plan was not successful.
While the Ziggurat sustained minor damages, the planes were destroyed.

Read more here-
+The Great Ziggurat of Ur

Day 2- The Giant Pointing Finger (AKA The Code of Hammurabi)

Did you know that Ancient Mesopotamian code of law, called Hammurabi’s Code, was not written on scrolls, nor written on clay tablets, but carved on a huge, solid piece of black stone that fittingly (though most likely not intentionally) looks like a giant pointing finger ?
Why is that so ironic? Hammurabi’s “Code” isn’t like one of the fun cipher’s we’ve talked about cracking, it is basically a huge list of rules. And sometimes, a giant list of rules can feel like a giant finger pointing at us! HOWEVER, what the people of Ancient Babylon living during this time discovered, is that Hammurabi’s laws actually created an environment of peaceful living among them! Lawlessness equals chaos.

You can see a picture of it here-
+Hammurabi’s Code

And read more about it here-
+Hammurabi And His Code

Day 3- Dress Like a Mesopotamian

Have you ever wondered where fashion designers get their ideas for new styles of clothing? Sometimes they look to the past for inspiration. And sometimes they look WAY back into the past for inspiration! We saw last week how some of our modern jewelry designs have come from the classy Mesopotamians. Did you know that your favorite wool sweater or silky dress might have been first designed by a Sumerian lady? I wonder if they would be flattered that many of our styles today were influenced by theirs, THOUSANDS of years ago!

You can read about Mesopotamian Clothing here-
+What Did The Ancient Mesopotamian’s Wear?
and
+Kaunakes!

And see some examples of modern clothing that is clearly inspired by the ancient-
+Ancient Modern Fashion
and
+Timeless Fashions

I hope you have been EXCITED and INSPIRED by some of the fascinating facts about Ancient Civilizations !

Up next…
21 Fantastic Facts From Ancient Egypt

**Resources for Ancient Civilizations/Old Testament Study-

+FREE History of Ancient Civilizations/Old Testament Curriculum Lesson Plans
+Ancient Civilizations/OT Great Books Reading List !
+FREE Ancient Civilizations / Old Testament Printable History Cards
+Ancient Civilizations/OT Printable PDF Version
+FREE 21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Civilizations
+21 Fascinating Facts About Ancient Civilizations Printable PDF

**TOP 10 Teaching History Helps Series**

+Top 10 History PODCASTS
+Top 10 History SONGS
+Top 10 History TIMELINES
+Top 10 History AUDIOBOOKS
+Top 10 History MOVIES
+Top 10 History BOOKS
+Top 10 History GAMES
+Top 10 History HANDS-ON
+Top 10 History PRINTABLES
+Top 10 History FIELD TRIPS

And a bonus…
+Top 10 History for the HOLIDAYS

21 Fascinating Ancient Civilizations Facts

21 Fascinating Ancient Civilizations Facts for Kids