Persia Achaemenid Kings Graphic Organisers (Dual Coded) Ancient History GCSE

These painstakingly created Graphic Organisers are ideal for Ancient History 9-1 GCSE. Quality resources for the GCSE seem scarce and this is me trying to rectify that a bit. These provide all the required information in an easily accessible and memorable way for the Period study of Persia - just over a quarter of the whole GCSE.

My students really appreciate these. The organisers give enough ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ for students to get a good grade at GCSE - a 4/5/6 depending on how much information they can retain.

We print these out A5 size and stick them in the middle of our books and as I am teaching students will annotate these sheets according to how much extra information they need to get above a 4/5/6.

The visuals are a huge help and icons and schemas are repeated as and when appropriate across the organisers which makes pupils feel secure and build a mental image of all the content - something I had found challenging to help them create before using these. The GOs really help tell the ‘story’ of the Achaemenid (Persian) Kings: Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes.

Topics included:

1. Cyrus’ birth and early life
2. Cyrus’ conquest of Astyages and the Medes / Media
3. Cyrus’ conquest of Croesus and the Lydians / Lydia
4. Cyrus’ conquest of Nabonidus and the Babylonians / Babylon
5. The importance of the Nabonidus Chronicle, Cyrus Cylinder and Herodotus as sources
6. The foundation of Cyrus’ city at Pasargadae
7. Cyrus’ death at the hands of Queen Tomyris and the Massegatae
8. Early Cambyses and Succession
9. Background to Cambyses’ invasion of Egypt
10. Cambyses conquest of Egypt
11. Cambyses positives as ruler of Egypt
12. Cambyses’ negatives and 'madness as ruler of Egypt
13. Cambyses’ military failures after conquering Egypt (Carthage, Ammonia, Ethiopia)
14. Smerdis’ the usurper and death of Cambyses
15. Accession of Darius
16. Behistun (Bisitun) Inscription
17. Darius’ reorganisation of the Persian Empire
18. The foundation of Darius’ city at Persepolis
19. Darius’ initial expansion attempts from 517 BCE
20. The backstory and causes of the Ionian Revolt
21. The events of the Ionian Revolt 499 BCE
22. The aftermath and consequences of the Ionian Revolt
23. Darius’ final invasion of Greece and death
24. Accession of Xerxes to the Persian throne
25. Xerxes’ preparations for his invasion of Greece
26. Xerxes’ invasion of Greece
27. The Battle of Thermopylae
28. The sack of Athens
29. Battle of Salamis
30. Battle of Eurymedon
31. End of Persian forays westward