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Western Civilizations, 3rd Brief Edition: A W. W. Norton StudySpace
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In This Chapter
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Chapter 1
Early Civilizations
Chapter Study Outline
Introduction
Çatalhöyükseven thousand to nine thousand years ago (south central Turkey)
A "city" of eight thousand living in two thousand homes
An organized and technologically sophisticated society
Religious rites and burial of the dead
Domesticated plants and animals
Little division of labor
How do we explain the emergence of Çatalhöyük?
The Stone Age Background
Prehistory: before written records appeared (c. 3000 B.C.E.)
Early man and archaeological evidence
Tool-making hominids appear about 2 million years ago
Paleolithic man (Old Stone Age)
Heidelberg man (three hundred fifty thousand years ago) deliberately buried their dead
Neanderthal (thirty thousand to two hundred thousand years ago)abstract thought?
Upper Paleolithic Age, c. 40,000 B.C.E.
Homo sapiens sapiens
Finely crafted tools
Cave paintings at Lascaux
Hunters and gatherers constantly on the move (c. 11,000 B.C.E.)
Social, economic, and political consequences
Without domesticated animals, there were no significant material possessions
Disparities in wealth unlikely to occur
Hierarchical structures of leadership unknown
Undeveloped division of labor
Acquiring food and tools the top priority
No storable surpluses
The Neolithic Revolution: New Stone Age, c. 11,000 B.C.E.
Major characteristics
Development of managed food production
Permanent settlements
Intensification of trade
More complex society
Specialization
Social distinctions
The origins of food production in the ancient Near East
Domestication of plants and animals
A gradual process with revolutionary consequences
The Fertile Crescent (ancient western Asia/ancient Near East)
Population increase
Surplus and storage
Why did the agricultural revolution take place?
The emergence of towns and villages
Emergence of villages
Jericho (c. 9000 B.C.E.)
Grain-producing settlement
Massive building program (walls and a tower)
Supported three thousand inhabitants
Pottery used for storage
Food storage
Led to inabilities of wealth
Tied people to a specific community
The rise of a priestly class
A bridge to political forms of authority
Trade and the exchange of commodities
Accelerated exchange of commodities and new ideas
Increasing social stratification
Social elites
The Development of Urban Civilization in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ("the land between the rivers")
The Tigris and Euphrates
Irrigation
Ubaid culture
Sophisticated irrigation systems
Temple-building
Religious structure
Rise of a priestly class
Managing economic resources
Urbanism in the Uruk Period (4300- 2900 B.C.E.)
Transition to Sumerian city-states
Temple architecture
Urbanization and expansion of trade routes
The development of writing
Record-keeping
Pictographs
Cuneiform ("wedge-shaped writing")
Scribal schools ("Houses of the Tablet")
The Sumerians Enter History
Sumerian writing
The first historical society
Sumerian cities: Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Eridu, and Kish
Religion
Pantheon of Sumerian gods (around fifteen hundred of them)
Each city-state protected by its own patron god
Economic, political, and religious competition
Redistributive economy and the temple/warehouse complex
Slavery
Prisoners of war
Slaves as forms of property
The Early Dynastic Period begins (2900-2500 B.C.E.)
War leadership and kingship
Conflict between city-states
Lugal (big man)
God's representative on earth
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Legendary king of Uruk
Military conquest and heroism
Gilgamesh versus Enkiducity versus wilderness
Pessimistic toward natural environment
Sumerian religion
Uruk periodSumerian gods identified with hostile forces of nature
Early Dynastic periodSumerians saw gods in more human terms
Humans exist to provide the good life for their gods
A reciprocal relationship between humanity and divinity
Divination and astrology
Kings ruled by divine sanction
But still had to serve the gods
Offerings, sacrifices, festivals, building projects
Even Gilgamesh could not escape his fate
Science, technology and trade
High degree of self-reliance and ingenuity
Produced copper weapons and tools
Invention of the wheel (chariots and carts)
Mathematics
Lunar calendar
Divided time into multiples of sixty
Sailboats, textiles, paints, perfumes, and medicines
Trade
Acquired raw materials
Interacted with Egyptians and Persians
The end of the Early Dynastic Period (2500-2350 B.C.E.)
Intensification of intercity warfare
Politically and religiously unified elite
Commoners fell into debt slavery
Royal Tombs of Ur
Increased power of the lugal
Lugal perhaps had better afterlife
Sumerian warfare grew as population increased
Sumer remained a collection of independent city-states
The Akkadian Empire (2350-2160 B.C.E.)
Sargon of Akkadaided Sumerian unification
Lived north of Sumer
Program of conquestconquers Sumer in 2350 B.C.E.
A new capital at Akkad
From city-states to a kingdom united under Sargon
Naram-Sinextended Akkadian empire
The Dynasty of Ur (2100-2000 B.C.E.)
Sumer and Akkad under attackempire dissolves into rival city-states
Ur-Nammu and Shulgi
Pursued military conquests
Commercial expansion
A dying empire
Ibbi-Sin and Ishbi-Irra
Losing control of the empire
Incessant warfare
The Sumerian renaissance and the rise of the Amorites
The Old Babylonian Empire
Hammurabi
Ascends throne in 1792 B.C.E.
Used writing as a weapon
Elevated Marduk, patron deity of Babylon
Religion and law
Interweaves political power with religious practice
Wars of aggression
United his people politically
Ruled as king of Babylon, the city of Marduk
Ritual intercourse and fertility
The Code of Hammurabi
Actual rulings of Hammurabi
The code was probably never intended to be a code of laws in the modern sense
The code as propaganda, used to publicize the king's devotion to justice
Old Babylonian society
Upper class nobles controlled large estates and wealth
Below the nobles, an enormous class of legally free individuals
"Dependents" of the palace or temple
Laborers, artisans, small merchants, farmers, and officials
At the bottom were the slaves
In general, the slaves were treated harshly
Slaves acquired through trade or captured in war
Punishments for crimes varied according to one's social class
The treatment of women
Hammurabi's legacy
The creation of a durable state
Helped establish a conception of kingship
The importance of religion
The Development of Civilization in Egypt
General observations
Geography and the Nile
Black Land-Red Land
Egypt as center of the cosmos
Powerful, centralized state controlled by pharaohs
Kingdoms and periods
Predynastic Egypt (c.10,000-3100 B.C.E.)
Hunters and gatherers
Increased population
First settlement at Merimde Beni Salama (4750 B.C.E.)
Upper Egyptian towns (3200 B.C.E.): Nekhen, Naqada, This, and Abydos
High degrees of social specialization
Sophisticated fortifications
Elaborate temples
Attracted industry and travelers
The unification of Egypt: the Archaic Period (3100-2686 B.C.E.)
Manetho's dynastic categorization
"King Scorpion"
Egypt unified by Narmer (legendary King Menes or Min)
Administrative capital at Memphis (Lower Egypt)
Pharaoh
Pharaoh as divine
Earthly manifestation of Horus (falcon-god)
Language and writing
Hieroglyphs ("sacred carvings")
Champollion and the Rosetta Stone
Writing as tool for Egyptian government and administration
Hieratic scripused for everyday business of government and commerce
Papyrus
The Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2160 B.C.E.)
Difficulty of interpreting records
Centralized power of pharaohpharaoh was Egypt
Appointed local governors (nomarchs)
Extensive bureaucracy
Imhotepthe greatest administrative official
Right-hand man to Djoser (Third Dynasty pharaoh)
Learned medicine, astronomy, theology, mathematics, and architecture
"Step-pyramid"
Built west of Memphis
Based on the mastaba, stacked one on top of the other
The symbol of pharaonic power
Fourth Dynasty (2613-2494 B.C.E.)
Great pyramids of Giza
The account of Herodotus
Pyramids built not by slaves, but by tens of thousands of peasant workers
Tensions increase between pharaonic religion and local gods and leaders
Society in Old Kingdom Egypt
The elite: royalty and nobility
The poor: everyone else
Women in the Old Kingdom
High degrees of legal status
Rigidly patriarchal society
Barred from state office
Science and Technology
Lagged far behind Sumerians and Akkadians in science and math
Significant advances in calculation of time
Solar calendar based on close observations of the sun
Effective irrigation and water control systems.
Did not develop the wheel until after Sumerians
Egyptian religion and world view
The uniqueness of the Egyptians
"Egyptian-ness"
Life, re-creation, and renewal
The myth of Osiris and Isislife from death
The Egyptian death cult
Osiris as central deity
Death was unpleasant but a necessary part of the cycle
Ka (otherworldly existence) and Duat (the underworld)
Embalming and mummification
Coffin texts and "Books of the Dead"
Ma'atbinding together the endless cycle of life, death, and the return of life
Confidence and optimism
The end of the Old Kingdom
Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (2494- 2181 B.C.E.)
Less monumental architecture
Nomarchs evolved into a hereditary nobility
Nubian restrictions on the Egyptian economy
Pharaoh's link to ma'at diminished
Central authority of Memphis collapses
Rapid diffusion of cultural forms throughout Egyptian society
Mentuhotep II declares himself ruler of a united Egypt
Middle Kingdom Egypt (2055-c. 1650 B.C.E.)
Unified government at Thebes
Amenemhet (Twelfth Dynasty)
Exploitation of trade to the south
Nubia under Egypt's control
Viewed world beyond Egypt's borders with suspicion and fear
Changing position of pharaoh
Having ma'at was not enough
Pharaoh had to protect his people
Conclusion
From hunter-gatherers to permanent settlements
Sumerian advances
Mesopotamian and Akkadians
Egyptians
Ancient Near Eastern kingdoms and empires