Chapter One: The Beginnings of Civilization

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Chapter One The Beginnings of Civilization

• Cultures and Values, 6th Ed.
• Cunningham and Reich

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Defining Civilized

• Urban life permanent constructions
• System of regulatory government
• Class distinction (wealth and occupation)
• Tools/skills --gt production/trade
• Written communication
• Shared system of religious belief
• Not a value judgment!

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Origins of Western Civilization

• Paleolithic World View (Old Stone Age)
• Art
• Religion
• Neolithic Civilizations (Late Stone Age)
• Domestication of animals
• Cultivation of vegetation
• Community
• War / Weaponry

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The Bronze Age (3000-1000 B.C.E.)

• Mesopotamia
• Sumerian (3500-2350 B.C.E.)
• Semitic (2350-612 B.C.E.)
• Egypt
• Aegean Cultures

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Sumerian Culture

• Agricultural/Urban settlements
• Fertile Crescent
• Writing/record-keeping Cuneiform
• Shared system of religious belief
• Civil ruler / Religious rulers

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Epic of Gilgamesh

• Gilgamesh ruled at Uruk c. 2700 B.C.E.
• Composed in Sumerian (2000 B.C.E.) on cuneiform
  tablets
• Pessimistic work
• Asserts universal questions about human existence

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Semitic Culture

• Akkadian Period
• King Sargon and descendants (2350-2150 B.C.E.)
• Focus on HUMAN achievement
• Gutian invasion / return to tradition
• Babylonian Legacy
• King Hammurabi
• Assyrians
• Culmination of Mesopotamian culture

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Fall of Mesopotamia

• Medes
• Nomadic warriors
• Conquered Nineveh in 612 B.C.E.
• Conquered and absorbed by Persians
• Persians
• Nomadic warriors
• Conquered by Alexander the Great (330 B.C.E.)

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Ancient Egypt

• Manethos History of Egyptian Greek
• 31 dynasties / 4 groups
• Old Kingdom (2700 B.C.E.)
• Middle Kingdom (1990 B.C.E.)
• New Kingdom (1570 B.C.E.)
• Late Period (1185-500 B.C.E.)

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Ancient Egyptian Culture

• Unified and consistent
• Resistant to change
• Worldview affected by external events

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Political Structure

• Pharaoh
• Head of the central government
• Regarded as a living god
• Exercised absolute power
• Ordered and controlled visible world
• Priests
• Preservation of religious beliefs
• Divine kingship of Pharaohs

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Egyptian Religion

• Obsession with immortality / life after death
• Book of the Dead
• Osiris, Isis, Horus
• Deities, subdeities, nature spirits
• Responsible for all aspects of existence

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Egyptian Art

• Principal function of artists to produce images
  of deities
• Form of worship
• Standards set forth by Pharaoh
• Artists also provided temples and shrines for
  honoring deities

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The Old Kingdom

• Imhotep
• First architect known to history
• Pyramids
• Funerary monuments for pharaohs, upper class
• Mummification
• Preservation of the body was necessary for the
  survival of the soul

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Great Age of the Pyramid

• Pyramids at Giza (Dynasty IV)
• Cheops
• Chefren
• Mycerinus
• Who built the pyramids?
• Farmers
• Slaves

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Pyramids

• Constructed of limestone blocks
• Quarried, ferried, cut, dragged into place
• Center chamber contained mummified body of
  pharaoh surrounded by treasures
• Plundered by robbers

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Chefrens Sphinx

• Created as the guardian for Chefrens tomb at
  Giza
• Adopted as a divine symbol of the mysterious and
  enigmatic (Greeks)

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Art of the Old Kingdom

• Reflects confidence and certainty
• Idealized realism
• Conceptual, symbolic

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Art of the Middle Kingdom

• Loss of trust in divine providence
• Artists attempted to recapture lofty serenity of
  Old Kingdom
• Troubled spirit captured in weight and somber
  expressions

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The New Kingdom

• Artistic traditions continued
• Conceptual
• Pharaoh Amenhotep IV/ Akhenaton
• Massive religious/political reform
• Tel el-Amarna Art
• Tutankhamen
• Howard Carter (1922-1923)

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The Late Period

• Artists revisited earlier period styles
• Recapture realism, volume
• Return to pyramid-shaped tombs
• Egypt invaded by Nubians (the Cush) 750-720
  B.C.E.
• Nubians and Nobatae preserved ancient culture

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Aegean Culture

• Crete
• King Minos / Knossos
• Cyclades Islands
• Bronze tools
• Imaginative/humorous pottery
• Marble statues/idols

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The Bronze Age in Crete

• Arthur Evans, 1894-1900
• Early Minoan
• Increasing growth
• Contacts with Egypt and Mesopotamia
• Scattered Towns

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Middle Minoan

• Evolution of large urban centers
• Art lively and colorful
• Little interest in monumental art
• Writing system of hieroglyphic signs

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• Image 1.22
• Palace of Minos at Knossos

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• Image 1.25
• Wasp Pendant

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• Image 1.27
• Snake Goddess

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Late Minoan

• Period of rebuilding after earthquakes
• High point of Minoan culture
• Wall paintings
• Religion centered upon mother goddess connected
  with fertility

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• Image 1.28
• Funerary Mask

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Mycenaean Culture

• Heinrich Schliemann, 1870-1873
• The Trojan War (1250 B.C.E.)
• Strongly influenced by Minoan Culture
• Art preoccupied with death and war
• Fall of the Mycenaean empire (1200 B.C.E.)

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Chapter 1 Discussion Questions

• What can be determined about the roles of women
  in early civilizations based on their artistic
  depictions? Explain, citing examples from each
  culture.
• Based on the universal questions evoked in the
  Epic of Gilgamesh, what can we assume about the
  Sumerian people and their lifestyles? In what
  ways are their concerns shared by people of our
  culture and generation? Explain.
• What role did geography play in the development
  and preservation of Ancient Egyptian culture? In
  what fundamental ways was Egyptian culture
  different from the Mesopotamian and Aegean
  cultures?
• Discuss the role of the archeologist. What impact
  do the discoveries of ancient cultures have on us
  today? Explain.