Chapter 1 Early Civilizations Mesopotamia

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Chapter 1Early CivilizationsMesopotamia The
Nile
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City States of Mesopotamia
Figure 1-3 p10
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III. Civilization in MesopotamiaSumerian Cities

• Sumerian Cities
• Surrounded by walls.
• Mud brick structures
• Accumulation of surplus wealth
• Ziggurat the temple

Excavation of Warka showing the ruins of Uruk
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Kingship

• King believed to be of divine origin
• Theocracy priests and priestesses had an
  important role in governance,
• gods ruled cities
• actual ruling power rested with the king

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Royal Standard of Ur, 2700 B.C.E.

• Rise of surplus of wealth led to a more
  Militarized society
• ruled by a king

p11
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Economy

• Agriculture
• Commerce and industry (woolen textiles, pottery,
  metal work)
• Imported copper, tin and timber
• Utilized the wheel that had been invented by
  nomads in 3000BCE

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Society

• Four Tiered Hierarchy
• Elites
• Dependent commoners
• elites clients who worked for the palace and
  temple estates
• Free commoners
• farmers 90 OF POP, merchants, scribes,
  craftspeople
• Slaves
• belonged to palace officials, mostly female
  slaves to weave cloth and grind grain and to rich
  landowners who used them for agricultural and
  domestic work

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Social Change with Urbanization

• VIllage

• Pastoral

• Patrifocal
• Concentration of wealth
• Stratification of wealth
• Sexual morality regulated
• Paternity inheritance

• After 3500BCE city influences
• Increasingly organized around raiding military
• For some women participated equally
• Greece Persia
• Sauromatian Saka
• Rode, hunted, went into battle
• Married after first kill

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III. Empires in Mesopotamia

• Sargons Empire (2340BCE 2100BCE)
• By 2300 women sex trade
• 2340BCE Sargon, leader of the Semitic people
• He used former rulers as governors
• Power was a standing army of 5,400 men
• He expanded the empire to include all of
  Mesopotamia and lands westward to the
  Mediterranean

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Women During Sargon

• Could inherit property
• Exercised political power
• Sumerian Queens had seals, occupied important
  positions of influence
• Played an important role in temple rituals
• Enheduanna, Priestess of the Temple of Ur
  Sargons daughter
• Emergence of Womens Work Domesticity
• Slaves commoners produced food, textiles
  Ceramics
• Scribes, Bakers, Prohpehts, Temple workers

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Women Religion

• Shamans
• Cult Leaders
• Goddesses

• Minoan mother goddess
• 2800 BCE
• Greek Island, Crete

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III. Empires in Mesopotamia

• Hammurabis Empire (1792- 1750 B.C.E.)
• Employed an army of foot soldiers (axes, spears,
  copper or bronze daggers)
• Divided and subdued opponents
• Gained control of Sumer and Akkad creating a new
  Mesopotamia
• Called himself sun of Babylon, the king who has
  made the four quarters of the world subservient
• new capital at Babylon

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Social Changes

• Institutional Patriarchy
• Tribute Extraction
• Social Stratification disproportionate power
  system
• beginning of Eurasian Slave trade
• Society became a political institution that
  enslaved numerous members of its population to
  provide order and stability for itself
• Law codes promoted universal standards of
  behavior
• Irrigation extensive military defense

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Decline of Womens status

• Generally
• Devaluation of social freedoms
• Denial of claims to the results of their labor
• Reshaping of spiritual expression
• Murder of a woman marked down from Capital
  offense (2000 BCE) to a fine under Hammurabi code
  (1750BCE
• Work became gender based, women paid less if it
  was the same
• Right to inherit ended after 2000BCE
• Womens political religious positions of power
  and roles ended by 1000BCE

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III. Empires in Mesopotamia

• The Code of Hammurabi Society in Mesopotamia
  (Discussion)
• What does the code reveal about culture and
  society?
• PP 18-19 of text
• Do the codes evidence a system of strict
  justice or represent a code that is written in
  the principle of an eye for an eye or system of
  equal punishment?
• What type of justice system is it?

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• Stele of Hammurabi
• Depicts Kings Divinity
• Records the code
• Judges encouraged men to sell women children to
  satisfy debts

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Changes For women

• Right to inherit property eroded after 2000BCE
• By 1000 BCE political power passed to men
• Decline of womens spiritual power
• Myths emerged that recounted legendary battles
  between earth goddesses and sky thunder gods
  arose
• By 1000 BCE no longer permitted to take on cultic
  roles such as priestesses

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III. Culture of Mesopotamia

• The Importance of Religion
• Understanding of physical environment
• Polytheistic
• An God of Sky (Earth Goddess had originally
  been more prominent)
• Enlil- God of wind
• Enki God of earth, rivers, wells and canals and
  inventions of crafts
• Ninhursaga goddess of soil, mountains,
  vegetation
• Mother goddess, mother of all children
• Gave birth to kings
• divination

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III. Writing Sciences

• Cuneiform wedge-shaped
• Oldest texts 3000 B.C.E.
• Writing as a form of communication and knowledge
  transference is only 5,000 years old
• Math, Geometry, Astronomy, 12 month Calendar

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Cuneiform

• Developed for record keeping
• Scribal education established to produce
  professionally trained elite scribes
• Temples, palaces, military, government

Table 1-1 p12
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Development of Cuneiform3100 700 B.C.E
The sign for star came to mean god or Sky
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IV. Egyptian Civilization The Gift of the Nile
Figure 1-4 p17
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IV. Egyptian Civilization The Gift of the Nile

• A. The Impact of Geography
• The Nile- gentle and predicable
• Black land fertile soil
• Red land deserts to the west and east
• Lower Egypt delta region
• Upper Egypt upstream and to the south
• Protected from invasion
• Prosperous agricultural economy
• Development of trade

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Old, Middle New Kingdoms

• Periods of Long term stability
• Strong Monarchical authority
• Competent Bureaucracy
• Freedom from invasion
• Construction of temples and pyramids
• Intellectual and cultural activity

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Intermediate Periods

• Period between the three Kingdoms
• Weak political structures
• Rivalry for leadership
• Invasions
• Decline in construction
• Restructuring of society

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First Dynasty of Egypt3100 BCE

• King Menes
• United Upper and Lower Egypt
• Double Crown Created to represent unification
• Began the longest civilization in history
• Longest home rule in history
• Most favorable for women

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Old Kingdom

• 3-6th Dynasties, 2686 2180 BCE
• Capital at Memphis
• Kingship the Pharaoh divine origin
• Kings Family - administrative
• Ruled according to principle of Maat
• Conveyed ideas of truth and justice, right order
  and harmony

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Development of 4th Dynasty

• Bureaucracy
• Office of Vizier Steward of the whole Land
• Responsible to the King
• Nomes Nomarchs
• Egypt divided into provinces
• 22 Upper Egypt
• 20- - Lower Egypt
• Nomarch or governor administrated and was
  responsible to the King and Vizier

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Middle Kingdom2055 1650 BCE

• Nomes restructured with boundaries and
  obligations to state clarified
• Nomarchs became hereditary officeholders
• Collected state taxes
• Recruited labor for royal projects
• New concern of Pharaohs for the people

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• King Menkaure Queen
• Invasion my Hyksos of W. Asia ended the Middle
  Kingdom by 1650 BCE
• Hyksos prevailed with horse-drawn Chariots
• Ruled for 100 years

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IV. D. Culture of Egypt

• Four Tiered Hierarchy
• God-King
• Nobles Priests
• Merchants Artisans
• Extensive trade international travel
• Commoners or farmers
• Paid taxes
• Military labor service

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IV. D. Culture of Egypt

• Polytheistic
• Sun God Atum, Re
• Air God Amon
• River and land god and goddess Osiris and Isis,
  born Horus
• Osiris symbol of resurrection and birth

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Culture of Egypt - Construction

• Complexes or cities of the dead
• Incorporated Pyramids
• Larger for kings burial, smaller or family
• Mastabas
• Rectangular structures with flat roofs, tombs for
  noble officials
• Tombs
• Rooms furnished and stocked so the Ka or
  spiritual body could return to a well preserved
  physical body (mummification)

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Culture of Egypt Art and Writing

• Hieroglyphics priest carvings or sacred
  Writings
• Pictographic like Cuneiform
• Developed to record and transmit knowledge
• Medical books, literature, record keeping
• Children taken to educate as scribes for royalty
  and government
• Opportunity to rise in social status

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Pictographic writing of Egypt
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IV. E. Egyptian Empire

• 18th Dynasty
• Pharoahs used new weapons to throw off Hyksos and
  reunite Egypt
• New Kingdom 1550 1070 BCE
• Most powerful state in the Middle East
• Massive wealth displayed by new temples

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Queen Hatshepsut 1503-1480BCE

• First of four women to become Pharaoh
• Built the great temple Deir el Bahri near Thebes
• Sent out military expeditions
• Encouraged mining
• Fostered agriculture
• Sponsored trade expeditions

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Women In Egypt

• Maintained economic agency
• right to inherit property for thousands of years
• Monogamous marriage
• Could initiate and seek divorce
• Women scribes, bakers, prophets, temple workers
• Womens political agency
• Queens
• Priestesses- controlled territory as virtual
  rulers, collected taxes and spent resources
• Elite Women could become gods after death,

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Kingdom of Nubia
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Akhenaten Religious Change

• 18th C Amenhotep (1364-1347 BCE) introduced the
  worship of Aten, god of the sun disk
  (Monotheistic Religion)
• Changed his name to Akhenaten Servant of Aten
• Closed temples of other gods
• Lessened power of Amon-Re and the priesthood at
  Thebes
• Replaced the Capital of Thebes with Akhetaten
  Horizon of Aten in modern Tell el-Amarna

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Decline of Egyptian Empire

• 19th Dynasty under Ramses II (1279 1213 BCE)
  restored Egyptian power
• Regained Canaan
• 13th Century invasions by sea peoples drove
  borders to original frontiers
• 20th Dynasty in 1070 for 1000 years
• Libyans
• Nubians/Kushites
• Persians
• Macedonians
• Rome