Cities and Civilizations

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Cities and Civilizations

• World History A
• Seminar 1

Warm Up Read pages 16-17 in World History
Connections to Today and list the eight features
of a civilization.
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Cities and Civilizations Seminar
We begin at about 8,000 BC when village life
began in the New Stone Age. . . Also known as the
Neolithic Revolution. NEW STONE
AGE
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What is the REVOLUTION? A TOTALLY new way of
living

• From

Hunter-Gatherers
to Agriculture
Click on words and pictures for web links.
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The invention of Agriculture changed the way
people lived.

• Agriculture (Farming)
• Growth of Cities
• Division of Labor (Specialization)
• Trade
• Writing and Mathematics

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GEOGRAPHY influenced the development of river
valley civilizations.
Click on the map for an interactive website map
of the four earliest river valley civilizations.
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Early River Valley Civilizations
Environment

• Flooding of Tigris and Euphrates unpredictable
• No natural barriers
• Limited natural resources for making tools or
  buildings

Sumer

• Flooding of the Nile predictable
• Nile an easy transportation link between Egypts
  villages
• Deserts were natural barriers

Egypt
Indus Valley

• Indus flooding unpredictable
• Monsoon winds
• Mountains, deserts were natural barriers

• Huang He flooding unpredictable
• Mountains, deserts natural barriers
• Geographically isolated from other ancient
  civilizations

China
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Mesopotamia Fertile Crescent

• Sumer The Earliest of the River Valley
  Civilizations
• Sumerian Civilization grew up along the Tigris
  and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Kuwait.

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Look at the map in the textbook on page
35.Define Fertile Crescent.
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Define Fertile Crescent

• A well-watered and fertile area,
• the fertile crescent arcs across the northern
  part of the Syrian desert. It is flanked on the
  west by the Mediterranean and on the east by the
  Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and includes all or
  parts of Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon,
  Syria, and Iraq. From antiquity this region was
  the site of sophisticated settlements.

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• Greeks called the northern part of the Fertile
  Crescent
• Mesopotamia Between Two Rivers
• (Tigris River and Euphrates River)
• The southern part of Mesopotamia was called
  Babylonia, originally Sumer.
• Which country is Mesopotamia today?

(Iraq)
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Sumer - Sumerians (Kuwait)ca. 3500 to 3000
BC.(ca. circa)

• Sumer gave us the city-state.

Define city-state
Political unit made up of a city and the
surrounding lands. Each city state has its own
government, even when it shares a culture with
neighboring city states.
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Sumerian Writing cuneiform
Click on the picture for more information about
cuneiform.
Click here to write like a Babylonian.
Cuneiform is created by pressing a pointed stylus
into a clay tablet.
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Sumerians invented

• Brick technology
• Wheel
• Base 60 using the circle . . . 360 degrees
• Time 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a
  minute
• 12 month lunar calendar
• arch
• ramp
• ziggurat

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Ziggurat Holy Mountain

• Click on the pictures for more information on
  ziggurats.

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Babylon

• Gave us the first know written law code and was
  the first civilization where the citizens live
  by the Rule of Law

Define rule of law
Government by law. The rule of law implies that
government authority may only be exercised in
accordance with written laws, which were adopted
through an established procedure.
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Hammurabis Code - 1792 BC
Hammurabis Code was this law code.
Hammurabi ruled the Babylonian Empire for 42
years. At the end of his long reign, Hammurabis
legal decisions were collected and inscribed on a
stone tablet in a Babylonian temple. The 282 laws
of the Code of Hammurabi represent one of the
earliest known legal systems.
For more information about Hammurabis Code,
click here and on the picture.
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If a man stole the property of church or state,
that man shall be put to deathalso the one who
received the stolen goods from his hand shall be
put todeath.

• The laws governed such things as lying,
  stealing, assault, debt, business partnerships,
  marriage, and divorce. In seeking protection for
  all members of Babylonian society, Hammurabi
  relied on the philosophy of equal retaliation,
  otherwise known as an eye for an eye.

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EGYPTThe Gift of the Nile(Herodotus)
Look at the map and answer the following
question What did Herodotus mean when he said
that Egypt is the gift of the Nile?
Nile River
Sahara Desert
Because of the geography of the area, without the
Nile River, there would be no Egypt.
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Egyptians invented

• Hieroglyphics
• Pyramids
• Geometry
• Advances in medicine and surgery

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Hieroglyphics

• Early Egyptian writing found on tombs was
  indecipherable.
• Hieroglyphics

Sacred Carving
No one could read these sacred carvings until
Napoleon invaded Egypt and his archaeologists
found the Rosetta Stone.

• Click on the picture to see your name in
  hieroglyphics.

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Video Write a short summary of the finding,
translation, and importance of the Rosetta Stone.
For more information on the Rosetta Stone, log on
to one of the following web sites. http//www.anci
entegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html OR http//www.
mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/hieroglyphics/ro
settastone.html
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• Papyrus is one of the first examples of paper.
  It is created from reeds growing along the Nile
  River.

Papyrus
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Indus River Valley (page 53)2500 BC 1500 BC

• Around 2600 B.C. the various regional cultures
  were united in what is called the Indus Valley
  Civilization. It is also commonly referred to as
  the Harappan culture after the town of Harappa
  (where it was first discovered.)

• Click on the map for more information about
  ancient Indus River valley civilizations

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• Excavations at the ancient Harappan and
  Mohenjo Daro mounds revealed well planned cities
  and towns built on massive mud brick platforms
  that protected the inhabitants against seasonal
  floods. In the larger cities the houses were
  built of baked brick while at smaller towns most
  houses were built of sun-dried mud brick. Each
  city is laid out in a grid pattern and shows
  signs of stunningly modern plumbing systems.

Much writing has been found at these sites, but
it has not yet been translated.
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Shang China1600 BC 1122 BC

• Lack of contact with foreigners helped give
  the Chinese a strong sense of identity and
  superiority. They regarded their land as the
  only civilized land and called it Zhongguo or the
  Middle Kingdom. This Chinese isolation
  contributed to the Chinese belief that China was
  at the center of the earth and the sole source of
  civilization.

Turn to the map on page 60. Note the geographic
features which isolated China.
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The first true emperor of China, was Shi Huangdi.

• Turn to page 90.
• Shi Huangdis most remarkable achievement was
  the Great Wall.

Click here for a panoramic tour of the Great
Wall. Read the information under the pictures and
send your teacher a postcard from one of the
panoramic sites to show that you visited! Click
on each picture here to see more information on
Shi Huangdi and the Great Wall.