Flashcards About Ancient Civilizations Example

Ancient civilization in and historical region in southern Mesopotamia.

People who migrated from West Asia

The world’s first cities. Sumerian cities were the center of political and military authority. Their jurisdiction extended into the surrounding regions. This included: Eridu, Uruk, Inppur, Kish, and others.

Sumerian Kings were prominent men who made decisions on behalf of the whole community. These individual rulers gradually usurped the authority of the assemblies and established themselves as monarchs.

Semitic Akkadian emperor, famous for his conquest of the Sumerian city states in the 23rd and 22nd century B.C. The founder of the Dynasty of Akkad

Most prominent of the later conquerors was the Babylonian Hammurabi. The Babylonian Empire dominated Mesopotamia until about 1600 B.C.E. Hammurabi and his successors ruled from Babylon and stationed deputies in states they controlled.

Hammurabi also sought to maintain his empire by providing it with a code of law. Sumerian rulers had promulgated laws perhaps as early as 2500 B.C.E. Hammurabi borrowed liberally from his predecessors in compiling the most extensive and most complete Mesopotamian law code.

After the collapse of the Babylonian Empire, the Assyrian state was once among many jockeying for power and position in Northern Mesopotamia. After about 1300 B.C.E. ,however, Assyrians gradually extended their authority to much of Southwest Asia.

King Nebuchadnezzar lavished wealth and resources on his capital city. Babylon occupied some 2100 acres and the city’s defensive walls were reportedly so thick that a four-horsed chariot could turn around on top of it. Within the walls, there were enormous palaces and 1,179 temples. Some of them faced with gold and decorated with thousands statues.

Metallurgical innovations ranked among the most important developments that came about because of specialized labor. Already in Neolithic times, craftsmen had fashioned copper into tools and jewelry.

Experimentation with iron metallurgy began as early as the 4th millennium B.C.E. The early efforts resulted in products that were too brittle for heavy duty uses. About 1300 B.C.E. craftsmen Hittite society developed techniques of forging exceptionally strong iron tools and weapons.

The first use of wheels probably took play about 3500 B.C.E. and Sumerians were building wheeled carts by 3000 B.C.E. Wheeled carts and wagons enable people to haul heavy loads of bulk goods such as grains, bricks, or metal ores.

Sumerians also experimented with technologies of maritime transportation. By 3500 B.C.E., they had built a watercraft that allowed them to venture into the Persian Gulf and beyond. By 2300 B.C.E., they were trading regularly with the merchants of Northern India.

During the early 2nd millennium, Assyrian merchants travelled regularly by donkey caravan some 1,000 miles from their home of Assur in Northern Mesopotamia to Kanesh in Anatolia.

In early Mesopotamia, the ruling classes consisted of Kings and Nobles who won their positions because of their valor and success as warriors. Community members elected their kings, but royal status soon became hereditary, as kings arranged for their sons to succeed them.

The principle role of the priestly elites was to intervene with the Gods to ensure good fortunes for their communities. In exchange for these services, priests and priestesses lived in temple communities and received offerings of food, drink, and clothing from city inhabitants.

Slaves came from three main sources: POWs, convicted criminals, and heavily indebted individuals who sold themselves into slavery in order to satisfy their obligations.

While recognizing differences of rank, wealth, and social status, Mesopotamians also built a Patriarchal society that vested authority over public and private affairs in adult men.

In spite of their subordinate legal status, women made their influence felt in Mesopotamian society. At ruling court, women sometimes advised kings and their governments. A few women wielded great power as high priestesses who managed the enormous estates belonging to their temples.

A writing system that depends on pictures is useful for purposes such as keeping records, but is a cumbersome way to communicate abstract ideas. Beginning about 2900 B.C.E., the Sumerians developed a more flexible system of writing that used graphic symbols to represent sounds, syllables, and ideas as well as physical objects.

Most education in ancient times was vocational instruction designed to train individuals to work in specific trades and crafts, yet Mesopotamia also formed formal school.

Literacy lead to a rapid expansion of knowledge. Mesopotamian scholars devoted themselves to the study of astronomy and mathematics, both important sciences for agricultural societies.

Best known of the reflective literature of Mesopotamia, is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Parts of this work came from Sumerian city states, but the whole epic, as known today, was the work of compilers after 2000 B.C.E. The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the experiences of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The epic explored themes of friendship, the meaning of life and death, and the relationship between the humans and the Gods.

The earliest Hebrews were pastoral nomads who inhabited lands between Mesopotamia and Egypt during the 2nd millennium.

According to their scriptures, some Hebrews migrated from Palestine to Egypt during the 18th century B.C.E. About 1300 B.C.E., however, this branch of the Hebrews departed under the leadership of Moses and went to Palestine.

After the time of Moses, the religious beliefs of the Israelites developed along increasingly distinctive lines. The early Hebrews had recognized many of the same Gods as their Mesopotamian neighbors.

After the 10th century, the Israelites experienced a series of political and military setbacks. Following King Solomon’s reign, tribal tensions lead to the division of the community into a large kingdom of Israel to the north, and a smaller kingdom into Judea to the south.

The Exiles who return to Judea after the Babylonian conquest did not abandon hope for a state of their own, and indeed they organized several small Jewish states as tributaries to the great empire that dominated Southwest Asia after the 6th century B.C.E.

Ancestors of the Phoenicians migrated to the Mediterranean coast and built their first settlement some time after 3000 B.C.E. They did not establish a unified monarchy, but rather organized a series of city states ruled by local kings.

The Phoenicians influenced societies throughout the Mediterranean Basin because their maritime trade and their communication networks.

The Phoenicians’ traditions of writing also illustrates their creative adaption of Mesopotamian practices to their own needs. For a millennium or more, they relied on cuneiform writing to preserve information and they compiled a vast collection of religious, historical, and literary writings.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, linguist noticed that many languages of Europe, Southwest Asia, and India featured remarkable similarities and vocabulary and grammatical structure. Ancient languages displaying these similarities included: Old Persian, Greek, and Latin.

The original homeland of Indo-European speakers was probably the step region of modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, the region just north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

Because they had observed horses closely and learned the animal’s behavioral patterns, Indo-European speakers were able to domesticate horses about 4000 B.C.E. They probably used horses originally as a source of food, but soon after they domesticated them, they used them for transportation.

Horses also provided Indo-European speakers with a means of expanding far beyond their original homeland. As the flourished in Southern Russia, Indo-European speakers experienced a population explosion which prompted some of them to move into the sparsely inhabited eastern steppe region.

The influential Indo-European migrants in ancient time were the Hittites. About 1900 B.C.E., the Hittites migrated to the central plain of Anatolia where they imposed their language and rule on the region’s inhabitance.

The Hittites were responsible for two technological innovations: the construction of lights, horse-drawn war chariots, and the refinement of metallurgy that greatly strengthened their own society and influenced other people throughout much of the ancient world.

While the Hittites were building a state in Anatolia, the other Indo-European speakers migrated from the steppe to different regions. Some went east into Central Asia, as far as Western China.

Meanwhile, other Indo-European migrants moved West. One wave of migration took Indo-European speakers into Greece as of 2200 B.C.E. with their descendants moving into central Italy by 1000 B.C.E.

Yet another later wave of migrations established an Indo-European presence in Iran and India. About 1500 B.C.E., the Medes and Persians migrated into the Iranian Plateau.

After about 9000 B.C.E., peoples of the Eastern Sudan domesticated cattle and became nomadic herders while they continued to collect wild grains. After 7500 B.C.E, they began to cultivate sorghum.

After 5000 B.C.E., the Northern half of Africa experienced a long term climatic change that profoundly influenced social organization and agriculture throughout the region.

Fed by rain and snow in the high mountains of East Africa, the Nile, which is the world’s longest river courses some 4,000 miles from its source at Lake Victoria to its outlet through the Delta to the Mediterranean Sea. When the waters receded, they left behind a layer of rich fertile muck and these alluvial deposits supported a remarkably productive agricultural economy throughout the Nile River Valley.

After 5000 B.C.E., as the African climate grew hotter and drier, Sudanic cultivators and herders moved down the Nile introducing Egypt and Nubia to African crops like gourds and watermelons as well as animals domesticated in the Sudan particularly cattle and donkeys. About the same time wheat and barely from Mesopotamia reached Egypt and Nubia by travelling up the Nile from the Mediterranean.

As in Mesopotamia, dense human population in Egypt and Nubia brought a need of organization and public affairs. Nevertheless, the need to maintain order and organize community projects led both Egyptians and Nubians to create states and recognize official authorities.

Tradition holds that unified rule came to Egypt about 3100 B.C.E in the person of a conquered name means. Sometimes identified with an early Egyptian ruler called Narmer. Menes was an ambitious minor official from Southern Egypt known as Upper Egypt since the Nile flows north, who rose to power and extended his authority north and to the delta.

The power of the pharaohs was greatest during the first millennium of Egyptian history- the era known as the Archaic period and the Old Kingdom. The most enduring symbol of their authority and divine status are the massive pyramids constructed during the Old Kingdom as royal tombs, most of them during the century from 2600-2500 B.C.E. These enormous monuments stand today at Giza, near Cairo, as testimony to the pharaohs ability to martial Egyptian resources.

Even after the emergence of the strong pharaonic state that took Egypt on a path different from those followed by other Nile societies, the fortunes of Egypt and Nubia remained closely intertwined. Egyptians had strong interests in Nubia for both political and commercial reasons.

Tensions lead to frequent violence between Egypt and Nubia throughout the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom. The early pharaohs organized at least 5 military campaigns to Nubia between 3100-2600 B.C.E.. Pharaonic forces destroyed the Nubian kingdom of Ta-Seti soon after the unification of Egypt leading to Egypt domination of Lower Nubia for more than half a millenium. By about 2500 B.C.E. they established a powerful kingdom called Kush with a capital at Kerma about 435 miles south of Aswan. Though not ass powerful as united Egypt, the kingdom of Kush was a formidable and wealthy state that dominated the upper reaches of the Nile and occasionally threatened Southern Egypt.

Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, high agricultural productivity made several regions of Egypt so prosperous and powerful that they were able to ignore the Pharaohs and pursue their own interests. Pharaonic authority returned with the establishment of the Middle Kingdom. Pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom were not as powerful as their predecessors of the Old Kingdom, but they effectively stabilized Egypt.

The Hyksos were Semitic people whom Egyptians called the Hyksos because it means “foreign rulers.” It is clear that the Hyksos were horse-riding nomads who used bronze weapons and bronze tipped arrows while Egyptians relied mostly on wooden weapons and arrows.

Pharaohs of the New Kingdom presided over a prosperous and productive society agricultural surpluses supported a population of perhaps 4 million people as well as an army. Pharaohs of the New Kingdom to extend Egyptian authority well beyond the Nile Valley and delta.

By 1100 B.C.E., Egyptian forces were in full retreat from Nubia. Nubian leaders organized a new Kingdom of Kush with a capital at Napata located just below the Nile’s fourth cataract.

Cities were not as prominent in early societies of the Nile River Valley as they were in ancient Mesopotamia. The conqueror Menes founded Memphis as early as 3100 B.C.E. Because of its location, Memphis was a convenient place for a capital; Menes and many later pharaohs as well, ruled over a unified Egypt from Memphis. The most prominent Nubian cities of ancient times were Kerma, Napata, and Meroe. After unification, Thebes became the administrative center of Upper Egypt and several pharaohs even took the city as their capital.

In Egypt and Nubia alike, ancient cities were centers of accumulated wealth which encouraged the development of social distinction. Egyptian peasants and slaves played roles in societies similar to those of Mesopotamia. The organization of ruling classes however, differed considerably between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Instead of a series of Kings, Egyptians recognized the pharaoh as supreme ruler. Egyptian society had little room for Noble class as those of Mesopotamia. Instead of depending on Nobles who owed their positions to their birth Egypt relied on professional military forces who served the central government.

Like their Mesopotamian counterparts, both Egyptian and Nubian peoples built patriarchal societies that vested authority over public and private affairs in their men. Men governed their households and also dominated public life.

Now societies are much lower than their Mesopotamian counterparts to adapt metal tools and weapons. Whereas the production of bronze flourished in Mesopotamia by 3000 B.C.E. Use of bronze implements became widespread in Egypt only after the 17th century B.C.E.

Now societies made up for their lack of bronze with the emergence with the large scale production of iron. The Hittites had developed techniques for forging iron in Anatolia about 1300 B.C.E.

Within Egypt, the Nile River great facilitated transportation and Egyptians traveled up and down the river before 3500 B.C.E. Because the Nile flows north, boats could ride the currents from Upper to Lower Egypt. Meanwhile prevailing winds blow almost year-round from the north so that by raising a sail boats could easily make their way up river from Lower to Upper Egypt.

Egypt was in special need of trade because the land enjoys few natural resources other than the Nile. Irregular exchanges of goods between Egypt and Nubia took place at very early times, perhaps 4000 B.C.E. or even before.

Writing appeared in Egypt at least by 3200 B.C.E. possibly as a result of Mesopotamian influences. As in Mesopotamia, the earliest Egyptian writing was pictographic, but Egyptians soon supplemented their pictographs with symbols representing sounds and ideas.

Formal education and literacy brought handsome rewards in Ancient Egypt. The privileged life of a scribe comes across clearly in a short work known as “The Sattire of the Trades.”

They borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs. but used them to represent sounds rather than ideas and so created a flexible writing system/ Many Meroitic inscriptions survive both on monuments and papyrus.

The principal Gods revered in Ancient Egypt were Amon and Re. Amon was originally a local Theban diety associated with the Sun, Creation, Fertility, and Reproductive forces. While Re was a Sun God, worshiped at Heliopolis, a massive temple complex supported priests who tended to the cult of Amon-Re and studied the heavens for astronomical purposes.

For a brief period, the cult of Amon-Re based a monotheistic challenge from the god of Aten, another diety associated with the Sun. Aten’s champion was Pharaoh Amenhotep IV who changed his name to Akahenaten in honor of his preferred diety. Their faith represented one of the world’s earliest expressions of monotheism.

Nubian people observed their own religious traditions. The most prominent of the Nubian deities was a the Lion God Apedmak often depicted with a bow and many arrows who served as a War God for the Kingdom of Kush.

The Bantu were among the most influential people of Sub-Saharan Africa in ancient times. Members of the community refer to themselves as Bantu (meaning persons or people).

Unlike most of their neighbors, the Bantu displayed an early readiness to migrate to new territories. By 3000 B.C.E., they were spreading South into West Africa. After 2000 B.C.E., they expanded to the South Congo River Basin.

Iron tools enabled Bantu cultivators to clear land and expand the zone of agriculture more effective than before, while iron weapons strengthened the hand of Bantu groups against adversaries in competition for land or other resources. The spread of iron metallurgy throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa was caused by the Bantu and their increased momentum to their continuing migration.

Among the most important effects of Bantu and other migrations was the establishment of agricultural societies throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Cultivators extended the cultivation of yams and grains deep into East and South Africa (Modern-day Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.) About the same time Bantu and other peoples speak a Niger-Congo languages and spread the intensive cultivation of yam, oil palms, millet, and sorghum while also introducing sheep, pigs, and cattle.

African cultivators and herders developed distinctive cultural and religious traditions. Both Sudanic and Niger peoples for example held monotheistic religious beliefs by 5000 B.C.E. Sudanic peoples recognized a single and personal divine force that they regarded as a source of both good and evil.

Like the Nile, the Indus draws its waters from train and melting snow in towering mountains- in this case, the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas the world’s highest peaks. As the waters charge downhill, they pick up enormous quantities of silt which they carry for hundreds of kilometers. Like the Nile, the Indus then deposits its burden of rich soil as it courses through lowlands and loses its force.

Archaeological excavations have turned up no evidence of a royal or imperial authority. It is possible that the Harappan cities were economic and political centers for their own regions.

Both Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro had city walls, a fortified citadel, and a large granary suggesting that they served as centers of political authority in sights for the collection and redistribution of taxes paid in the form of grain.

Like all the complex societies in ancient times, Harappa depended on a successful agricultural economy, but Harappans also engaged in trades both domestic and foreign. Pottery tools and decorative items produced in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro found their way to all corners of the Indus Valley.

The wealth of Harappan society, like that in Mesopotamia and Egypt, encouraged a formation of social distinction. Harappans built no pyramids, palaces, or magnificent tombs, but their rulers wielded great authority from the citadels at Harappa and Mohejo-Daro. It is clear from Harappan dwellings that rich and poor lived in very different styles.

Harappan religion reflected a strong concern for fertility. Like other early agricultural societies, Harappans venerated gods and goddesses whom they associated creation and procreation. They recognized a mother goddess and a horned fertility god and they held trees and animals sacred because of their association with vital forces.

Sometime after 1900 B.C.E., the Harappan society entered a period of decline. One cause was ecological degradation; Harappan deforested the Indus Valley in order to clear land for cultivation and obtain fire wood. Deforestation led to erosion of top soil and also to reduce the amount of rainfall. Over hundreds of years, most of the Indus Valley became a desert. Agriculture is possible there today, only with the aid of artificial irrigation

When they entered India, the Aryans practice had a limited amount of agriculture, but they depended much more heavily on pastoral economy. They kept sheep and goats, but they especially prized their horse and cattle. Horses were quite valuable because their expense and relative rarity. Like their Indo-European cousins to the north, the Aryans harnessed horses to carts or wagons to facilitate transportation and also to chariots.

The early Aryans did not use writing, but they composed numerous poems and songs. Indeed, they preserved extensive collections of religious and literary works by memorizing them and transmitting them orally from one generation to another in their sacred language, Sanskrit.

The Vedas of boisterous society in which the Aryans clashed repeatedly with the Dravidians and other peoples already living in India. The Vedas refer frequently to conflicts between Aryans and indigenous people whom the Aryans called Dasas, meanining enemies.

During the early centuries of the Vedic Age, Aryan groups settled in the Punjab. The upper Indus River Valley that straddles the modern-day border between northern India and Pakistan. These migrations were some of the most prominent waves in the larger process of early Indo-European migrations. After 1000 B.C.E., they began to settle in the area between the Himalayan foothills and the Ganges River.

As they settled into permanent communities and began to rely more on agriculture than herding, the Aryans gradually lost the tribal political organization that they had brought into India.

Caste identities developed gradually as Aryans established settlements throughout India. When the Aryans first entered India, they probably had a fairly simple society consisting of herders and cultivators lead by warriors, chiefs, and priests. The Aryans used the term Varna, a Sanskrit word meaning “color”, to refer to the major social classes.

About 1000 B.C.E., the Aryans increasingly recognized 4 main Varnas; priests, warriors, cultivators, artisans and merchants, and landless peasants. Some centuries later, they added the category of the Untouchables, people who perform dirty tasks.

Until about the 6th century B.C.E., the 4 Varnas described Vedic society reasonably well. Because they did not live in cities and did not yet pursue many specialized occupations, the Aryans had little needs for a more complicated social order. The Caste System served as the umbrella for a complicated hierarchy of Sub-Castes known as Jati.

The Caste System never functioned in absolutely rigged or inflexible manner, but rather operated so as to accommodate social change. Indeed, if the system had entirely lacked the capacity to change and reflect new social conditions, it would have disappeared.

The patriarchal spokeswoman of Vedic society sought to place women explicitly under the authority of men. During the 1st century B.C.E., or perhaps somewhat later and anonymous sage prepared a work an attributed to Manu. The Law Book of Manu reflected the society constructed earlier under the Aryan influence.

One Indian custom demonstrated in especially dramatic fashion, the dependence of women on their men- the practice of Sati by which a widow voluntarily threw herself on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband to join him in death.

The chief deity of the Rig Veda was Indra. The boisterous and often violent character who was partial both to fighting and to strong drink. Indra was primarily a war God. The Aryans portrayed him as the wielder of thunderbolts who led them into battle against their enemies.

Yet this ethical concern was a relatively minor aspect of Aryan religion during early Vedic times. Far more important from a practical point of view was the proper performance of ritual sacrifices by which the Aryans hoped to win the favor of the Gods. They involved the slaughter of dozens, and sometimes even hundreds of specially prepared animals.

Later in the Vedic Age, Aryan religious thought underwent a remarkable evolution. As the centuries past, many Aryans become dissatisfied with the sacrificial cults of the Vedas which increasingly seemed like sterile rituals rather than a genuine means of communicating with the Gods.

Traces of this tradition appear in the Vedas, but it achieved its fullest development in a body of works known as the Upanishads which began to appear late in the Vedic age about 800-400 B.C.E.

The Upanishads taught that appearances are deceiving, that individual human beings in fact are not separate and autonomous creatures. Instead, each person participates in a larger cosmic order and forms a small part of a universal soul known as Brahman.

The Upanishads developed several specific doctrines that help to explain this line of thought. One was the doctrine of samsara which held that upon death, individual souls go temporarily to the world of the Fathers and they return to Earth in a new reincarnation. Another, was the doctrine of karma which unaccounted for the specific incarnation that souls experience.

Just as Brahman theories about the origins of Varna distinctions reflected Aryan society about 1000 B.C.E. so the religious views of the Upanishads dovetailed with the social order of the late Vedic Ages.

Like the Indus, the Yellow River is boisterous and unpredictable. It rises in the mountains bordering the high plateau of Tibet and it courses almost 4700 kilometers before emptying into the Yellow Sea. It takes its name Huang He meaning “Yellow River” from the vast quantities of a light colored loess, soil that it picks up along its route.

Abundant harvest in Northern China supported the development of several neolithic societies during the centuries after 5000 B.C.E. Each developed its own style of pottery in architecture and each one had its own political, social, and cultural traditions.

Archaeological study of the Xia Dynasty is still in its early stages. Nevertheless during the past few decades archaeological discoveries have suggested that the Xia Dynasty made one of the first efforts to organize public life in China on a large scale

Bronze metallurgy transformed Chinese society during Shang times and indeed may have well enabled Shang rulers to displace the Xia Dynasty. Bronze metallurgy went to China from Southwest Asia together with horses, horse-drawn chariots and other wheeled vehicles.