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Parts of a Civilization

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Agriculture, the domestication of animals that made farming possible, the construction of cities, and the invasion of writing.

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First True Civilization

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Sumer

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The first identifiable group to settle in the region of Sumer.

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Ubaids

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By 5000 BCE early settlers had learned how to smelt copper ore into the pure metal, which they then either cast into molds, or by 4000 BCE, mixed with tin in order to produce bronze. Bronze was significantly stronger than its component parts, and its use in weaponry and farm implements spread throughout the Near East quickly--inaugurating the

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Bronze Age

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Sumer and Major Cities

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Eridu and Ur

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Military actions was most efficiently directed by a single commander to whom everyone owed obedience--the king, whose formal title was

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Lugal

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An ancient region in Western Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers: now part of Iraq.

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Mesopotamia

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Stratification of Egyptian Society

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Society was strictly stratified, and social distinctions were expressed by dress codes. Most Egyptians worked the land. Slavery existed but was not as wide-spread as in Mesopotamia. Egypt's relative insulation from outsiders deprived it of the main source of slaves: prisoners of war. --Monogamous marriage was the norm for Egyptians. -The basic Egyptian diet consisted of varieties of grain--whether as bread, gruel, or beer--supplemented with a few vegetables, along with figs, dates, and fish. -Ruler worship dominated Old Egyptian life.

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The most successful of the Akkadian kings, who conquered everything from lower Sumer to northern Syria, all the way to the Mediterranean. This fierce conqueror boasted constantly of his cruelty as a matter of policy, making him perhaps the first ruler who found that simply maintaining a reputation for savagery can hold a large population in check as effectively as actual savagery can.

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Sargon I

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Two Major Rivers: significance/development of

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Sandy though that soil was, it was made fertile by the flooding of the two great rivers, as the winter rains of Syria and the spring thaws of the snows of the Taurus Mountains to the far north brought layer upon layer of silt to fertilize the land. Twisting slowly eastward through narrow defiles until they reached the high plains of Syria and Kurdistan, the rivers plunged dramatically southward, picking up speed as they approached the site of today's city of Baghdad. The Tigris River, with its deep bed, flooded less broadly but with a strong current. The Euphrates, on the other hand was broad and shallow, overran its banks easily, and scattered highland silt over a wide expanse. The faster-flowing Tigris usually reached its high-water mark in April, while the Euphrates generally reached full flood about a month later.

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Sumerian writing impact

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The Sumerians invented writing during this age, starting with primitive early pictograms, or drawn representation of objects. These gave way to a sophisticated system of ideograms, which represent concepts, and phonograms, or marks indicating syllabic phonetic values. The latter are similar to the shortcuts used by today's text messengers. Sumerian writing used nearly 2,000 symbols, which meant that literacy remained a tightly held monopoly of professional scribes, who consequently enjoyed positions of great significance in society. Without them, kings and priests could not compile records, issue decrees, or establish legal or liturgical canons.

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The earliest king of the Sumer-city state, Kish, near the site of the later city Babylon, around 2600 BCE. His most significant achievement was the construction of the temple in Nippur, the home of the great sky god Enlil. He ruled during the so-called Early Dynastic Period, which lasted from 2900 to 2350 BCE.

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En-Mebaragesi

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The great sky god En-Mebaragesi built a temple in Nippur for. Lord of heaven and earth, he who determines the destiny of the land, commited the rule of all mankind to Marduk.

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Enlil

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The period En-Mebaragesi ruled over which lasted from 2900 to 2350 BCE.

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Early Dynastic Period

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Job of Royal Officials

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Had to adopt a fawning, obsequious tone that makes a modern reader squirm to remain in the pharoah's good graces. Each nome was administrated by a nomarch appointed by the king, and they all reported to a central official called a vizier. The nomarchs oversaw all public works projects, coordinated food distribution, heard appeals, and dispensed justice. Assisting all these was an army of scribes who kept census records, tallied tax revenues, noted expenditures, and issued the government's decrees.

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Sister of Osiris who formed him back together with Anubis to have a baby with him before he died. She gave birth to Horus who avenged his death by killing Seth, who killed Osiris.

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Isis

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Incestuous brother of Isis who became the first god-king of the earth that Ptah had created, but his brother Seth who was jealous of his kingship and relations with Isis killed him and scattered his body across the Nile. After his son Horus avenged him, it is believed every pharaoh after was a reincarnation of him. And upon his death, every pharaoh transformed into Osiris, who ruled over the realm of the dead for eternity.

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Osiris

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Vast terraced pyramid-like mounds the Sumerians build to recognize a particular patron god. They stood atop which lavishly decorated temples that served as the earthly home of the god or goddess.

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Ziggurats

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Regional groupings along segments of the Nile, they eventually coalesced into larger units until finally, around 3150 BCE, the entire kingdom was unified under a single ruler.

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Nomes

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Founded by the pharaoh Menes, this was the capital of ancient Egypt which was strategically and symbolically located at the point where the Delta joined the long river valley of Upper Egypt.

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Memphis

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"Poem of the Righteous Sufferer" meaning

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It expresses the agonies of an unnamed Sumerian who despite his strict ritual observance has nevertheless suffered the loss of his wealth and social position. A later Babylonian writer reworked the myth and turned this poem into a song of praise for the god Marduk. In the original tale, the dominant tone is despair.

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Parts of Egyptian "Pyramid Texts"

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Incantations, magic spells, proclamations, and hymns were inscribed on the walls of the royal tombs. These texts guided the dead through the wasteland and provided sets of prayers and incantations that could be used against the demons. They supplied the answers needed to satisfy the questions posed by Osiris and the other judges.

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An epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. Dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur, it is often regarded as the first great work of literature. It relates the adventures of a powerful but egotistical king whose arrogance leads him to offend the gods. It also described a great flood and served to remind the people of the unpredictability of the gods while creating a reference point for the start of their own history.

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Epic of Gilgamesh

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Ma'at and Concept

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A recognition of the world's ordering and a commitment not to upset it. Scholars commonly translate it as "justice," which is too generious. Ma'at, in practice, was a kind of moral stasis, an acceptance of the world as it is, a reluctance to change anything for fear that the result might be worse than the reality already experienced. Early Egypt thus embodied a conservative principle that may be its most significant legacy to Western culture.

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The "Great Flood Myth"

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A mythical great flood sent by capricious gods that covered the entire earth and all but annihilated mankind. Much like the Biblical tale of Noah and the Ark, for which it served as a model, the Great Flood never happened but retained its mythic power because of the peoples' genuine fear of actual flooding. The Tigris and Euphrates occasionally swelled to unusual size and covered farms, fields, and flocks.

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Egyptian Religion and Ethics

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Ruler worship dominated Old Egyptian life--or at least is was the dominant characteristic of the regimes that produced the evidentiary record. It was very centralized and most of the focus was all on the Pharaoh. Ma'at was a concept used in the culture as well.

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Marks indicating syllabic phonetic values.

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Phonograms

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A Semitic people overwhelmed the Sumerian city-states around 2350 BCE and established the ____ Period, which lasted until about 2100. They had lived for several centuries along the upper Tigris, trading with the Sumerians and the peoples of Syria. Although they were foreigners, they respected Sumerian culture and adopted its language, institutions, and religion.

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Akkadians

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An extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.

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Empire

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A crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia, the Nile Valley and Nile Delta of northeast Africa, it was also near Asia Minor or known as Anatolia.

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Fertile Crescent

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Sargon's empire collapsed roughly 100 years after his death, and control of the region was restored to a series of native kings known collectively as this. This was the last period of Sumerian history, since the Ur dynasts were ultimately displaced by new waves of invaders who poured over Mesopotamia after 2000 BCE.

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Third Dynasty of Ur

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"Through male heirs" / "Through the female heir"

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Patrilineal/Matrilineal

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Principle Sources of Egyptian slaves

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Prisoners of war (though not as extreme as in Mesopotamia)

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Consisted of the space from the dome of the sky down to the surface of the Earth; this was the dwelling of Annumaki--the assemblage of gods and goddesses to whom the people of Sumer sacrificed and offered prayers, and whose aid they invoked.

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the Great Above

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The world beneath the surface of the Earth. Also beneath the Earth was Kur, the Land of No Return, the place to which all humans went after death.

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the Great Below

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Meaning "sky," literally, but representing the divine force itself) that dwelled in a fixed hemisphere.

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Anu

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A group of spirits that dwelled with Anu in the fixed hemishere.

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Igigi

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The assemblage of gods and goddesses to whom the people of Sumer sacrificed and offered prayers, and whose aid they invoked.

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Annumaki

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The moon god (Sin to the Akkadians)

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Nanna Suen

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The god of waters (later identified with the Babylonian god Ea)

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Enki

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The world itself came about through the movement of 2 primordial forces--the male and female principles--which resulted in the creation of the physical world and then of the gods themselves. The Annunaki feared the creation of even more gods, so Enki and Enlil killed them.

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Abzu and Tiamat

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Two separate World of the Dead entrances

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One in the caves of the Zagros Mountains and another in a secret staircase hidden in the city of Uruk. After dying, all Sumerians entered Kur by one of these portals.

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Known as this after the Babylonian name for the sun god of Utu worshipped in the city-state of Sippur, it offers praise for the god's relentless protection of the weak and troubled. The hymn goes on to praise the Utu/Shamash for punishing corrupt judges and dishonest merchants, for granting long life to those who work for justice, and for rewarding the honest and kindly.

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Shamash Hymn

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Lower and Upper Egypt

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For 600 miles the Nile meanders slowly northward, cutting a green swath of fertile land on either side of the riverbed, until about a 100 miles shy of the Mediterranean it branches out in a delta with no fewer than 7 major openings to the sea, spread over nearly 250 miles of coastline. This delta region forms "Lower Egypt" and the 600 mile long river valley directly south of it comprises "Upper Egypt." Together the 2 regions made up approximately 12,000 square miles of arable land, and they were home to human communities dating back to 5,000 BCE.

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An ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period. (Many scholars have replaced the semilegendary Menes with him, whose position as first rule of a united Egypt is corroborated by an engraved palette that illustrates the combined kingship.)

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King Narmur

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The god of Isis and Osiris that avenged Osiris's death by killing Seth and became the embodiment of future pharaohs.

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Horus

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"Sacred carvings" based on a combination of pictograms and phonetic signs.

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Hieroglyphics

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Chart of Ancient Egypt

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Archaic Period: 3150-2686 BCE (Dynasties 1-2) Old Kingdom: 2686-2134 BCE (Dynasties 3-6) First Intermediate Period: 2134-2035 BCE (Dynasties 7-10) Middle Kindgom: 2035-1640 BCE (Dynasties 11-12) Second Intermediate Period: 1640-1570 BCE (Dynasties 13-17) New Kindgom: 1570-1070 BCE (Dynasties 18-20) Third Intermediate Period: 1070-664 BCE (Dynasties 21-26) Late Period: 664-332 BCE (Dynasties 27-30)

Western Civ. Chapter 1 Terms – Flashcards

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