Chapter 1 For hundreds of thousands of years before written history, humans made advances in the use...

Chapter 1

For hundreds of thousands of years before written history, humans made advances in the use of tools, created art, and developed agriculture, which led to a shift from nomadic hunting and gathering patterns of living to more sedentary ways of life.

Before Western Civilization

• Out of Africa: The Paleolithic Period, 600,000-10,000 B.C.

• Human beings first evolved in sub-Saharan Africa

– Trade Networks• Goods and Stories• Stone Tools

– Cave Art• Bison (over 10,000 years repeated)• Ritual Purpose• Gathering Place of Clans for Trade and Other Interactions

– Stone Monuments• Called Megaliths (Stonehenge) – Western England

50 Tons, Concentric Circles & Semicircles, Show Movements of Sun and Moon


• The Neolithic Period: The First Stirrings of Agriculture, 10,000-3000 B.C.

• People learned how to plant and cultivate grains

– Domestic Animals• Dogs, Goats, Cows, Pigs, Sheep (food), and Horses

– Middle East Plants and Animals• Highest amount or number of the worlds prized grains wheat

& barley (protein)

– Population Growth• More clans selling settling same area


– Slavery• Sell children – or themselves into slavery• Born into slavery• Not racial issue

– New Warfare• More people to engage• More rewards for the winners and enslave the losers• Excavations have shown walls• Greatly feared their neighbors• Settlement throughout Europe and Asia Minor

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• In the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, people developed a complex society that made advances in religious ideas, political organization, and the use of writing.– Bronze Age

• Sometime after 3000 B.C. learned how

to smelt metals tools and weapons• Copper + Tin = Bronze

Struggling with the Forces of Nature: Mesopotamia

• The Development of Writing• The Mesopotamian cities needed a system of keeping records • The Sumerians developed a system of writing

– Cuneiform• Scribes imprinted wedge-shaped characters into wet clay tablets

– Written Records• Inventories, wills, contracts, payrolls, property transfers, and

correspondence between monarchs• The Epic of Gilgamesh and other myths

• Laws and Justice– Code of Hammurabi (Laws)

• It regulated everything from family life to physicians’ fees to building requirements


– Women and Children• Many laws tried to protect women and children from unfair

treatment and limited the authority of husbands over their housholds.

• Indo-Europeans: New Contributions in the Story of the West– Indo-European Languages

• Linguists – analyze similarities in languages• Fertile Crescent spoke “Semitic”

– Mounted Warriors• They rode horses, which they first domesticated for riding in

about 2000B.C. • It gave Indo-European warriors the deadly advantages of

speed, mobility, and reach


– Contributions• Heavy carts outfitted with four solid wheels, and

their own written languages

– Hittites (kingdom in Asia Minor – Turkey)• Indo-European group established a kingdom in

Asia Minor (modern Turkey)


• The Origins of Western Civilization– Administration

• Priests and Priestesses Provided the Needed Organization• These Leaders Claimed a Percentage of the Land

– Economic Functions (Center of City Life)• Ziggurats – Served as Administrative and Economic Centers, Storehouses,

Administrative Rooms, People Came to Bring Goods and Socialize• Temple Administrators Organized Irrigation Projects & Tax Collection

• Life in a Sumerian City– Trade

• Area Lacked Metal & Stone – Traded Textiles (wool)

– Families


– Woman’s Work• Work in Shops, Wine Sellers, Tavern Keepers, Prostitutes

• Gods and Goddesses of the River Valley– Sumerian Pessimism

• Sumerians Only Hope for Happiness Hinged on Fickle Dieties Who Cared Little for Humans

– Sargon (King)• Akkadian Ruler – Invaded Sumer in about 2350 B.C.• Daughter Enheduanna as High Priestess Worked so Well That

Successor Continued the Practice• As King Started to Handle Matters – Sky Gods Became More

Important

– Individual Longings• Story of Gilgamesh and Dealing With Life

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• In the Nile Valley, a less unpredictable environment than that of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley led to the establishment of a more stable and optimistic culture than in Mesopotamia.

– Nile Valley• Mesopotamia Spread Crops to Egypt• River Reliably

Rule of the God-King: Ancient Egypt, ca. 3100-1000 B.C.

• Prosperity and Order: The Old Kingdom, ca 2700-2181 B.C.– Preserving Order

• At the center was the king• Unlike Mesopotamias which their kings served as priests to their

gods, Egyptians believed their rulers were gods

– Trade• Mineral Resources• Copper Ore• Abundance of Crops• Trade with Nubia – Access to Sub-Saharan Africa Gold, Ivory, Ebony, Aromatics, & Gems

– Family Life• Prosperity


• Hieroglyphs: Sacred WritingMore than a series of pictures each symbol could express one of three

thingsObject it portrayed, abstract idea associated with object, one or more

sounds

• Pyramids and the Afterlife– Scribes

• Carefully tracked the rulers finances

– Afterlife• A Heavenly Nile

– Burial Rituals• Embalmed• Mummy Wrapped Linen & Resin• Stocked Tombs with Items• Images on Walls


• Changing Political Fortunes, ca. 2200-1570 B.C.– Famine

• As drought in southern Nubia led to a series of low floods in Egypt, crops failed, and people pillaged the countryside in a desperate search for food.

– Middle Kingdom• Egypt prospered, the kings conquered Nubia and grew rich

on the gold of that kingdom.

– Egypt Conquered• The Nubians in the south revolted and broke away from

Egyptian control.• In 1650 B.C. the Hyksos rose to power


• Political Expansion: The New Kingdom, 1570-1085 B.C.– Egyptian Empire

• Temple priests began rivaling the pharaohs in power, slaves brought to Egypt, introduced new languages, views and religions, lives of Egyptian soldiers changed for the worse

– Hatshepsut• Tried to revive Egypt’s isolationist ways

– Empire Building• Amenhotep III built huge statues of himself and a spacious

new temple


• Religious Experiment of Akhenaten, ca. 1377-1360– Akhenaten’s Religion

• Amenhotep IV tried to institute worship of a single god whom he called Aten, the sun-disk

• Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten

• The Twilight of the Egyptian Empire, 1360-ca. 1000 B.C.

• Akhenaten was succeeded by Tutankhaton, who died at the age of 18.

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• The other peoples made significant contributions to Western civilization: the Phoenicians developed an alphabet; the Hebrews turned away from the polytheism of other ancient cultures to embrace monotheism.

Merchants and Monotheists

• The Phoenicians: Traders on the Sea– Trading Colonies

• Phoenician traveled widely throughout the Mediterranean, traded as far west as Spain, and into the Atlantic down the west coast of Africa

• They established merchant colonies all along the north coast of Africa; the most important was Carthage

– Phoenician Alphabet• The Phoenicians’ most important

Contribution to Western culture was their

Alphabet• A phonetic alphabet of only twenty-two letters


• The People of the One God: Early Hebrew History, 1500-900 B.C.– Patriarchs

• The patriarchs - early leaders of the Hebrews• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob led seminomadic tribes that

roamed the eastern Mediterranean

– Hebrew Scriptures• The history of the Israelites are found in the Hebrew

Scriptures• Record laws, wisdom, legends, and literature• The first five books constitute the Torah


– Establishing a Kingdom• Instead of relying solely on tribal leaders, people

turned to “judges”• In time, the elders of the tribes felt they needed a

king, and the people insisted that Samuel anoint their first king Saul

– Dividing a Kingdom• After Solomon’s death tribes form the separate

kingdom of Isreal• The southern state was called Judah

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• With the spread of iron-forging technology also came changes in warfare and the successive emergence of three great empires, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians.


• A Jealous God, 1300-587 B.C.– The Covenant

• During 40 years in the wilderness, Moses bound his people in a special covenant though which the Jews would be God’s “chosen people” in return for their undivided worship.

– Hebrew Laws• The core of the Hebrew legal tradition lay in the Ten

Commandments, and adhering to these laws defined on as a Jew.

– Prophets• Amos, Micah, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Isaiah• They became the conscience of Israel

– “God’s Punishments”


• Judaism in Exile• Hebrew priests had the scriptures preserved so that their

people would not forget the purity laws.

– “Second Temple” Period• In 538 B.C. the Persian king, Cyrus, let the Jewish exiles

return to Jerusalem.• The Jews built a new temple in 515 B.C. the “Second

Temple” period

– Hebrew Contributions• Believed that God created the world at a specific point in time• Monotheism

Terror and Benevolence: The Growth of Empires, 1200-500 B.C.

• The Age of Iron– Iron Age

• In about 1200 B.C. tin was scarce.• To overcome the tin shortage, Hittite metalworkers in Asia Minor first began to employ iron.

• Rule by Terror: The Assyrians, 911-612 B.C.– Governing an Empire

• Assyrians built roads to unify their holdings, kings appointed governors and tax collectors, and facilitated trade by the use of Aramaic as a common language


– Preserving Learning• The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal collected a huge library, and

he preserved the best of Mesopotamian literature, including The Epic of Gilgamesh.

– Fall of Assyrians• The Assyrians used terror to control their far-flung territories.• Because the empire was so large it overextended the

Assyrians’ resources, and the provinces gave way quickly.• Nineveh finally collapsed in 612 B.C. after a brutal two-year

siege.


• Babylonian Rule, 612-539 B.C.– Culture and Commerce

• Under Nebuchadrezzar, Babylon blossomed into an impressive city graced by gardens, palaces, and temples.

• Babylonian kings obtained funds through fostering the commerce that often guided their military policies.

– Astronomy and Mathematics• Babylonian priests excelled in astronomy and mathematics.

• Rule by Tolerance: The Persian Empire, ca. 550-330 B.C.

• Under the king Cyrus the Great the Persians expanded westward to establish a larger empire.

– Persians Administration• Persians required subject peoples to pay reasonable taxes and

serve in their armies.


– Persians Administration (cont.)• They retained Aramaic as the common language

of commerce.

– Coins• Lydians seem to have invented the use of coins in

the seventh century B.C.

– Zoroastrianism• Zoroaster founded a new religion that contained

seeds of many modern belief systems.• Zoroaster was called to reform Persian religion by

eliminating polytheism and animal sacrifice.

Chapter 1 For hundreds of thousands of years before written history, humans made advances in the use...

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