History Chapter 1

• earliest use of stone tools from 1 million years ago to about 10,000 B.C.E. 
• people were hunters, fishers, and gatherers
• learned to make and control fire
• acquired language

• the sum total of the ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another. 
• includes courtship and child rearing practices, material things (tools, clothing) and ideas and beliefs

• 10,000 years ago, Middle East began to change from a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture to agricultural one
• Productive animals sheep/goats, food crops were first domesticated
• invention of pottery
• permanent dwellings

• 5000 B.C.- 500 B.C.
• Tigris and Euphrates rivers
• modern Iraq
• created a hierarchy of larger and smaller settlements 
• artwork appeared
• new technologies like smelting and manufacture of metal tools and weapons 
• different classes of people developed

characteristics of the form of human culture; includes urbanism, technological industrial and social change, long distance trade and new methods of symbolic communication

• 3100-1200 B.C.
• Near East and eastern Mediterranean
• someone discovered how to combine tin and cooper to make a stronger and more useful material

• built large cities (over 100,000)
• created first sophisticated system of writing 
• created the wheel 
• designed a gravity flow irrigation system 
• NOT members of Semitic language 
• arrived 5000 B.C.

• first ruler of Mesopotamia
• brought Mesopotamia under single rule in 2300 B.C. 
• spread Sumerian culture throughout fertile crescent; trade, religion, writing

dramatic change in subsistence, settlement, technology and population around 10,000 B.C.

• wedge shaped marks made on clay tablets with a cut-reed stylus 
• created by Sumerians
• expanded on pictography 
• earliest known system of writing

primitive form of writing

• Cuneiform
• Mathematics; based on units of 60 and its divisors 
• Chronology; lunar calendar, measured seasons, close year calculations

• polytheism; various gods
• Ziggurats; build temples to please gods, no code of ethics, rituals and sacrifices, Epic of Gilgamesh

• laws of Babylonia/Mesopotamian society 1792-1750 B.C. 
• punishment depended on social class; usually eye for an eye 
• government is impartial referee for citizens 
• stated punishments; upheld right to compensation

• noble/priests 
• freemen
• slaves

• Early on Theocracy; ruled by gods and priests of city-states
• Later kings ruled the region, beginning with Sargon the Great

• 1500 B.C. conquered by the Hittites, then Assyrians in 1200 B.C. and finally by Persians in 500 B.C.
• becomes center of Islamic World
• becomes "prosperous" again in 20th century

• environmental depletion
• erosion 
• intense heat
• sandstorms

• River civilization- The Nile River
• surrounded/protected by desert and Red Sea marshes making it isolated 
• 2 sections; Upper and Lower Egypt

• flows out of Lake Victoria; south to north into Mediterranean
• valley is lush, green
• floods more gently than Tigris and Euphrates
• means of travel, transportation of commerce and agriculture
• floods made soil fertile for crops

• 3100-2660 B.C. Archaic;
•             Unification 
• 2660-2180 B.C. Old Kingdom;
•     Construction of Pyramids
• 2180-2080 B.C. First Intermediate;
•             political chaos 
• 2080-1640 B.C Middle Kingdom;
•    recovery and political stability
• 1640-1570 B.C. Second Intermediate;
•             Hyksos Invasion 
• 1570-1075 B.C. New Kingdom
• Creation of Egyptian Empire , Akhenaten’s religious policy
• 1100-653 B.C Third Intermediate
•          Political fragmentation

After the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, during the Old Kingdom Period

• • Commissioned by King Khufu (Cheops)
• • Covers 13 acres
• • Orig. 480 feet high, now 450 ft.
• • Sphinx– strength and wisdom of both man & beast
• • 2600-2100 B.C.

a king who was also a god in Egypt

• sacred carvings by Egyptians 
• symbols that convey meaning through a series of pictures that represent sounds

• was the key to deciphering hieroglyphs; 
• work of French linguist/archaeologist Jean Francois Champollion, 1822
• was called  Father of Egyptology

• polytheist 
• over 3,000 gods
• Chief gods were sun gods Amon and Ra, later combined into one god
• Isis– goddess of the Nile and fertility
• Osiris, the god of the afterlife
• Horus, son of Osiris and Isis– the pharaoh

• believed in continuation of life on Earth 
• judgement fo the "ka" the soul/spirit of the person on earth ventured into the afterlife

Pharaoh Akhenaton

• tried to turn Egypt to a monotheism culture 
•  In opposition to the priests
• Claims that the god, Aton, was his father, and that Aton, not Amon (Amon-Ra) was to be worshipped

Egypt returned to polytheism

• Mesopotamia
• Subject to violent change
• Crossroad where civ. and barbarians met
• Melting pot, blending of newcomers, beliefs, new ideas
• Egypt 
• Stable for much of its history
•  Protected by natural barriers
• Isolated, except for trade, false sense of superiority

• Military powerhouse
• Vast empire from Tigris to Central Europe
• powerful with armies under King Tiglath-Pileser III, and Sargon II (ca. 750 B.C.)

• Assyrians fall around 612 B.C.
• Babylonians fought against the Assyrians under Babylonian leader, Nebuchadnezzar