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Early River Valley Civilizations
Chapter 2
1: City-States in Mesopotamia
•
Solutions: irrigation,
• Mesopotamia was not
naturally well-suited to
agriculture. Only the
southern portions of the
land between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers—the
area called Sumeria
(Fertile Crescent)—were
fertile, and limited rainfall
necessitated irrigation
• Yearly floods left rich soil
called silt
Disadvantages:
Unpredictable flooding,
small unprotected region,
and lack of natural
resources
•
•
building city walls, trade
with mountain and desert
peoples
Urban development
became pronounced around
3000 B.C.
The cities of Mesopotamia
produced new social,
political, and cultural
systems. Religious
priesthoods and military
leaders created political
and social elites. Beneath
the elites were slaves,
peasants who worked the
land belonging to the
elites, skilled workers who
served the temple
complexes, and free
landowners
Sumerian Culture
• Temple priests initially ran •
Sumerian governments,
however in times of war
leadership was passed to a
warrior. In time these
warrior b/c of constant
fighting became monarchs •
and passed power to their
heirs (dynastic rule)
• States grew and economic •
activities stretched to
include more peoples
creating the sharing of
ideas and culture-cultural
diffusion
• Polytheism-belief in many
gods
Polytheism was the rule
in Mesopotamia. The
gods were
anthropomorphic—they
looked and acted like
people
Mesopotamian religion
did not offer hope of an
afterlife
Technology: developed
the wheel, sail, plow,
writing systemcuneiform, used bronze,
maps, science, number
system, and architecturearches, pyramid shape,
and ziggurat
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Mesopotamia was
divided into warring
city-states until about
2300 B.C.
The first ruler to unify
the southern portion of
Mesopotamia was
Sargon of Akkad
Sargon conquered the
other major cities and
appointed his officials to
govern them
Sargon's unification of
Sumeria was a
temporary
accomplishment of a
brilliant commander and
ruler. His empire did not
long survive him
•
•
•
1750 B.C. the city of
Babylon exerted its
influence over all the citystates between the rivers.
The greatest ruler of Old
Babylonia was Hammurabi
His laws covered all
aspects of Babylonian life:
commerce, agriculture,
marriage, crime,
professional licensing, and
domestic tranquility
Like Sargon before him,
Hammurabi was unable to
construct a lasting political
unification of
Mesopotamia. By 1600
B.C. the Babylonian
Empire fell to foreign
invaders, the Hittites from
Anatolia
•
2: Egypt
• The Nile River valley
that gave rise to
Egyptian civilization was
capable of supporting a
dense population
• Nile ecology was more
easily converted to
sedentary agriculture
and required little
human intervention to
produce crops. The Nile
valley was also protected
along its length by
deserts; thus its
agricultural settlements
did not require walls for
defense
•
•
The agricultural
communities were at
first divided politically
into two halves: northern
or Lower Egypt near the
Nile delta and southern
or Upper Egypt
Around 3150 B.C. the
ruler or pharaoh of
Upper Egypt, Narmer,
united the two halves
and established a single
capital at Memphis
The king or pharaoh was
a living god who was
responsible for the
flooding of the Nile and
the preservation of maat,
the harmony of the
universe. (theocracy)
•
•
•
•
Most important in the
religious life of the Old
Kingdom were the cults
of the dead pharaohs.
King Zoser, the first
ruler of the Old
Kingdom, began the
practice of building
pyramids surrounded
by temples to serve the
spirits of departed
rulers
Polytheistic
Bodies were
mummified
Believed in an afterlife
in which you could take
valuables and would
receive judgment from
Osiris
Click here to find out more about
ancient Egypt: The British
Museum
Egypt
• Social pyramid
The Rosetta
Stone allowed
for the
translation of
the hieroglyphs
King, queen, royal family
• Hieroglyphics-writing
Upper class
system.
Middle class
• Akhnaton orig. Amenhot
ep IV encourage the
exclusive worship of the
Lower
little-known deity Aton,
a sun god
Could move out of social class
by marriage or success in their
job
• Achievements: written
numbers, architecture,
geometry, calendar, and
medicine
• Overran by Asian
nomads
Indus Valley
• India: fertile plain
between Indus and
Ganges rivers. Area
guarded by mountains
and desert
• Subject to monsoons-wet
and dry seasons
• Indus region was home
to the largest of the four
ancient urban
civilizations of Egypt,
Mesopotamia, South
Asia and China. It was
not discovered until the
1920's. Most of its ruins,
even its major cities,
remain to be excavated.
The ancient Indus script
click
has not been deciphered
• 2500 B.C. began building
planned communities
(Kalibangan, MohenjoDaro, and Harappa)
• Indus valley sometimes
referred to as Harappan
civilization
• Indus Valley cities were
laid out on a precise grid
system with fortified
areas called citadels.
They had separate
residential districts and
sophisticated plumbing
and swage systems
• TAKE A LOOK
http://www.mohenjodaro.n
et/
Harappan Religion
• Artifacts
reveal links
to modern
Hindu
culture
Hindus are polytheistic
religion
Around 1750 BC life in Indus
Valley began to decline ???
(river changed course, land
worn out, catastrophe, or
attack)
The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro
show the advanced plumbing
system. The drain in the middle
would take all unwanted water to
the sewage system below
China
• Natural barriers isolated
ancient China: Pacific
Ocean, Taklimakan desert,
Plateaus of Tibet and
Mongolia, Gobi Desert,
and the Himalayan
mountains
• It is a very diverse area:
PLAY GAME: WHERE
DO I LIVE
• Geography Challenge
• Plain between Huang He
(Yellow River) and
Yangtze is China
heartland-farming’s
• Silt from yellow river
overflowing-loess
• 2000 B.C. cities arose
• Xia dynasty: led by Yu
(flood control and
irrigation projects)
• Shang: 1532-1027 b.c.
invaders, written records,
created walled citiesprotection, society sharply
divided by class (King,
warrior-nobles, and
peasants)
• Culture placed importance
on family and loyalty to
king/emperor
• Women treated as inferiors
The Yellow River gets its name
because of the yellow
windborne clay dust called
loess that is blown across the
north of China from the steppes
of Central Asia. The loess is
blown into the river and gives it
• Religion-believed spirits
of family members could
influence fortune
• Polytheistic-worshipped
a supreme god, Shang
Di, and many lesser ones
through the spirits of
their ancestors
• Shang kings consulted
the gods through oracle
bones, which priest
would break and then
interpret
• Writing system(pictographs): no links
between China’s
languages and writing
system
• Zhou overthrow Shang
around 1027 BC
• Justified by Mandate of
Heaven (bad rulers could
lose gods support and
others could then
overthrow him)
• This began a patter of rise
and fall in dynasties in
China-dynastic cycle
• Zhou began feudalism to
control lands (nobles can
use kings land in return
for loyalty and service)
• Technology-roads, coined
money, government
workers, and iron
• Zhou lost power 256 BC
and nobles began fighting