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The Mesopotamian, Syrian and Aegean Areas during the 1700’s - 1200
Use the time line to answer the following questions:
1. While Mesopotamia had several civilizations during its earliest times, specifically the
Sumerian and _______________________________, Egypt’s own
_______________________ _______________________________ was occurring
concurrently.
2. The Egyptian Middle Kingdom occurred nearly concurrently as the
___________________________________, Isin-Larsa, and Elam-Amorite civilizations and
invasions in Mesopotamia.
3. The reign of the Pharaohs during the late Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos in Egypt saw the
reign of _______________________________________ in the Babylonian Empire.
4. In Syria, the ____________________________ Empire occurred alongside the Old
Babylonian Empire.
5. During the New Kingdom of Egypt, until 1200 BC, the ___________________ ruled in
Mesopotamia and the _______________________________ Empire as well as the
_______________________________ruled in Syria.
6. Remember that all civilizations and empires don’t exist in a vacuum. Even though Egypt
wasn’t actively expanding until the New Kingdom, they were still interacting with other
empires. Besides the Nubians to the south, the Semitic peoples who settled into the Delta
area during the Middle Kingdom, the Minoan people from the island of
_____________________________ also settled into the Delta region.
Use your textbook to answer the following questions:
1. The story of _______________________ illustrates the spread of cultural patterns from older
centers to new regions. She was a former queen of _______________________________ a
____________________________________ city-state.
2. The above story also served as a key feature in the historical myths of
________________________ to show their connection with Carthage during the Punic Wars.
(This will be covered in class)
3. The Bronze Age begins with the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia and ends with the period of
destruction and decline that set in around _________________________ BC. The Bronze Age
includes the Old though New Kingdoms in Egypt as well as the _________________________
and Mycenaean civilization of the Aegean Sea.
4. The major civilizations during the Iron Age include: ____________________ in Mesopotamia,
the ________________________ in Palestine, and the ____________________ of Lebanon and
Syria.
5. By the 1500’s Mesopotamia was divided into two distinct political zones:
_________________________ in the south and _____________________ in the north.
However, this does not mean that either one of those “zones” ruled Mesopotamia during this
time. These civilizations took a long time to build and a long time to assert their power.
6. After the reign of Hammurabi, the _______________________ ruled in Mesopotamia. They
ruled for the longest time period of all the empires and ironically we don’t have much left.
7. As early as 2500 BC, the _________________________ in the northern part of Mesopotamia
made impressive trade connections with ____________________________ or modern day
Turkey. The exchanged their _____________________ and tin in return for
___________________________. They gained slight control in the 1700’s and once again after
1400 which illustrates the importance of _____________________________ routes in the Near
East. However, they wouldn’t not have an empire for another 500 years.
8. The ____________________________, speakers of an Indo-European language, became the
foremost power in Anatolia from around 1700-1200 BC. These people were the first to begin
the development of ______________________________.
9. ____________________________________ was the language of diplomacy between most
governments of the Near East (Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria, and Anatolia).
10. While the Elamites and Hittites adopted Akkadian cuneiform into their own languages, the
people in the city of __________________________ (by Phoenicia) adopted this same
cuneiform to write single consonant sounds rather than just syllables.
11. By the time of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia and the Hyksos reign in Egypt, the whole of the Near
East were interacting politically, militarily, and ____________________________ in a
geopolitical sphere encompassing all of western Asia.
The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations
1. The ___________________________ are considered the first European civilization and
inhabited the island of __________________________. They are named after the legend of
_______________________ _______________________ who kept the Minotaur.
2. While sharing some things in common with the Near East, such as centralized government and
some architectural designs, we have no identifiable ________________________________ of
the Cretan rulers. They aren’t seen as so amazing or grand.
3. The Minoan civilization had ____________________ plumbing
4. Historians tend to think that the Minoans were a peaceful people who loved the natural world.
a. They had no _______________________________ (or walls around the palaces).
b. _______________ jumping sports.
c. Plants and animals on Minoan ___________________ such as octopuses.
5. The Minoans were destroyed in __________________ either by a tsunami or most commonly
thought by the ______________________________ people.
6. The ________________________ civilization were the speakers of an Indo-European language
and the fore-runners of the ancient Greeks.
7. The German businessman ______________________ __________________________ was
responsible for “discovering” the Mycenaean civilization. He found the
________________________ of Agamemnon though some people think it looks an awful lot like
Schliemann! (I’ll tell you in class- unless you can figure out what he found…I have cashews and
jerky for extra credit…).
8. He was responsible for unearthing __________________________ graves which were full of
weapons, jewelry, and utensils.
9. The Mycenaean civilization lasted from ___________________ until __________________.
10. The Mycenaean palaces all had _______________________________ or massive walls that later
people thought _____________________ had built.
11. The Minoan’s used a script called _____________________ but the Mycenaean people (when
they “discovered” the Minoans around 1500 BC) copied it and made their own called
________________________. It is an early form of Greek-though NOT an alphabet as it was
based off of syllable like cuneiform.
12. The Mycenaean kings were referred to as the ____________________. (Lecture again!) This will
be IMPORTANT when we learn about the formation of the polis in Greece.
13. The Mycenaean epic, the ____________________, tells a story about Agamemnon one of the
kings of the Mycenaean people. Where the Mycenaean people unified politically like in the
Iliad? __________________________ They did NOT live in city –states (that took another 700
years)!
14. Both the Minoan and Mycenaean peoples were focused on overseas
__________________________. Their pottery can be found in the Levant/Palestine area and in
the Nile Delta.
15. The Mycenaean civilization in southwest Greece relied on imports of _____________________
from the Near Eastern lands (They couldn’t grow a lot in Greece…too rocky).
16. They also needed meals, both the ________________ and the __________________ and tin
needed to make bronze.
17. The Trojan War could possibly be based on a real life event which centered on a trade conflict
between a Mycenaean group and a Hittite city. Records from the
____________________________ kings of Anatolia refer to a group of people called the land of
Ahhijawa which probably is Hittite for _____________________________. For fun: They also
list “Wilusa” (Ilium) and “Priya-Muwas” (Priam), and “Alekandus” (Alexander or Paris).
18. Around ___________________ BC the entire Mediterranean area collapsed. It was a
combination of people movements and famine.
19. One of the major groups of peoples that migrated during the collapse are referred to as the
____________________ ____________________ by the Egyptian records that list 5 groups.
20. After having the Delta region overwhelmed by these people, Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses III
settles some of the groups into Palestine especially the _____________________________.
They originally came from Crete…so they were…Mycenaean! (in other words: Goliath was a
Mycenaean)
21. The Egyptian lost their territory in Syria-______________________ and their foothold in
____________________________.
22. In terms of Greek development, we refer to this time as the Greek __________________ Age.
They lost writing, sophisticated art, palace administration systems, but still worshipped many of
the same __________________. The Greek lands saw a huge decrease in
__________________________________ as people moved to the Near Eastern areas.
Assyrians
1. The Kassites, who kicked the Babylonians out in 1600 BC, unified north and south Mesopotamia.
When the major collapse happened in 1200 BC, the Kassites lost control in Babylon. Soon they
were replaced. The ______________________________ Empire was the first group to extend
rule over more people than just people in Mesopotamia.
2. The Assyrians spread out, around 911 BC, and conquered all the great kingdoms of the day. At
its peak, the Assyrians included: Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, and ______________________ in the
west, across Armenia, and Mesopotamia, as far as western _________________________.
3. The Assyrian king was the _______________________ of the Assyrian universe. All the land and
the ________________________ belonged to him. The Assyrians believed the
_______________ chose the king to rule and the king’s successor was confirmed by divine
___________________.
4. The king’s duties included: hearing complaints, dictating correspondence to
________________________________, and receiving foreign envoys and high-raking
government figures.
5. The chief god of Assyria was _______________________ and he was consulted before the king
made any administration or state decisions.
6. Royal inscriptions and ___________________ were the vehicles of propaganda in Assyria. They
would advertise the king’s military victories, his charisma, relentless will, promise ruthless
punishments to enemies, show hunts, and battles.
7. The Assyrians were the most vicious military machine in the Near East- ever. It was made
possible by their superior military ___________________________ and technology.
8. Assyria became to extend its power under a man named Ashurnasirpal. He is the one who
started the reign of terror with which Assyria is associated. He would terrorize enemies into
submission. Once they were conquered, they were tortured, raped, beheaded, and flayed. They
would torch enemy’s houses, cut down their crops, and salt their fields. All this pillaging made
the kings very wealthy.
9. However, Assyria really didn’t start to dominate until Tiglathpileser reformed the army (745
BC). He created a core of ______________________ soldiers and organized them into groups
(archers, spear-men, chariots, and cavalry).
10. Besides being organized, professional, and brutal, the Assyrian army also had other advantages.
They used _________________ weapons, developed machinery and tactics for
__________________ fortified towns (they dug tunnels and built siege towers). First time in
history, walls no longer protected a city!
11. In order to make sure a city didn’t rebel, Assyria would practice ________________ deportation
or forcibly uprooting entire communities and resetting them elsewhere.
12. The kings were in charge of administering the kingdom but the
____________________________ officials oversaw the payment of tribute and
_________________________, maintained law and order and raised troops in a conquered
territory. All the nobles or elite classes were bound to obey the king either out of fear of
__________________________ and/or for rewards such as land ______________________.
13. The vast majority of people in Assyria worked on the ____________________. This allowed
many to engage in specialized activities. One of the triumphs of Assyria occurred in 720 BC,
when Sargon II took over the northern part of Israel. (You can find part of the historical account
in the Hebrew Bible: II Kings 16:9 and 15:29.)
14. In 615 BC, an alliance was made by many of the suppressed enemies of Assyria. They over
threw Assyria and the __________________________ Empire became the final empire to control
the Mesopotamian land until Alexander the Great. They didn’t control as much territory as the
Babylonians-they controlled Mesopotamia, all of Palestine, Syria, northern Arabia but not Egypt
or modern day Iran.
15. The Neo-Babylonian Empire lasted less than 100 years. One of the highlights of the Babylonian
Empire was the destruction of the southern portion of Israel also called Judah. In 587, the capital
Jerusalem was sacked by King _______________________________________. (Look at the
king’s dates in your textbook. Also, a historical account can be found in the Hebrew Bible: II
Kings 24-25 and the book of Daniel. Other accounts of Babylon are in Jerimiah 52:31-34 and
Jer. 39:3,13)
16. In 539 BC, king Nabonidus opens its gates to Persia and they conquer Babylon.
Israelites
1. Israel is significant for two interconnected reasons.
a. They began as a loose collection of _____________________________ kinships groups
engaged in herding ad caravan traffic.
b. These people transformed the austere cult of a desert god into the concept of a
_____________________________, all-powerful, and all-knowing deity, in the process
creating the ethical and intellectual traditions that underlie the beliefs and values of
__________________________________ and _________________________________.
2. This lands at the heart of this story have gone by various names:
_______________________________, ________________________,
____________________________.
3. The people have also gone by various names: ___________________________,
_____________________________, ___________________________________.
4. Israel is a ______________________________, linking Anatolia, Egypt, Arabia, and
Mesopotamia.
5. The ___________________________ settled on the Mediterranean coast of Palestine.
a. Canaan refers to the Phoenician inhabitants. And Palestine refers to the Arab inhabitants.
6. The fundamental source of history comes from the collection of writings preserved in the
__________________________ _______________________ (called the Old Testament by
Christians).
7. The Hebrew Bible is a compilation of several collections of materials. (Scholars debate the
writers of the first five books also called the Torah.) Some attribute the first 5 books to Moses
others see 4 different writers due to distinctive ___________________________, and some
advocated particular interpretations of past events. The Bible would have been written down first
in the 10th century in an alphabet borrowed from the _________________________________
and then later had additions added. (Even if Moses wrote the Torah writers would have utilized
this later script!)
8. The Hebrew language is a ____________________ language which parallels the Israelites
ancestral relationship with the Phoenicians and Aramaic peoples.
9. The Biblical account discusses the sojourn of _____________________ who left his people in Ur
(3rd Dynasty of Ur between the fall of the Akkadians and the rise Babylon) and rejected
traditional idol worship in favor of a monotheistic religion based on the God, Yahweh.
10. His great-grandson __________________________ was sold into slavery into Egypt.
11. The Hebrews (based on the word Habiru which is a generic term meaning wonderer) probably
settled into Egypt in the time of the Middle Kingdom Pharaohs. They quite possibly could have
become slaves during the time of the _______________________ and then expelled with them.
12. Your textbook also refers to the time of the ____________ ___________________________
which is a time of ambitious building in Egypt. However, recent documentation suggests that
Israel was already a nation by this point (Stela of Merneptah is one of them-reference your notes
on Egypt).
13. The Israelites left Egypt and journeyed into Canaan which was already settled by other Semitic
people. The leadership of the Israelites began with _____________________ and was passed
down to ______________________________ who attacked and defeated the city of
_____________________________. Your textbook is slightly misleading. Some towns do have
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
destruction dates in the 1250 and 1200 BC. The destruction of Jericho however dates to around
1500 or a little thereafter-which places Jericho right after the Hyksos explosion. (If you are
interested in the archaeology, I excavation information which matches the Hebrew account with
fairly good correlation.)
During the early history of Israel, the people were loosely organized and governed by
_________________________ until around 1020 BC.
Around the time that the Mediterranean collapsed, the _______________________________ or a
group of Mycenaean people from Crete, settled on the coast.
_____________________ was the first king and was followed by _______________________
who transformed Israel into a unified ____________________________________. He made the
capital the city of _______________________________. He collected taxes and created a
standing army which allowed Israel to expand its ___________________________.
___________________________ was the third king of Israel. Alliances and
_________________ linked Israel with distant lands such as Phoenician
______________________ who together brought back exotic goods from the Red Sea area.
During Solomon’s reign, his wealth supported a lavish ________________ life, a sizable
____________________ and an intimidation chariot army. He also undertook a massive building
project to build the ____________________ _____________________________ in Jerusalem.
It was also during the period of Solomon and afterwards when the gap between the urban and
rural, and ___________________ poor.
After the death of Solomon, the monarchy split into two kingdoms: Israel in the
__________________and Judah in the _______________________________. The capital of
Israel was ______________________________and the capital of Judah was
_________________________________________.
In 721 BC, the ______________________________________ (under Sargon II) destroyed the
northern kingdom and _____________________________________ much of its population to
the east.
In 587, the Neo-Babylonian monarch ___________________________________ conquered
Jerusalem and deported to Babylon many royal people and the well-educated- called the
Babylonian Captivity.
The _____________________________ refers to the time after the Babylonian captivity when
the Hebrews were scattered.
During the reign of ___________________ King of Persia, the Hebrews were permitted to return
to Israel. The next Empire to control the Palestinian area were the Macedonians under Alexander
the Great, the Maccabees during 164-63 BC, and finally the Romans in 63 BC- AD 313.
The Phoenicians
1. The _____________________________ referred to themselves as Canaanites and lived in the
area of Syria to the north of Israel.
2. They have a history dating to about 1500 which is the same time as the expulsion of the Hyksos
and close to the destruction of the Minoans. During the collapse of 1200, many Phoenician
settlements were destroyed by the _____________________________. Their language would
displace Akkadian after this point as the language of trade (lasted until the Romans took over!)
3. The Greeks called the Canannites Phoenicians which probably refers to the purple
__________________________________ they extracted from a snail.
4. They had a prosperous trading economy due to the abundance of natural resources available in
the northern Levant. Raw materials included _________________ and pine from trees, wine,
spices, and other luxury goods.
5. The Phoenicians created an ____________________________ based on consonant sounds. The
Greeks used this an added vowels.
6. Our word bible comes from the city of _______________________ and means book written on
papyrus from Byblos. It is due to the distribution of books on papyrus at this city.
7. Phoenicians in Tyre established a massive trade network after making an alliance with
______________________________ of Israel.
8. After facing contending with Assyrian aggression and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the
Persian Empire the Phoenicians turned to the __________________________ Sea area to settle.
9. The Phoenicians would conflict with _________________________ over the control of Sicily.
10. One Phoenician colony, ___________________________, was located on the coast of North
Africa in modern day Tunisia.
11. Carthage was said to be settled by ______________________ Queen of Tyre and links to the
story of Aeneas and then Rome.
12. Carthaginian power rested on its _____________________ which dominated the western
Mediterranean for centuries.
13. Carthage didn’t have an empire but instead had ____________________________ on trade and
controlled others ability to trade freely.
14. The Carthaginians relied more heavily on trade and didn’t require its citizens to serve in an
__________________________________ as they were more valuable in trade.
15. When drawn into wars, the Carthaginians relied more on paid __________________________
particularly from Numidia, Iberia and Gaul.
16. The Phoenician’s chief god was _________________________ a male storm-god (Marduk was
titled Bel which is the equivalent and is closely linked to Moloch in the Hebrew Scriptures). The
gods of the Phoenicians required ____________________________ sacrifice.
a. For over achievers (I still haven’t given out any jerky and cashews…) you may look up
these historical references. How is Bel/Baal/Moloch used?
i. Leviticus 18:2; Leviticus 20:2; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35