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Ancient Egypt &
the Middle East
3200 BCE – 500 BCE
City-States of
Ancient Sumer
Chapter 2 – Section 1
City-States of Ancient
Sumer
 Many ancient civilizations arose in the Fertile
Crescent
 A region of the Middle East named for its rich soils and
golden wheat fields
 Over time it became a crossroad where people and
ideas met and mingled
 Each new group made its own contribution to the
history of the region
Geography Influences Fertile
Crescent Civilization
 Within the Fertile Crescent there lies a region that the
ancient Greeks later named Mesopotamia
 “between the two rivers”
 This area of land is between the Tigris & Euphrates
Rivers
 They start in Turkey and run through Iraq into the
Persian Gulf
 3300 BCE – the first civilization arose there: Sumer
Fertile Crescent
Organizing for Floods &
Irrigation
 Control of the Tigris & the Euphrates was key
 The Epic of Gilgamesh tells of a tale of a great flood
which destroys the world
 Archaeologists have found evidence of floods which
occurred regularly in the Fertile Crescent
Organizing for Floods &
Irrigation
 For survival & protection:
 Villagers had to work together
 Temple priests provided the leadership to ensure
cooperation
 They built dikes to hold back floodwaters
 Irrigation ditches to carry water to their fields
Sumerians Build Cities
 Since they lacked many resources, they had to make
the best of what they had
 Timber and stone were some things which they had to
live without
 Instead they used clay & water to make bricks which
dried in the sun
 These bricks were used as building blocks for some of
the world’s first cities
 Ur
 Uruk
Ancient Sumer
Sumerians Build Cities
 Trade brought riches to Sumer
 Although it is unknown when exactly the wheel was
invented, it is believed that Sumerians did use some
sort of wheeled vehicles
 Archaeologists have found goods from as far away as
Egypt & India in the rubble of Sumerian cities
Complex Government
 In each city-state the ruler was responsible for
maintaining the city walls & the irrigation systems
 He led armies in war, enforced laws, and employed
scribes
 Scribes collected taxes and kept records
 The ruler was the chief servant of the gods and led
ceremonies meant to please them
Sumerian Society
 Each city-state had a social hierarchy
 System of ranking groups
 Highest class: ruling family, leading officials, and
high priests
 Small & middle class: lesser priests, scribes,
merchants, and artisans
 Lowest class: peasant farmers
Sumerian Society
Some peasants had their own land but most worked land belonging to the king
or to temples
• Slaves and slavery also existed, most of which were captured in war while
others sold themselves to pay their debts
•
Role of
Women
Goddesses were highly honored in
religious practice
• Because of this, women held a
higher social standing in Sumer
than in later civilizations
• However they never held legal
rights equal to those of men
• Some rulers’ wives had
supervisory powers and many of
them wrote songs about their
husbands
•
Sumerian Religion
 Like most ancient people, Sumerians were polytheistic
 Their gods were thought to control every aspect of life
 They believed that gods and goddesses behaved like
ordinary people
 They ate, drank, married, and raised families
 Their gods favored truth and justice by were also
responsible for causing violence and suffering
Sumerian
Religion
•
•
Their highest duty was to keep
the gods and goddesses happy
to ensure the safety of their
city-state
Each city-state built a ziggurat
•
Large, stepped platform
thought to have been
topped by a temple
dedicated to the city’s chief
god or goddess
Sumerian Religion
 Sumerians also celebrated holy days with ceremonies
 In one ritual, the king went through a symbolic
wedding to Inanna (the life-giving goddess of love)
 This was mean to ensure a prosperous new year
Sumerian Religion
 They also believed in an afterlife
 They believed that all people lived in a grim
underworld from which there was no release
 In The Epic of Gilgamesh it is described as “the place
where they live on dust, their food is mud, . . . And they see
no light, living in blackness / on the door and door-bolt,
deeply settled dust”
Writing
 3200 BCE – Sumerians invent one of the earliest
forms of writing known as cuneiform
 Latin for “cuneus” for “wedge”
 Scribes wrote by making wedge-shaped marks on clay
tablets
 The writing grew out of pictographs used to record
goods brought to temple store-houses
 Later they developed symbols to represent more
complicated thoughs
Writing
 Eventually, they used writing to record:

Economic exchanges

Myths

Prayers

Laws

Business contracts
 Scribes had to go through years of difficult schooling to
acquire their skills
 Students who did well often learned about religion,
mathematics, and literature
Legacy of Sumer
 2500 BCE – armies of people swept across
Mesopotamia and took over the Sumerians
 1900 BCE – the Sumerian civilization had been
replaced by other civilizations and empires
 Newcomers however adopted many ideas and
innovations
Legacy of Sumer
 Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians adapted
cuneiform so it could be used with their own
languages
 They helped spread Sumerian learning across the
Middle East
 Sumerian scholars had developed a number system
based on 6, dividing the hour into 60 minutes and the
circle into 360 degrees
Legacy of Sumer
 Babylonians learned from the Sumerians and
developed basic algebra and geometry to:
 Create accurate calendars
 Predict eclipses of the sun and moon
 People also narrated The Epic of Gilgamesh in their
native language such as Akkadian and Babylonian
 Eventually Sumerian knowledge passed down to the
Greeks and Romans
Invaders, Traders, &
Empire Builders
Chapter 2 – Section 2
First Empires in Mesopotamia
 The Fertile Crescent was the crossroads of civilization
 Many people met there to trade and exchange ideas
 Everyone from traders to warriors mingled here in the
Fertile Crescent
Sargon Builds
the 1st Empire
•
2300 BCE: Sargon, ruler of
Akkad, invaded and conquered
the neighboring city-states of
Sumer
•
He expanded his territory and
appointed local rulers who served
as kings over the lands he
conquered
•
After his death, invaders swept
into the valley between the rivers,
crushing his empire
Hammurabi & Babylon
 New conquerors followed in Sargon’s footsteps and
imposed unity over the Fertile Crescent
 1700 BCE: Hammurabi, the king of Babylon, took
over much of Mesopotamia
 He published a set of laws known as Hammurabi’s
Code
 Most of the laws had existed long before, but he
wanted to ensure everyone in the empire knew the
legal principles
Hammurabi &
Babylon
• Artisans carved nearly 300
laws on a stone pillar for all to
see
• This was the first attempt by a
ruler to codify (arrange and set
down in writing) all the laws
that would govern a state
Civil Law
 One section of the Code codified civil law
 Deals with private rights and matters
 Business contracts
 Property inheritance
 Taxes
 Marriage
 Divorce
 Much of this law was meant to protect the powerless,
slaves and women
Civil Law
 Some laws allowed a woman to own property and pass it
on to her children
 Another law talked about the rights of a married woman

If she was blameless then she could leave the marriage

If she were at fault, she should be thrown into the river
 In general, the husband had both legal authority over his
wife and the legal duty to support her
 The father had nearly unlimited power of his children
 An orderly household was necessary for a stable empire
Criminal Law
 This dealt with offenses against others

Robbery

Assault

Murder
 However it limited personal vengeance and encouraged
social order
 They followed “an eye for an eye” principle
 Ex: if a house collapsed and killed the residents because of
poor construction, the builder could be put to death
Other
Accomplishments
•
•
He took steps to unite his empire
•
Improving the system of
irrigation
•
Organizing a well-trained
army
•
Ordering many temples to be
repaired
For religious unity, he promoted
Marduk (the patron god of
Babylon) over older Sumerian
gods
New Empires & Ideas
 People such as the Hittites brought new skills to the region
 1400 BCE: They came from Asia Minor (modern-day
Turkey) into Mesopotamia
 The brought with them the knowledge of how to extract
iron form ore
 Their tools were harder and sharper than those made by
copper or bronze
 Their empire collapsed and ironsmith moved elsewhere to
practice their skill; spreading it across Asia, Africa and
Europe
Hittite Empire
Assyrians
They lived in the upper Tigris River and also learned to make iron weapons
1350 BCE: they established their empire and began expanding across
Mesopotamia by 1100 BCE
• Over 500 years they earned a reputation of being the most feared warriors in
history
•
•
Assyrians
•
They boasted of their conquests
and upon conquering Babylon
one leader said:
•
“The city and its houses, from top to
bottom, I destroyed and burned with
fire”
•
They did encouraged a well
organized society with splendid
palaces
•
They were also the first to develop
extensive laws regulating life
within the royal house
•
Ex: women of the palace were
confined to secluded quarters and
had to wear veils when they
appeared in public
Assyrians
•
•
At Nineveh the king, Assurbanipal, founded one of the world’s first libraries
He kept cuneiform tablets that he ordered scribes to collect from all over the
Fertile Crescent
Nebuchadnezzar & Babylon
 612 BCE: after Assurbanipal’s death, neighboring
cities joined forces to defeat the Assyrians
 Nebuchadnezzar, the 2nd king of Babylon, expanded
the empire from the Persian Gulf to the
Mediterranean Sea
 He oversea the rebuilding of canals, temples, walls,
and palaces
 The city became one of the largest and most highly
regarded in ancient Mesopotamia
Babylon
• Babylon’s wall completely
surrounded the city and was
85 feet thick
• It had 9 gateways dedicated to
important gods, the most
famous being the Ishtar Gate
• There you can find the
dragons representing Marduk
and bulls representing the god
Hadad
Babylon
 In the city center, Nebuchadnezzar created and
decorated the city’s ziggurat to the gods and restored
the temple honoring the city’s chief god, Marduk
 He also may have built the Hanging Gardens (one of
the seven wonders of the ancient world)
 They were made to please hi wife who was homesick
for the hills where she had grown up
 They were probably made by planting trees and
flowering plants on the steps of a huge ziggurat
Hanging Gardens
The Persians
Empire
•
The walls built by Nebuchadnezzar
were not strong enough to hold
back future invaders
•
539 BCE: Babylon fell to the
Persians who were lead by Cyrus
the Great
•
They had the biggest empire known
at the time controlling the territories
from Asia Minor to India
•
They had a policy of tolerance of
the people they conquered often
respecting their way of life, or
culture
Darius Unites the People
 Darius I ruled Persia from 522 BCE to 486 BCE and
was the main contributor to the unification of Persia
 He divided his government into provinces called a
satrapy who were headed by a governor called a
satrap
 Each satrapy had to pay taxes based on its resources
and wealth
Darius
•
He also adopted laws from the
peoples he conquered and drew
up a single code of laws for the
empire
•
To encourage unity he repaired
roads to make it easier for people
to travel, communicate, and trade
with one another
•
He also moved his capital from
one place to another while
celebrating important festivals
Improving Economic Life
 The use of coins was encouraged which were
introduced by the Lydians of Asia Minor
 Barter Economy – exchange one set of goods or
services for another
 Money Economy – goods and services are paid for
through the exchange of some token of an agreed
value; coin or bill
New Religion
 Zoroaster was a Persian thinker/philosopher who
lived in about 600 BCE
 He rejected old Persian gods and taught that a single
wise god ruled the world, Ahura Mazda
 Ahura Mazda was in constant battle against Ahriman
(prince of lies and evil)
 Each person chose the side they wanted to support but
in the end Ahura Mazda would triumph and on
judgment day all individuals would be judged for their
actions
Zoroastrianism
Contributions of
the Phoenicians
• They occupied a string of
cities along the eastern
Mediterranean coast in today’s
Lebanon & Syria
• They made huge contributions
because of their location
• They made glass from coastal
sand, purple dye from tiny sea
snails
• They were called “Tyrian
purple” after the city of
Tyre
Phoenicians
•
•
•
To promote trade they set up colonies from North Africa to Sicily and Spain
Colony – a territory settled and ruled by people from another land
They even sailed as far as Britain where they exchanged goods from the
Mediterranean for tin
Establish an Alphabet
 Historians call Phoenicians “carriers of civilization”
 Their alphabet was one of the greatest contributions to
Middle Eastern civilization
 An alphabet is a writing system which each symbol
represents a single basic sound
 They had an alphabetic system of 22 symbols that
stood for consonant sounds
 Later the Greeks adopted this alphabet and added
symbols for vowel sounds
Phoenician Alphabet
Kingdom of the
Nile
Chapter 2 – Section 3
Geography Helps Shape Egypt
 According to the Greek historian Herodotus: “Egypt is
wholly the gift of the Nile”
 The Nile helped Egypt in that it protected it from the
deserts of the Sahara
 However the desert also helped protect Egypt from
invaders
Yearly Floods
 The Nile River started in the highlands of Ethiopia
and eventually made its way to Egypt
 The Egyptians eagerly waited for the river to flood
because it soaked the land with life-giving water and
deposited a layer of rich silt
 In order to control the floods people had to cooperate
with one another to build dikes, reservoirs, and
irrigation ditches to channel the river
Uniting Two Regions
 Ancient Egypt consisted of two different region
 Upper Egypt – in the south
 Lower Egypt – in the north
 Upper Egypt stretched from the Nile’s first cataract
(waterfall) to 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea
 Lower Egypt covered the delta region where the Nile
empties into the Mediterranean Sea
 Delta – triangular area of marshland formed by
deposits of silt at the mouth of some rivers
Upper &
Lower Egypt
Why was Upper Egypt in the south?
What was Lower Egypt in the north?
Uniting Two
Regions
•
Around 3100 BCE: Menes (king
of Upper Egypt) united the two
regions
•
He and his successors used the
Nile as a highway linking north
and south where they could send
officials or armies to towns along
the river
•
The capital was situated at
Memphis
The Old Kingdom
 The history of ancient Egypt is divided into 3 main
periods
 Old Kingdom: 2575 BCE – 2130 BCE
 Middle Kingdom: 1938 BCE – 1630 BCE
 New Kingdom: 1539 BCE – 1075 BCE
 Power was passed down from dynasty to another
 One ruling family to another
The Old Kingdom
 Pharaohs (kings) of Egypt organized a strong and
central government
 They were also believed to be a god
 They held absolute power
 Owned and ruled all the land
 They were expected to behave morally and be judged
for their deeds
The Old Kingdom
 The Pharaohs set up a bureaucracy – a system of
government that includes different job functions and
levels of authority
 They also depended on a vizier – a chief minister – to
supervise the business of government
 The vizier had to oversee man departments which
included a tax collection agency, farming agency, and
the irrigation agency
The Great Pyramids
 Pharaohs of Egypt built many necropolises (cemeteries)
which also contained large pyramids
 The best known are the ones at Giza
 The tombs inside were considered homes for the deceased
 Bodies were preserved and were provided with everything
needed in their new afterlife
 Each pyramid took a long time to build so pharaohs would
order construction immediately after assuming the throne
Pyramids of Giza
Middle Kingdom
 Reasons for collapse of the Old Kingdom
 Power struggles, crop failures, cost of building the
pyramids
 They suffered nearly 100 years of disunity until new
pharaohs united the land again
Middle Kingdom
 These were hard times
 The Nile did not rise as it regularly as it had in the past
 Corruption and rebellions were common
 About 1700 BCE: Hyksos invaders and occupied the
Nile taking over the governance, and impressed the
Egyptians with their horse-drawn war chariots
 After having occupied Egypt for nearly 100 years, the
Hyksos were replaced by new Egyptian leaders
The New Kingdom
 This new age in ancient Egyptian history brought
about many powerful pharaohs as well as changes
 Egypt also witnessed its first female ruler take charge
 Hatshepsut encouraged trade with eastern
Mediterranean lands and along the Red Sea
 Thutmose III, her stepson, took over once he reached
adulthood
 Later on, Ramses II, pushed Egyptian control as far as
Syria
Neighboring
Battles
•
•
•
During the reign of Ramses II
Egypt fought many battles
against the Hittites of Asia
Minor
They eventually signed a
peace treaty which still
survives today
It declared that Egypt and the
Hittites “shall be at peace and in
brother-hood forever”
Neighboring Battles
 South of Egypt lay Nubia who for centuries fought
with the Egyptians and even traded with them
 From Nubia, Egypt acquired ivory, cattle, and slaves
 Eventually Ramses II conquered Nubia and used the
gold to pay charioteers in his army
Egypt Declines
 After 1100 BCE: Egyptian power slowly began to
decline
 Assyrian and Persian invaders conquered the Nile
 332 BCE: the Greeks took over and ended the last
Egyptian dynasty
 Romans displaced the Greeks in Egypt who were later
displaced by the Arabs
Egyptian
Civilization
Chapter 2 – Section 4
Religion
•
•
•
•
•
Most of what we know about
Egyptian religion comes from
inscriptions on monuments & wall
paintings
The chief god was the sun god
named Re
In the Middle Kingdom he was
also associated with another god
Amon
This lord of the gods was known
as Amon-Re
Pharaohs were believed to receive
their right to rule from Amon-Re
Religion
 However most Egyptians related to another god and
goddess who are in stories of emotion, love, and jealousy
 Osiris – ruled Egypt until his jealous brother Set killed him
 Set goes on to cut Osiris into pieces and tossed them all
over Egypt
 Isis (Osiris’ wife) saves him and reassembles his body and
brings him back to life
 Osiris then becomes the the god of the dead and judge of
souls in the afterlife
Osiris & Isis
Religion
 Osiris was the god of the underworld and also the
Nile
 He controlled the annual flood that made the land
fertile
 Isis was believed to have first taught women to grind
corn, spin flax, weave cloth, and care for children
Pharaoh Reshapes Religion
 Pharaoh Amenhotep IV challenges powerful priests
by devoting his worship only to the god Aton
 He goes as far as to ordering priests to only worship
Aton
 He also changes his name to Akhenaton which means
“he who serves Aton”
 These radical ideas had very little success because the
priests did not follow the orders, ordinary people
were too afraid to change their form of worship,
nobles neglected defending the empire because of him
Afterlife
 Each soul had to pass a test to win eternal life
 1st: the dead person’s heart is would be weighed
against the feather of truth
 Sinners: would be fed to the crocodile-shaped Eater of
the Dead
 Winners: would enter the Happy Field of Food to live
forever in bliss
 The journey in the afterlife was dangerous so people
relied on the Book of the Dead which contained spells,
charms, and formulas for the dead to use
Weighing of the Heart
Eater of the Dead
Preparing the Dead
 The afterlife was much like life on earth
 They buried their dead with everything the may need
for eternity
 Egyptians therefore perfected mummification
(preservation of dead bodies by embalming them and
wrapping them in cloth)
 Mummification was at first a privilege for rulers and
nobles but eventually ordinary people as well as pets
won that right
Tomb of Tutankhamen
During the New Kingdom, Pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings
Their tombs had many riches which also encouraged tomb raiders in later
centuries
• 1922: the tomb of a young pharaoh Tutankhamen was unearthed with a
wealth of treasures
•
•
King Tut
The 18-year-old pharaoh’s body was placed in a solid gold coffin and with
richly decorated outer coffins
• The treasures found in his tomb include chariots, weapons, furniture, jewelry,
toys, and games
•
Egyptian Society
Top: the pharaoh along with the royal family
Middle-Top: government officials and the high priests and priestesses who
served the gods and goddesses
• Middle-Bottom: small class of merchants, scribes, and artisans who provided
for the needs of the rich and powerful
• Bottom: largest of them all and made up of peasants who worked the land
•
•
Farmers
 Most Egyptians were peasant farmers and many were
slaves
 Men & women spent their days working the soil and
repairing the dikes
 Off-season: men served the pharaoh, working to build
palaces, temples, and tombs
 Off-season: women spent much time raising children,
collecting water, and preparing food
Changes to Social Structure
 During the New Kingdom social classes became more
fluid because of trade and warfare
 Trade offered opportunities to the growing merchant
class
 Warfare brought riches to Egypt which meant more
business for the artisans
 The craft-workers made fine jewelry, furniture, and
fabrics for palaces and tombs
Egyptian
Women
•
Women in Egypt tended to enjoy
more a higher class and greater
independence compared to other
women of the ancient world
•
Ramses II: “The foot of an
Egyptian woman may walk where it
pleases her and no one way deny her”
•
Women could inherit property,
enter business deals, buy and sell
goods, go to court, and obtain a
divorce
Egyptian Women
 Women’s work was not confined to the home
 They manufactured perfume and textiles
 Managed farming estates and served as doctors
 They could enter priesthood
 However few women learned to read and write but if
they did, they were not allowed to become scribes or
hold government jobs
Advances in Learning
 Scribes kept records of ceremonies, taxes, and gifts
 Others served government officials or the pharaoh
 They required skills in mathematics, medicine, and
engineering
Written
Records
•
Egyptians developed many
writing systems
•
One of the first was hieroglyphics
– a system in which symbols or
pictures represent objects,
concepts, or sounds
Written
Records
•
They also developed hieratic – a
simpler script for everyday use,
sort of a cursive form of writing
by simplifying shapes of the
hieroglyphs
Written Records
•
There was also demotic – this replaced hieratic
Written
Records
•
Eventually Egyptians learned to
make papyrus which is a plant
that grows along the banks of the
Nile
•
This was much easier then
chiseling words onto stone
•
Now scribes could write cursive
scripts with reed pends and ink on
the smooth surface of the papyrus
Rosetta Stone
 After Egyptian civilizations began to decline, their
writing was also lost
 Not until the early 1800s did it resurface from the
discovery of French scholar Jean Champollion
 He deciphered (figured out the meaning of) the
passage written on the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
• The Rosetta Stone is a
flat, black stone which
had hieroglyphics,
demotic, and Greek
scripts written on it
Science & Mathematics
 Egyptians had vast knowledge in medicine,
astronomy, and mathematics
 Doctors performed complex surgical operations and
they prescribed certain plants as medicine – anise,
castor beans, and saffron
Astronomy
• Priest-astronomers studied the skies/heavens, mapped constellations
and charted the movements of the planets
Calendars
• As a result their calendar included 12 months, 30 days each, 5 days
added at the end of each year
Science & Mathematics
 Mathematics was developed because of practical
problems the Egyptians faced
 They redrew the boundaries of their fields each year
by surveying the land because of the flooding of the
Nile; eventually inventing geometry
 Geometry was also used by engineers to calculate the
exact size and location of each block of stone for the
construction of the pyramid or temple
Arts & Literature
• Art included statues, wall paintings in tombs, and carvings on temples
• They show everyday scenes: trade, farming, family life, or religious
ceremonies, and victories in battle
Art & Literature
• Gods and pharaohs were much larger than other figures because size
indicated the subject’s importance not size in real life
• People were depicted with their heads and limbs in profile but their
eyes and shoulders facing the viewer
Art & Literature
• Statues showed people in stiff, standard poses
• Some have human bodies with animal heads
• The Sphinx at Giza portrays an early pharaoh as a
powerful lion-man
Art & Literature
 The oldest includes hymns and prayers to gods, proverbs,
and love poems
 Others included royal victories in battle
 Folk tales were also popular such as The Tale of Sinuhe
 It tells of the wanderings of Sinuhe (an Egyptian official)
forced to flee into present-day Syria
 He fights his way to fame and as he gets older he tried to
return home
 The story ends happily when the pharaoh welcomes him
back to court
Roots of
Judaism
Chapter 2 – Section 5
Ancient Israelites
 The Israelites/Hebrews were monotheistic – believed
in only one God
 They believed in this All-Knowing, All-Powerful god
who was present everywhere
 Each event in Hebrew history reflected God’s plan for
the people of Israel
 They recorded events and laws in the Torah which
includes the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy
Ancient Israelites
• They also had additional laws and customs written down later on to
make up another important book called the Talmud
Early History
• Abraham (a prophet in Jewish history) lived near Ur near
Mesopotamia
• About 2000 BCE he and his family migrated with their sheep and
goats into a region called Canaan (present-day Palestine)
• He is considered to be the father of the Israelite people
God & the Covenant
 Israelites believed that God had made a covenant
(agreement) with Abraham:
“You shall be the father of a multitude of nations . . . I will
make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I
will establish my covenant between me and you and your
descendants after you throughout their generations for an
everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants
after you. And I will give to you, and to your descendants after
you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan”
God & the Covenant
 This included 2 declarations that are the basis of two
key beliefs of Judaism
 1st: God declared that He would have a special
relationship with Abraham and his descendants
 2nd: God declared that Canaan would one day belong
to the Israelites
Moses & the
Covenant
•
Another prophet named Moses
renewed this covenant later on
•
In the Book of Genesis, a famine
forced many Israelites to migrate
to Egypt
•
They were eventually enslaved
and in the Book of Exodus,
Moses tells the Israelites that they
would be freed from slavery if
they become obedient to God
•
After 40 years, they reached
Canaan and Moses before they
arrived
Kingdom of Israel
 1000 BCE: Israelites had already established the
kingdom of Israel
 There were 12 separate tribes of Israel who were
feuding
 David (another prophet) was the 2nd king of Israel and
he united these tribes into a single nation
Kingdom of
Israel
• David’s son, Solomon,
became the 3rd king and he
took the task of turning the
city of Jerusalem into a capital
• Solomon was also famous for
his wisdom and understanding
• He tried to increase Israel’s
influence around the region by
negotiating with powerful
empires in Egypt &
Mesopotamia
Division &
Conquest
• Solomon’s projects required
high taxes and a lot of labor
• Revolts erupted after he died
and the kingdom split into
Israel (north) and Judah
(south)
• They remained independent
for 200 years but then were
conquered by the Assyrians
and later on the Babylonians
Division & Conquest
 Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured Judah and
destroyed the great temple and forced many Jews into
exile
 This Babylonian Captivity lasted for about 50 years
 Cyrus the Great of Persia then conquered Babylon
and freed the Israelites
 Many of the Jews returned to their homeland and
rebuilt a smaller version of Solomon’s temple
 But they still lived under Persian rule
Law & Morality
 The Torah includes many laws and is even referred to
as the Book of Law
 Society was patriarchal – men held the greatest legal
and moral authority
 The oldest male relative was the head of the
household and arranged marriages for his daughters
 Women had few legal rights but some did gain some
great honor
10
Commandmen
ts
• This is the heart of Judaism
• They are a set of laws that
Jews believe God gave to them
through Moses
• First 4: stress religious duties
toward God
• Keeping the Sabbath – holy
day for rest and worship
Ethics
 Prophets were spiritual leaders in Jewish history who
warned the failure to obey od’s law would lead their
people to disaster
 These prophets also taught ethics – moral standards of
behavior
 They called on the rich and powerful to protect the
poor and weak
 All people were equal before God and Jews saw their
leaders as fully human and bound to obey God’s law
unlike other peoples’ in the region
Maintaining the Beliefs
 For a period of 500 years many Jews left their
homeland and moved to different parts of the world
 They became a diaspora – spreading out of people
 Wherever they settled, many maintained their identity
by living in close-knit communities
 Their traditions helped them survive centuries of
persecution or unfair treatment
Judaism Today
 Today it is considered a major world religion
 It influenced Christianity and Islam
 Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike honor Abraham,
Moses, and their prophets
 They all teach the same worldview that the Israelites
taught