Download iron age syria

WESTERN
C I V. I B
Iron Age SyriaPalestine
The Origins of
Judaism
The Assyrians
The Persians
Page 2
Page 4
Page 8
Page 11
IRON AGE SYRIA-PALESTINE
During the period of disruption after 1200 B.C., a major technological change occurred: iron was introduced.
Thus, around 1100 B. C., the Bronze Age ended...
...and the Iron Age began As a result of these events, the Syria-Palestine region was not controlled by large imperial states in the early Iron Age. This allowed small states in the region to develop and to make important contributions to
the development of civilization. We will talk today about two of those civilizations
today since both made enormous contributions to civilization.
The peoples of Syria-Palestine lived in numerous separate city states and
small kingdoms scattered through the coastal and river valleys and mountains of
what is now Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. They were actually many different peoples, but they all spoke a small group of similar tongues that were closely related
members the Semitic family of languages. They most likely wandered north
across Arabia from what today is Yemen, and settled on
and around the eastern coast of the Mediterranean just in
the late Bronze Age. they acquired iron technology and
formed independent city states in the wake of the power
vacuum created by the fall of the Hittites and the retreat of
the Egyptians in the 1200s B.C. They also acquired some
religious ideas and political and social institutions from
Mesopotamian culture.
Their religion primarily centered around
fertility deities connected with the growing of crops. The
chief god was Baal (figure left). They called themselves
collectively Canaanites. The name means people of the
purple; it comes from a purple dye made in the region.
P a g e 1 o f 12
Syria-Palestine
The map above shows settlement
sites during the early Iron Age
in the area of the eastern
Mediterranean called SyriaPalestine.
Canaanites
Early in the Iron Age, many Canaanites to the south
were conquered by barbarians from the desert. But some
Canaanite city-states along the coast of modern Lebanon
remained independent. They were important to the
growth of civilization. After 1000 B.C., these cities began
to trade by sea up and down the Mediterranean coast. As
trade developed, they sailed farther and farther away to
reach new markets. When they came into contact with the
Greeks, the Greeks translated the name Canaanite into
the Greek term. That term is Phoenician, which we still
use for these traders. The Phoenicians were significant
because their trading eventually took them all over the
Mediterranean. They even set up trading posts in Africa,
Spain, and other distant lands. This helped to spread civilization far more widely to backward lands all around the
Mediterranean from 1000 to 500. They also invented a
new, simplified system of writing, the alphabet. Most
modern alphabets are based on it, including our own.
The Hebrews
Phoenician Trade in the Iron Age
The map above shows the extent of Phoenician sea
trade in the Early Iron
Age. The Phoenicians
introduced the alphabetic
writing system to Europe
while carrying on a
trade and colonization effort that was pretty amazing.
Now I want to look at another people who appeared
in this region in the early Iron Age. They were the Hebrews. I will discuss their religion next time. Today, I want
to sketch their political history. The word Hebrew means
nomad or wanderer. In their earliest history, the Hebrews
were nomads. They lived by herding flocks of sheep and
goats through the deserts bordering Syria-Palestine. The
Hebrews of later times had many stories about their life in
this early period, which are preserved in the book of
Genesis. We have no way of checking these stories historiographically. But there are still nomads today in this part
of the world. Their general life and institutions are very similar to what is described in these early Hebrew writings.
Nomads live in what are called extended families. An extended family is made up of a family head called a patriarch
with his sons and their wives and children. The patriarch makes all the decisions for
the family; he rules the family members and leads them as long as he lives. When
the patriarch dies, his sons break apart and form extended families of their own,
which go their own way. They have to keep in small groups because resources are
limited. The families normally stayed apart; but sometimes in early history families
descended from the same man would ally together in larger groups called tribes for
the purpose of war.
A fanciful representation of the
Temple of Solomon.
The Hebrews lived as nomads until about 1200 B.C. Then they began to leave the
desert to invade the lands of the southern Canaanites. They were one of the many
groups of migrant barbarians who plagued the civilized areas at the end of the
Bronze Age. By this time, the Hebrew people had grown into a collection of twelve
tribes, each of which was descended from one of the twelve sons of an original patriarch named Israel. Thus, they are sometimes called Hebrews and sometimes the
children or descendants of Israel. They had a common ancestry, a common religion, and a common language, which is a Semitic language.
P a g e 2 o f 12
Earliest Organization of the Hebrews
But at first, they did not have a common government or
a single leader. Their organization was still loose and
primitive. The main activity that the tribes cooperated in
was religion. They had a high priest who was in charge of
their worship. But he did not have any political power.
Occasionally, a very capable military leader would appear
and unite the tribes for war. These persons were followed
because they were thought to have support of the Hebrew
god. We call these leaders “judges,” but that term is
misleading. They were really only generals; they did not
have any power or authority outside of war.
Aside from fighting together, the individual tribes and
even the individual families ran their own affairs. For two
hundred years, the tribes fought to take land away from the
Canaanites so that they could settle it themselves. But they
did not gain control of the whole region at first. Many of
the Canaanites had well organized city-states; these states
were too strong for the loosely organized Hebrews to
conquer.
Hebrew Monarchy
During the long conflict with the more civilized
Canaanites, many Hebrews began to see the need for a
stronger government. They began to press for the creation
of a Hebrew kingdom. Some conservative Hebrews fought
to preserve the older tribal system; but by 1020 B.C.,
demands for a king became so strong that they could no
longer be resisted.
The Hebrews were influenced by the Mesopotamian
idea that kings had to receive their authority from god. That
determined the way the kingship was founded. The most
widely recognized leader was the high priest named Samuel.
He was thought to receive support and inspiration from the
Hebrew god. Thus, he was called upon to choose a king
with the help of god. He conferred the kingship on a man
named Saul (1200-1000 B.C.).
David also started the process of organizing a true royal
government to rule his lands. He took a census of the
country, levied taxes, and set up a bureaucracy to enforce
his orders.
This work of reorganization was completed by the third
king, David’s son Solomon (961-922). Under him, the
Hebrew kingdom reached the height of its power. He
conquered extensive foreign lands to the north; for a while
his kingdom reached all the way to upper Mesopotamia. At
home, he perfected the machinery of government and
carried out many extensive building projects. The most
important was a huge temple at Jerusalem for the Hebrew
god. Solomon succeeded in making Israel a strong,
sophisticated state not unlike the great kingdom of
Mesopotamia in earlier times. But in doing so, he angered
many Hebrews. He had to tax the people heavily to pay for
his building and his wars. His policies also offended
conservative Hebrews. They were afraid that Hebrews were
beginning to live too much like other peoples of the SyriaPalestine region.
After Solomon’s death, a civil war broke out between
those who opposed his policies and those who supported
them. As a result of this conflict, the Hebrews became
divided into two separate kingdoms with separate
governments. The larger of the two was the kingdom of
Israel in the north; the smaller was the kingdom of Judah,
centered around Jerusalem in the south. The split between
them was never healed. After 922, the high point in the
political history of the Hebrews was passed. They were
never strong again.
I know that I have run through the history of this
region very quickly, but I think that this history serves to
make a point that is worth making. Often history courses
focus on the development of great states that conquer vast
regions and become very powerful politically. And this
course will not be an exception to that.
But I think that my lecture today should demonstrate
that
smaller states and weaker peoples do play a part in the
Saul is regarded as the first Hebrew king, but he was
still mainly a military leader. The tribes followed him in war, growth and spread of civilization. Neither the Phoenician
cities nor the Hebrew kingdoms were ever very powerful
but they resisted his efforts to govern them in other ways.
The man who finally created a truly strong government was politically. But they did accomplish some significant things.
Saul’s son-in-law and successor, David (1000-961). He was
The Hebrews provided an especially good example.
the greatest political leader in Hebrew history. He was a
Under Solomon, they were reasonably strong politically; but
great general. By military skill, he forced all the Hebrews to they never rivaled the great empires of Mesopotamia, and
accept his rule; and he also conquered the remaining
their power passed quickly. But they still made a profound
Canaanite states in Palestine. Thus, he made Israel a real
contribution to world culture. I will consider that
country with definite lands and definite boundaries under
contribution in more detail next time.
his leadership. He set up a permanent capital for the
country in Jerusalem, a city that he had captured in war.
P a g e 3 o f 12
THE ORIGINS
O F J U DA I S M
From a political and military point of view, the Hebrews were not very important
historically. The high point of their power was reached and passed under the reign
of Solomon (961-922 B.C.) early in their history. But in terms of their impact on the
cultural history of the West, the Hebrews may be the most important people discussed so far. The great Hebrew achievement was their contribution to the development of religious ideas. That contribution will be my subject for today.
From a political and military point of view, the Hebrews were not very important historically. The high point of their
power was reached and passed under the reign of Solomon (961-922 B.C.) early in their history. But in terms of their impact on the cultural history of the West, the Hebrews may be the most important people discussed so far. The great Hebrew achievement was their contribution to the development of religious ideas. That contribution will be my subject for
today.
Like most nomadic peoples. the early Hebrews were animists. But, Hebrew patriarchs would often identify their family
with some particular deity. The members of the family might believe in many gods, but they would look to one special god
as the god of their family. In some cases as early as 2000 B. C., we have evidence that some Semites believed in a kind of
contract between a particular family and a god. The founder of a new family would freely choose one god to be the chief
deity for his people. He would recognize and follow the god, and the god would take care of him and his family. The
family god is thought of as being a family member himself.
This pattern, which is attested among other Semites, is not unlike what we see in the earliest part of the Old
Testament. According to Hebrew tradition, successive generations of the Hebrew family leaders made a personal contract
or covenant with one god. They worshiped that god, and he protected them against outsiders while trying to keep peace
among the family members in their desert wandering. This god was referred to by various names, but he was most
frequently thought of as a storm god who lived on the mountaintops.
Just before the Hebrews began to leave the desert and to invade Palestine (1300-1200 B. C.), the early desert religion of
the fathers seems to have undergone important changes which we must now consider. The Hebrews attributed these
changes to the teaching of their great leader Moses. At one time scholars tended to doubt that they were the work of one
man, but more recently the traditional view has begun to win favor again. Let us look at these changes now. As a result of
Moses’ teaching, the tribal god of the Hebrews acquired a new permanent name. He was called Yahweh, which means “I
am that I am,” or rather, “I cause to be what is.” In other words, Yahweh is the “creator.”
P a g e 4 o f 12
A National Ethical Covenant
Yahweh was a storm god associated with mountain
tops. In his teaching, Moses heavily emphasized the covenant or contract which existed between the Hebrews and
Yahweh. The Hebrews as a nation were his people, and
Yahweh was their god. Yahweh promised to take care of
the Hebrews by providing them with land and helping
them to destroy their enemies. As a storm god, Yahweh
was also associated with war. In return, the Hebrews were
to recognize Yahweh as their god, to follow his orders,
and to ignore any other gods.
One of the things that distinguished the teachings of
Moses from earlier contractual religions is that the
Hebrews, for their part in the Covenant, were required to
live ethical lives as set down in the Ten Commandments.
Most ancient religions had rules of some sort, but these
rules largely concerned ceremony and ritual. The rules of
Yahweh also regulated the relations of men to men. They
had to follow the Ten Commandments. Now, I must
emphasize that this contract applied only to Hebrews;
only they were to follow the rules of the covenant. And
their reward was Yahweh’s help in solving the problems of
this world – particularly in overcoming their enemies. It is
often said that Moses was a monotheist, but this is not
clear. He was concerned only with how the Hebrews
acted toward Yahweh, so whether other gods were real
never came up.
Some scholars believe that many of the ideas taken
up by Moses were drawn from notions in Egypt, but this
too is in dispute. Some Hebrews had been in Egypt
probably before their wanderings, and the name “Moses”
is itself an Egyptian name. There were movements in
Egypt toward monotheism and toward ethical religious
rules during the New Kingdom. But the ethics of the
Egyptians were not well-developed or strongly imbued
with religious significance. Moreover, as I suggested, it is
unclear whether Moses believed in other gods or not.
Earliest Priestly Organization
The strongest and most distinctive features of the system came from earlier beliefs of the Hebrews. This included the notion that Yahweh was closely bound to the
Hebrews and the Hebrews alone by a contractual covenant.
The Old Testament attributes one other development
to the time of Moses: it is the beginning of a formal religious machinery within Judaism. This attribution is somewhat uncertain. In any event, it is clear that a welldeveloped religious hierarchy did not emerge until the
founding of the kingdom. Let us look at the growth of
religious machinery now. Before the founding of the
strong Hebrew kingdom in 1000 B.C., the organization
and ritual of Judaism were very simple. During the nomadic history of the Hebrews, religious observances were
primarily in the hands of the patriarchs, or family leaders.
They offered simple animal sacrifices to the Hebrew god
from time to time, but there were few rites beyond that.
There were no special officials or priests at all.
When the twelve Hebrew tribes banded together for
the invasion and conquest of Palestine from the Canaanites, it was necessary for them to create a more formal set
of religious offices. It was necessary, for religion was the
basis of their association with one another. Thus they created a religious capital for the Hebrews at Shiloh in central Palestine. It was headquarters for the religion of
Yahweh rather than of the state. This headquarters,
which contained the Ark of the Covenant and other holy
objects, was put in charge of a High Priest.
The priesthood was supposedly founded by Moses in
Egypt, and it had certain unusual features. Members of
the priesthood were supposed to be descended from
Aaron, the brother of Moses. (This was not always observed.) Thus, they all had to belong to the same tribe –
the tribe of Levi.
Under David and Solomon
Despite the emergence of the institution of high
priest, these men did not really assume major duties until
the establishment of the kingdom. When David
(1000-961 B.C.) created the first strong Hebrew
monarchy, he moved toward the establishment of a
formal administration; and the religious machinery also
grew in importance. But it was Solomon (961-922) who
carried this development to its final extreme. He built a
huge temple for Judaism at Jerusalem, the political capital.
He also expanded the religious hierarchy and assigned
staffs to assist the priests in keeping records, preserving
sacred writings, and other things necessary to keep
services active.
Solomon and the priests also contributed to the
growth of formal ritual and formal ceremonial within
Judaism. The king was anxious to make Judaism more
acceptable to those persons in his kingdom who were not
Hebrews in origin, and also to his foreign wives from
other lands. They adopted many symbols and rites from
the older Canaanite fertility religions of Palestine. These
efforts were very unpopular with many conservative Hebrews, but the work of the priests was important. They
elaborated the Law, making religion really encompass all
P a g e 5 o f 12
be able to learn the future by speaking with the gods and
learning their intentions.
The Hebrews also believed that some men received
special messages and guidance from Yahweh. Moses was
such a man. Before the establishment of the monarchy
certain men and women were thought to receive special
help from Yahweh. Conservative Hebrews believed that
ideally the Hebrews should be led by such men. But the
coming of the kingdom ended that. As soon as the kingdom was established, there began to appear a new group
of men who claimed a special relationship with Yahweh.
We refer to these men as prophets, but in Hebrew they
were known as nabhi, “those who are called,” that is called
by Yahweh to preach. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was
the king and priests who interpreted the will of the gods
for men. But the Hebrews had specific religious writings
and rules against which the behavior of the government
could be measured. The Hebrew prophets were in a position to criticize the state.
Map above shows the two kingdoms created by civil
war among the Hebrews after the death of King
Solomon.
aspects for life and culture. This helped the Hebrews to
maintain a distinct culture and distinct national character
after there was no longer a Hebrew state.
The efforts to strengthen the ritual requirements of
Judaism threatened in the long run to make the Hebrew
faith merely another formal set of rigid religious ceremonial rules. But fortunately these efforts immediately set off
a reaction among those who wanted to preserve the
primitive character of the faith. This reaction is the Prophetic Movement.
The Prophetic Movement
The men who led this reaction are those whom we
today call prophets. To understand their role, it is necessary to know something of the background of prophecy
in the ancient Near East.
In ancient Near Eastern religions, there was a long
tradition of men who believed that they had the ability to
make a personal contact with various Near Eastern gods.
Some men felt they could contact the gods by contemplation, by taking drugs, or by wild singing and dancing. Often, it just happened. Such persons were often believed to
Whenever the Hebrews began to turn away from
Yahweh and the Covenant he had made with them,
prophets would appear to call them back. The prophets
interpreted the political and military setbacks of the
Hebrew kingdoms as a sign that Yahweh was displeased.
The best-known prophets appeared just before great
catastrophes in Hebrew history. Examples are Amos (ca.
750) and Jeremiah (ca. 600). After the destruction of the
Hebrew state, later prophets kept the Jews together by
promising that a Messiah would come and reestablish the
Hebrew dominion over Palestine.
By their preaching, the prophets helped to preserve
and extend the basic traits of Judaism. Those traits were
monotheism and ethical rules. As time went by, the nabhi
began to insist that Yahweh was the only God anywhere.
Now, as I noted earlier, earlier Hebrews didn’t necessarily
believe that Yahweh was the only god, although they believed he was their only god -- that is the only deity that
Hebrews should worship. They insisted that it was necessary to keep his Covenant and to follow his commandments for life. But the new idea that Yahweh was the only
god became very important to the Hebrews, especially as
they suffered increasing tribulations after the fall of Israel
as an important state, the Assyrian conquest and the
Babylonian Captivity.
By the 700s B.C., Hebrew scribes were in the process
of creating the sacred literature of the Hebrews. they took
old oral stories carried down through the generations,
Mesopotamian stories that Hebrews had assimilated , and
Hebrew folk legends, and incorporated the material into
P a g e 6 o f 12
the sacred texts. As they did so, under the influence of the prophetic movement, the scribes increasingly injected a monotheistic theme into the texts. After about 550 B.C., the Hebrews had become exclusively monotheistic.
After the exile, Hebrew thought was also influenced by two other traditions. The first was an increasing preoccupation with the Law and keeping the Law. Hebrew teachers and scholars began to focus more exclusively on Hebrew
religious law and its interpretation. In 539 B.C., the Hebrews were influenced by Persian religious ideas. During this period, for the first time, Hebrew thinkers began to stress the duality of the universe, equating Yahweh and the Law with
good, and straying from the Covenant as evil. Some Hebrews also assimilated the Persian idea of an End of Time, the
Apocalypse with its final struggle between Good and Evil, and a Messiah would lead the forces of good, or create an independent Hebrew state.
The real contribution of the Hebrews to World History was not political, but rather religious – it lay in the creation of
the first real system of ethical monotheism. Starting as a political religion which identified people living under a particular
set of political institutions, it gradually grew into a whole way of life which distinguished its adherents from all other peoples around them. You must remember that Judaism never became a universal religion. It was intended and is intended
only for Jews, for members of a particular national and cultural group. But the Laws and rules that Hebrews had to follow
became so pervasive in their lives that it required them to endure as a distinctive movement even after the Hebrew states
had themselves disappeared.
At the same time, however, Judaism became the basis on which the two most important universal religions of the western world were to be built. Those religions are Christianity and Islam.
P a g e 7 o f 12
THE
ASSYRIANS
Following the Iron-Age migrations (1200-1000 B.C.) in the
Near East, all of the large states in the region were either broken up or seriously weakened. For some time there were only
smaller city-states in the Near East, like the two kingdoms of
the Hebrews or the city-states of the Phoenicians. But after 900
B.C. a new series of empires emerged that were larger and better organized than any of the previous states in the Near East.
The first empires of the Iron Age were centered in Mesopotamia, which, after a
period of some 800 years of political weakness, saw the growth of new and powerful
states once again. The resurgence of Mesopotamia began on the northern reaches of
the Tigris and Euphrates where the two river valleys overlap with the nearby mountains.
This fringe area was occupied by Semitic tribesmen who had migrated into it out
of the deserts of Arabia in about 2000 B.C. and acquired civilization. One thing that
set this Semitic group apart from their neighbors was a strong devotion to their principal god, a sun god named Ashur. They
were called Assyrians, or worshipers of
Ashur. By the early 800s, the Assyrians
had developed into an Iron Age civilization. Between 850 and 650 B.C.,
they brought all of the lands of Mesopotamia under their control. This conquest was the work of several powerful
and warlike kings, but perhaps the
most important of them was TiglathPileser III who ruled from 744-727
B.C. and amassed a large empire (see
map).
P a g e 8 o f 12
Frieze of King TiglathPileser III
He is considered one of the
most successful military
commanders in world
history, conquering most of
the world known to the
ancient Assyrians before his
death. Tiglath is the first
king whose name was
suffixed with the word
"Great."
Reasons for Assyrian Success
Assyrians at War
The success of Assyrian warfare could be found in two new innovations in offensive military technology -- cavalry (above) and the
composite bow (below). Assyrians
were also the first
peoples to use iron
for both weapons
and defensive armor. The also introduced heavy siege
machines -- they
have a lot to answer
for!
The reasons for this conquest are to be found largely in
the character of the Assyrian people. Simply put, they loved
warfare and conquest. Their kingdom was located at a
crossroads between Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the
lands of Syria and Palestine. Thus, the Assyrians had been
threatened by enemies on all sides. This situation had made
warfare a way of life for them, and had nurtured in them
both a toughness and a love of war.
The key to Assyrian military success was an extremely
powerful army that was the best equipped and organized in
the region. They were the first to employ iron both for
weapons and for armor. This gave them a great advantage
over their enemies who still used bronze for military purposes. The Assyrians also developed a new type of bow –
the recurve bow, which could shoot iron-tipped arrows farther and with greater force than earlier bows could. This
bow enabled the Assyrians to do enormous damage to their
enemies from a distance. The are also the first civilized state
to employ cavalry in warfare.
Despite its rapid growth and size, the Assyrian Empire
lasted longer than earlier imperial systems, so we should
consider the reasons for its success. The Assyrians created a
unified government to rule their subjects. In many areas the
older governments of subject states were replaced with
Assyrian officials who administered them for the king. The
Assyrians adopted brutal measures to suppress the opposition and prevent revolt. A good example of their policy was
the treatment of Israel. The Assyrians conquered the
northern Hebrew kingdom in 722 B.C. Hebrew leaders
were exterminated, and many of the people were carried
off into slavery to Assyria. Ten of the Hebrew tribes virtually disappeared. They are the famous Lost Tribes of Israel.
The Assyrians did not behave toward the Hebrews in this
way in response to Hebrew opposition, they did so to avoid
future difficulties with the newly conquered Hebrews and as
an example to other peoples they controlled. These oppressive policies went far to prevent serious revolts for a long
time; but they made Assyrian rule so unpopular that the
subjects were bound to rise up if the Empire were ever to
weaken for any reason.
The Fall of the Assyrian Empire
And that’s exactly what happened. After 650 B.C., the empire was ruled by a series of incompetent and ineffectual
kings who spent lots of time partying and too little time taking care of business, and weaken the empire did! From 626-612
B.C., there was a great revolt. It ended with the total destruction of Assyrian power. With the fall of Assyria, political preeminence in Mesopotamia passed once again to the old imperial city of Babylon, which now enjoyed a brief period of
resurgence. From 612-539 B.C., Babylon was ruled by a people known as the Chaldeans. Thus this empire is sometimes
called the Second Babylon Empire, or the Chaldean Empire. The Chaldeans had been the chief leaders of the insurrec-
P a g e 9 o f 12
tion against the Assyrians, and when the revolt was over, they went on to seize a large part of the old Assyrian Empire for
themselves. This was a relatively easy task because the long Assyrian rule had already eliminated or tamed many of the
states that might have offered the Chaldeans much opposition.
The greatest of the Chaldean rulers was King Nebuchadrezzar II (ca. 605-560 B.C.). He is famous because he attacked and destroyed the remaining kingdom of the Hebrews (Judah) in 587. He treated the tribes of Judah almost as
badly as the Assyrians had treated the Israelites. He drove most of them out of their homeland and forced them to live in
Mesopotamia near Babylon. Nebuchadrezzar thought that once the Hebrews were resettled, they would be absorbed into
the general population of Mesopotamia, and thus disappear as a cultural group. It might have worked if the Chaldean
Empire had lasted longer, but this was not to be.
The Chaldeans made great progress in science—particularly astronomy and mathematics—and strongly influenced
the Greeks. From the towering ziggurat temples, astrologer-priests read the stars. They could even predict eclipses. Unfortunately, what they apparently could not predict was that their empire had very little time. In 539 B.C. the Empire fell to a
new invading people from the North — the Persians.
P a g e 10 o f 12
THE
PERSIANS
A new power suddenly burst into the Near East in the 500s
B.C. This was the last of the great Near Eastern Empires –
the Empire of the Persians – that lasted from 550 to 332
B.C.
The Persian Empire had its center in the high arid mountain region east of Mesopotamia. This region is know as the Iranian Plateau, and it corresponds roughly to the
modern country of Iran. The region gets its name from the large group of related
barbarian tribes that migrated into it from the north in the beginning of the Iron Age
(about 1000 B.C.). At first the various Iranian tribes were independent, only tied together by a common language (which is Indo-European) and culture. The Persians
were only one of the many Iranian tribes. But the Iranians began to acquire a more
civilized way of life because of their contact with Mesopotamia.
Politically, the Iranians remained weak as long as they were divided into independent tribes. But a Persian leader, Cyrus the Great (550-530), united all of the Iranian
tribes behind his leadership, and then they proceeded to conquer all of the mountain
territories from Pakistan to the Aegean Sea. In 539, Cyrus descended into Mesopotamia and captured the city of Babylon. With the Chaldean Empire in his control, he
was able to amass an enormous empire. The only question was, could he organize it so
that he could protect it from internal opposition.
Cyrus divided the empire up into provinces called satrapies. They were large areas
intended to cover territories with common political and cultural traditions. There was
one for Mesopotamia, for example. Each satrapy had a governor called a satrap. He
was usually a Persian at first, but later he sometimes came from the local population.
The satrap had a complete government of his own, with a full staff to assist him in
governing his province. In time of unrest in the Empire, the satrapy could operate
autonomously without assistance from above.
P a g e 11 o f 12
Darius the Great
(521-486 BC)
Enthroned in Peresepolis,
the magnificent city that he
built, Darius I firmly grasps
the royal scepter in his right
hand. In the left, he is holding a lotus blossom with two
buds, the symbol of royalty.
Within limits the satraps were free to adopt and develop independent policies for their provinces in keeping with local
interests and traditions. In deference to local customs, the Persians practiced complete religious toleration. For example,
Jewish leaders were permitted to return to Judah and rebuild the great temple to their Hebrew god.
The chief danger to the Persian administrative arrangements was that the satraps might become too independent and
threaten the Empire. Several steps were taken to prevent this turn of affairs. Certain key members of the satrap’s staff
were directly appointed by the king and were responsible to him. The Persians built an extensive road system to tie the
Empire together, and created a messenger system – a kind of pony express – to keep the capital informed about what the
satraps were up to. Finally, the king maintained a large army. This army not only defended the Empire from enemies
without but also could be employed to control the individual satrapies. The Persian Empire was powerful and well organized, but it was far less oppressive than the Assyrian Empire had been.
Most scholars agree that the most important contribution that the Iranian peoples made to the development of culture
was in the area of religion. The earliest Iranian religions seem to have been similar to the primitive beliefs of most IndoEuropeans. It focused on the worship of gods or spirits found in those forces of nature that most affected the IndoEuropean nomads. Iranians recognized many spirits, but the most important was the god of the sky, who was also associated with light and fire. He was commonly called “Wise Lord,” or in Persian, Ahura-Mazdah. Iranians also believed in
inferior, evil spirits, or demons, that afflicted people with diseases, death, and other misfortunes. During the Persian Empire, the worship and propitiation of both good and evil spirits was in the hands of a priestly caste called the Magi.
By the 500s B.C., this early religion had changed as a result of the teaching of a great religious thinker named Zarathushtra, or as the Greeks called him, Zoroaster. Apparently Zarathushtra was a monotheist. He believed that AhuraMazdah should be the only god that people should worship. Ahura-Mazdah was associated with other divine spirits called
Truth, Good Thought, Beneficent Rule, etc., but these spirits were not independent powers, only manifestations of the one
god, Ahura-Mazdah. The names of these manifestations indicate that Ahura-Mazdah was linked with a kind of ethical
purity and morality. Zarathushtra taught that adherence to a good life would bring union with god and immortality. Zarathushtra taught that the worship of the demons and evil spirits would lead men away from truth and immortality. Thus he
fought against established Persian belief.
These evil spirits were associated with a powerful evil spirit named Ahriman, who was the direct opposite of AhuraMazdah, and thus, the source of all evil in the world. Ahriman represented deceit, debasement and darkness.
Zarathushtra envisioned the world as a sort of battleground in which the forces of good and evil competed for control
the larger influence of Zoroastrianism has been debated by religious scholars and historians for some time. Some scholars
think that Zoroastrian thought was assimilated into Judaism, and later Christianity and Islam. Ideas about the competition
between God and Satan, the Apocalypse, and the Last Judgement were all central themes in Zoroastrianism. The Persian
religion influenced some philosophical and religious movements in the Roman Empire, and through them, popular Christianity in the Middle Ages.
The Persian Empire
The Greatest Empire of the
Near East was founded by barbarian peoples from the Iranian
Plateau -- the Persians. the map
at left represents the Persian
Empire at its greatest extent in
the late 400s B.C. It extends
from the Aegean to India and
from Europe to Egypt.
P a g e 12 o f 12
Study Guide for History 101 Unit 1
Read Chapter 1 in the text and watch, take notes and study Lectures in the first unit.
Early Man:
✓When do the first human-like creatures appear on earth?
✓How do these earliest “humans” compare to Homo Sapiens?
✓Identify, compare and contrast:
• Homo Erectus
• Neanderthal Man
• Homo Sapiens
✓Understand the basic evolution of man from the hunter-gatherers of 75,000 years ago
through the civilizations of the Neolithic Age.
✓When were humans hunter-gatherers?
✓Mr. Elliott spends quite a bit of time discussing the diet of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.
What is the significance of the protein-rich diet of hunter-gatherers and what
consequences does that diet have on their lives and society?
✓What was the technology of Paleolithic man like?
✓What does “sedentary” mean and why is it important?
✓What and when was the Paleolithic period?
✓What and when was the Neolithic period?
✓Of what importance was agriculture?
✓Mr. Elliott argues that the transition from Paleolithic hunter-gatherer to Neolithic farmer
involved several “tradeoffs” in terms of the overall human condition. Describe these
tradeoffs and make sure that you understand them.
✓What are Jericho and Catal Huyuk, and why are these communities important?
The Ancient Near East (Mesopotamia)
✓Understand the basic characteristics of “civilization” and where these took place in the
Ancient Near East.
✓Identify the basic geography of the "Ancient Near East."
✓Know major rivers as well as settled areas.
• Tigris
• Euphrates
• the Fertile Crescent
• Sumer
✓Know the basic characteristics of Mesopotamian civilization, including:
• irrigation
• stratified society
• theocracy
• cuneiform
• animism
• polytheism
History 101 — Study Guide of Unit 1
• descriptions of cities
• ziggurat
• lugal
✓You should be familiar with the Epic of Gilgamish, the earliest example of epic poetry
in the West. Who was Gilgamesh? Who was Enkidu? What is the important message
of the story?
✓And, while we are at it, what is a myth? What is the essential purpose of myths?
✓Identify and explain the other major groups of people in the Ancient Near East, as
discussed in the lectures and in your text. Explain who belongs where geographically;
understand the leadership and major events or characteristics as discussed in class.
• Akkadians
• Phoenicians
• Amorites
• Hebrews
• Assyrians
• Chaldeans
• Hittites
• Persians
• Canaanites
The Aakkadians
✓Akkadians were a semitic people who united much of Mesopotamia into the world’s
first empire.
✓Akkadian lugal (king) named Sargon invaded Sumeria in about 2350 B.C.
✓Akkadian Empire faded out by about 2100 B.C.
The Amorites (Babylonians)
✓The Amorites are the Semitic speaking people who replace the Akkadians as empire
builders in Mesopotamia.
✓The set up their capital in the ancient Sumerian city of Babylon.
✓The greatest Amorite king was Hammurabi (c. 1790-1750 B.C.). He is best known for
the code of laws that are named after him.
✓Study the Codes of Hammurabi in and the text.
✓What advantages did a unified code of laws have for the Amorites?
Ancient Egypt
✓What was the “Gift of the Nile”? How did the Nile River differ from the Tigris and
Euphrates and what effect did those differences have on Egyptian civilization and the
Egyptian world view?
✓What are the major geographic characteristics of Ancient Egypt?
✓What are Upper and Lower Egypt?
✓Who unified Egypt? When?
✓Recognize the various time phases of Ancient Egyptian civilization (the various
“Kingdoms”) and Intermediate Periods, and the major characteristics and leaders of
each.
2 of 6
History 101 — Study Guide of Unit 1
✓Understand the characteristics, duties and political position of the pharaoh. I note in
one of my lectures that, whereas Mesopotamian lugals (kings) professed to be agents
of the gods, Egyptian pharaohs were gods. How does that work out? What are the
consequences for Egypt?
✓Using your lectures and the text, Identify the following:
• nomes
• The Book of the
• Thutmose III
Dead
• nomarchs
• Hatshepsut
Memphis
ma’at
•
•
• Amenhotep III
• Narmer or Menes
• pyramids
• Akhenaten
Horus
mummies
•
•
• Aten
• Ra
• sarcophagus
• Tutankhamun
Osiris
hieroglyphics
•
•
• Ramses II
• Ptah
• Rosetta Stone
The
Theology
of
•
• demotic
Memphis
• Hyksos
✓Understand the relationship between the Egyptians and the Hittites in the New
Kingdom and identify the Battle of Kadesh and its consequences.
The Hittites
✓Who were the Hittites? Where did they come from? How did they change the
development of Civilization in the Near East?
✓Who were the Hurrians and the Mitani and what was their relationship to the Hittites
and Egyptians?
✓What was Hittite government like?
✓Professor Robison discusses military innovations introduced by the Hittites. What
were they and what effect did they have on warfare in the Near East?
The Canaanites and Phoenicians
The Canaanites and Phoenicians were Semitic speaking peoples who settled in the
area of Syria-Palestine during the Later Bronze Age and became the dominant culture
by the beginning of the Iron Age (c. 1100 B.C.). You should be familiar with both groups,
and especially with the Phoenicians, who traded and colonized throughout the
Mediterranean and introduced the “Phonetic Alphabet” to Europe.
The Hebrews
✓Understand the general history of the Ancient Hebrews from 1900 BC to 722 BC; also
the relationship between the Jews and their religion.
✓Judaism is both the first major religion based on “exclusive monotheism” and the
concept of ethical behavior toward men as part of the “covenanted” relationship
between God and his devotees. What do the following terms mean?
✓exclusive monotheism
✓ethical religion
✓the laws
3 of 6
History 101 — Study Guide of Unit 1
✓the Covenant
✓the Ten Commandments
✓What are the major aspects of the religion of the Hebrews? Historians believe that the
earliest nomadic Hebrews started out as polytheistic animists in much the same mold
as the other civilizations we have looked at. How did the Hebrews develop from
nomadic animists to exclusive monotheists? This process didn’t happen overnight;
what were the”steps” involved?
✓Identify the following:
• Abraham
• Moses
• Palestine
• Saul
• the Philistines
• David
• Solomon
• Judea
• Jerusalem
• Israel
• the prophets
✓Discuss the relationship that the Hebrews had with the other civilizations of the Near
East, especially the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Philistines, Assyrians, Egyptians,
Hittites and Chaldeans.
✓Who were the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel?”
✓Who was King Nebuchadnezzar?
✓What was the “Babylonian Captivity of the Jews,” and what effect did it have on
developments in the Hebrew religion?
✓What is the Torah?
The Assyrians
✓The Assyrians are another Semitic people who flourished in the Near East.
✓They first appear in the northern area of Mesopotamia around 2000 B.C.
✓They begin to expand into southern Asia Minor and south into Mesopotamia after 800
B.C.
✓By the mid-600s, they had created an empire that included most of the areas that we
have seen so far (see map, text p. 41).
✓The Assyrians were the first to use Iron weapons. They learned a technique for
making Iron very hard from the Hittites.
✓With their powerful weapons and their large, well trained, and highly organized armies,
the Assyrians were the greatest military power in Mesopotamia at the time.
✓The capital of the Assyrian Empire was the city of Nineveh, on the Tigris river. From
here powerful kings would appoint officials who would control the many provinces of
the Assyrian Empire.
✓Because the Assyrians were harsh rulers, they were generally not liked by the people
they took over.
✓The last great Assyrian king was Ashurbanipal (668-627 B.C.)
✓The Assyrians combined militaristic brutality with a love of culture.
4 of 6
History 101 — Study Guide of Unit 1
✓Study the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the results of that conquest (“lost tribes”).
✓Ashurbanipal created the great library at Nineveh, which contained an extensive
collection of materials from all over the empire.
✓The Assyrian Empire falls in 626 B.C. See the lecture to find out why.
The Chaldean Empire (Neo Babylonian)
✓The Chaldeans were descendants of the Babylonians that the Assyrians conquered.
✓The Chaldeans consolidated an empire for themselves on the ruins of the Assyrian
Empire.
✓Over the next 40 or 50 years, the Chaldeans rebuilt the city of Babylon. It was one of
the most magnificent cities of the ancient world.
✓Chaldeans under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Judea and brought
leading Hebrew families back to Babylon (see “Babylonian Captivity”).
✓Nebuchadnezzar fashions himself a new Hammurabi.
✓Babylon reaches its height as a great city under the Chaldeans. As Dr. Robison notes
in the TV lecture, the city became a center of magnificent buildings and also a
religious center. Study both aspects.
✓Not even 100 years after the Chaldeans came to power, a group from outside
Mesopotamia called the Persians invaded and claimed the region as part of their
empire.
The Persians
✓Know the basic history of the Persians, an people who, like the hittites, spoke a
language related to the Indo-European language group.
✓Where did the come from?
✓Where was their empire located?
✓Who was Cyrus the Great?
✓Study the process whereby Cyrus the Great created the Persian Empire.
✓Study the policies of the Persians. How did Persian administration differ from the
administrative policies of the Assyrians?
✓Prof. Robison remarks that the Persian Empire represents the “first multicultural
empire.” Explain.
✓Study Cyrus’ treatment of the Hebrews of the “Babylonian Captivity.”
✓Study Persian military structure.
✓Who was Cambyses?
✓Who was Darius the Great?
✓What is Persepolis?
✓What is a Satrap/satrapy?
✓What is Zoroastrianism? Ahura Mazda?
✓Zoroastrianism is called a “dualistic religion.” What does that mean? Learn the basics
of the religion, its origins in earlier Persian animistic beliefs, its basic ideas and how
Zoroastrianism becomes associated as the state religion of the Persians.
5 of 6
History 101 — Study Guide of Unit 1
✓In what ways does Zoroastrianism effect the beliefs of the Hebrews, in turn effecting
the nature of Christianity and Islam?
✓Persia had not one, but four capitals. Why?
✓What were the short and long term consequences of the series of wars that the
Persians fought against the Greeks from about 500 B.C. down to around 320 B.C.?
✓Identify the following:
• Iranian Plateau
• Xerxes I
• satraps
• Salamis
• satrapies
• Plataea
• King of Kings
• Artaxerxes II
• Lydians
• Darius III
• Medes
• Alexander
• Cyrus the Great
• Ahuras
• Achaemenid Dynasty
• Devas
• Cambyses
• Magi
• Darius
• Zoroaster (Zarathustra)
• Darius II
• Ahura Mazda
• Ionian greeks
• Ahriman
• Marathon
Finally, what was the Catastrophe of 1200? Review various theories for the
Catastrophe.
This concludes the study guide for the first exam. You should also study the maps in the
text book and should have some basic idea of where stuff is. I will expect that you will
know the relative locations of states, important cities and other “map oriented” concepts.
6 of 6