Download Ancient History of the Middle East

ANCIENT HISTORY
OF THE
MIDDLE EAST
HOW DID THE CITY STATES DIFFER FROM
EARLIER VILLAGES?
• Neolithic villages housed a few dozen
residents on a few acres
• The first city-states were ten times larger,
accommodating 5,000 people. Over time
they grew to hold 500,000
• Irrigation canals supported agriculture
extended southward to central Mesopotamia
• Construction and maintenance of the canal
system required larger gang of workers than
the work teams that were based on the
family and clan.
FROM CITY-STATE TO EMPIRE
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Imposed political rule over another people
and its resources, usually by conquest
Must create bureaucratic administrations with
sufficient uniformity in language, currency,
weights, measures, and legal systems to
enable them to function as a single political
structure
Collection of tax or tribute to provide means
to administer the empire
Empires create structures that display power
and luxury, inspiring loyalty among allies and
caution among potential enemies.
Often encourage great creativity in the arts
and learning
Establish vast marketplaces serviced by
highways and roads, ports, and dockyards.
Ex. All roads lead to Rome, and canals that
linked Southern China with the North
Earliest empires built with military force,
superior technologies and vast armies or
powerful navies.
SUMER: BIRTH OF A CITY (3500 – 2350 B.C.E.)
• Migration of people called the
Sumerians into southern Mesopotamia
in about 4,000 B.C.E.
• The Sumerians began to dominate the
region, displacing the Semitic (Jewish)
speaking populations
• Established by Sargon the Great (23342279 B.C.E.)
SUMER: BIRTH OF A CITY
• Leaders began to think in terms of
conquering others to create empires
• Sumerians lived in warring city-states—
Kish, Uruk, Nippur, Lagash, Umma and
others
SUMER: RELIGION
• Power rested with the priests of the
many deities of Sumer
• Residents of Sumer believed that their
survival in the harsh environment of
ancient Mesopotamia depended on the
will of the gods
• City priests built ziggurats to
consolidate their supernatural influence
SUMER: WRITING
• Sumerians invented writing
• Pictograms: Pictorial symbol or sign
representing an object or concept (started
in 3,300 B.C.E.)
• Cuneiform: A writing system in use in the
ancient Near East. The name derives from
wedge-shaped marks
• Ideograms: A character or figure in a writing
system in which the idea or a thing is
represented rather than its name
• Conquest by Alexander the Great replaced
Cuneiform with the alphabetic writing
system
SUMER: LITERATURE & LAW
• Literary Works: Epic of Gilgamesh
• Evidence seems to strongly point to the
development of a legal code within
Sumer
AKKADIAN EMPIRE (2360-2230 B.C.E.)
• Sargon led an Semitic people from the
Arabian peninsula, entered Sumer
• Sargon led the Akkadians to victory over
Sumer
• Well-developed administrative system
• Standardization of weights and measures
• Akkadians language was used in
administrative documents
BABYLONIAN EMPIRE (1894-539 B.C.E.)
• The Amorites (a Sematic groups),
invaded from the south and conquered
Sumer about 1900 B.C.E.
• Hammurabi defeated the remaining
independent Sumerian city-states
• Hammurabi legal code was created
• In 586 B.C.E., the Babylonians destroyed
the temple in Jerusalem and exiled
thousands of Jews to from Judea to
Babylon
HITTITE EMPIRE (1600-1178 B.C.E.)
• The Hittites arrived as part of a vast
movement of Indo-European peoples
that originated from the north
• Invention of the two-wheeled chariots
• Developed iron-working technology
• Battled the Egyptians at Qadesh, Syria
• Collapsed due to invaders, the Sea
Peoples, who arrived via the
Mediterranean
NEW KINGDOM EMPIRE (1550-1070 B.C.E.)
EGYPT IN MESOPOTAMIA
• Expulsion of the Hyksos
• Controlled territory to the northeast as
far as the Euphrates River
• Egypt stationed administrative officials
in the region to collect taxes, acquire
raw materials and collect taxes
• Egyptian control in the Mesopotamia
ended in 1200 B.C.E.
• Loss of gold, supplies and slaves
contributed to the end of the empire
NEO-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE (911-612 B.C.E.)
• Descendants of the Akkadians
• Controlled people through policies of terror
and forced migration
• Deportation of some nations into exile from
their homeland
• Importation of their own people to settle
among defeated people
• Conquered Egypt in 671
• Overpopulation and drought contributed to its
eventual fall
• Sennacherib of Assyria dispersed the Jews of
the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C.E.
Referred to as the “Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.”
ACHAEMENID EMPIRE (550-330 B.C.E)
• The Medes and the Persians began to
appear in the region east of
Mesopotamia
• At first the Medes were more numerous
and powerful, but later the Persians
came to predominate
• Both groups were Indo-Europeans
• Destruction of Assyria as a military force
• A new balance of power among the
Egyptians, Medes, Babylonians, and
Lydians emerged in western Asia
ACHAEMENID EMPIRE
• Cyrus the Great (558-529 B.C.E.)
• Broke the balance of power when he
defeated the Medes, Lydians and
Babylonians
• Retained local rulers after conquering
regional groups
• Allowed conquered groups to maintain
their system of administration and
military, but still be under Persian
control
• In 538 B.C.E. Cyrus permitted the
reconstruction of the Tempe of
Jerusalem to begin
ACHAEMENID EMPIRE
• Cyrus the Great (558-529 B.C.E.) broke
the balance of power when he defeated
the Medes, Lydians and Babylonians
• Cambyses II (529-522 B.C.E.)
expanded Cyrus’s conquest by crossing
the Sinai desert and capturing Memphis
in Egypt
• Darius I (522-486 B.C.E.) extended the
Persian Empire more deeply into Asia
MACEDONIAN EMPIRE (808-168 B.C.E.)
• Phillip II (359-336 B.C.E.) rose to power
once he persuaded the Macedonian army
to declare himself king
• Between 453 and 339 Phillip conquered
the Balkans from the Danube to the
Aegean coast and from the Adriatic to the
Black Sea
• Established new towns, which were
populated by Macedonians and local
people.
• Phillip II employed many local people in
his administration
MACEDONIAN EMPIRE
• Alexander (336-323 B.C.E.) succeeded his
father without opposition and continued
his father’s conquest
• Battle at Issus (333 B.C.E.) and Battle of
Gaugamela (331 B.C.E.) – Alexander
defeated Persian forces under Darius III
• Alexander pushed south and was
welcomed in Egypt as a liberator
• Marched across the Oxus River and into
the Indus Valley to conquer Afghanistan
and parts of the northern India
MACEDONIAN EMPIRE
• Two kingdoms emerged after the death of
Alexander:
• Ptolemy ruled Egypt through a Greek and
Macedonian elite until Roman conquest
• Seleucus I Nicator (d. 281 B.C.E.) was
governor of Babylon when the empire split
apart and added Iran, Afghanistan, and
Anatolia
• By 200 B.C.E. the Seleucid Empire was
limited to modern day location of Syria
• Parthians reclaimed Persia in the east and
divided Anatolia into numerous
governments
ROMAN EMPIRE (750 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.)
• Rome’s first battle on Greek soil came in
200 B.C.E.
• Neighboring Greek city-states
encouraged Rome to use these divisions
to establish its own balance of power in
the region
• Rome warned Macedonia not to
interfere in Greek affairs
• Phillip V of Macedonia was eventually
defeated in 168 B.C.E.
ROMAN EMPIRE
• Rome had also warned Antiochus III of Syria (223187 B.C.E.) to stay out of Europe and Egypt.
• Antiochus ignored the warning from Rome and he
was pushed back to Syria
• General Pompey (106-48 B.C.E.) added Syria and
most of Asia Minor to the empire
• In 63 B.C.E., he captured Jerusalem, the capital of
Judea, allowing a Jewish king to rule as clientmonarch
• In 70 C.E. they destroyed the Jewish temple in
Jerusalem, exiled all Jews from the city,
• In 135 C.E. they dismantled the political structure of
the Jewish state and exiled almost all Jews from
Judea
BYZANTINE EMPIRE (330-1453 C.E.)
• In 330 C.E., the Roman emperor Diocletian
divided the Roman Empire in half –Eastern
and Western Roman Empire
• Roman Emperor Constantine rebuilt the city
of Constantinople (called Byzantium)
• Emperor Justinian (527-656 C.E.) extended
the empire to include Judea
• In 1071, the Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine
Empire at the Battle of Manzikert
• In 1453, the Ottoman Empire defeated the
Byzantine Empire at Constantinople
(Byzantium)
NOTES FOR IMPROVEMENT:
• Notes: Focus the PPT on the achievements of each empire. Have students then rank
them based on their achievement, size and strength. Focus on Kagan’s book to
develop this PPT in the future.
• Saladin Empire (1137-1193 C.E.)