Download File - Ms. Gerloski

{ CIVILIZATION
The Beginning of Civilization
What factors led to the growth of civilization
over the nomadic lifestyle?
 What is a civilization?
 How is a city different from a civilization?

Civilization
Defined: a form of culture with cities, specialized
workers, complex institutions, record keeping, and
advanced technology
 Emerge because of:

Agriculture
 Specialized labor
 Cities

What do the 4 early
civilizations (Egypt,
Mesopotamia, Indus, China)
have in common?
4 River Civilizations
Nile River – Egypt
 Tigris & Euphrates
Rivers –
Mesopotamia
 Indus River –
Indus Valley
 Yellow & Yangtzee
Rivers – China

What are the benefits of water?

Access to fresh water
For drinking, fishing
 Little sanitation


Fertile Soil


Grow crops
Easy Transportation
Quicker than land
 Ability to trade

Create an Advertisement for Water
Imagine you live in one of the 4 river
civilizations
 Include a well thought-out image or picture
 Give at least 3 DETAILED benefits (not just
“transportation”)
 Include a funny/interesting/ironic slogan for
your advertisement

Problem/Solution
Protection from invaders: build walls, ditches,
military weapons, find allies
 Need water for crops: Irrigation ditches, man
made streams
 Difficult to plant & harvest: tools (plows),
selective planting, more people
 Need order and peace: create laws,
police/army, religion, government
 Need to know when to plant and harvest: map
the stars, weather patterns, almanacs/records

GRAPES & Civilization

Geography: location, natural resources, crops

Religion: Beliefs (creation, life death), gods, myths

Achievements: language, art, science, inventions,
architecture, literature

Politics: form of gov’t, laws/rights, leaders, war, peace

Economics: resources, trade, products, taxes,
specialized jobs

Social Structures: social classes, status/power,
gender roles, education, mobility
LANGUAGE
{
Problems??
What are the problems with using
pictures and drawings to represent
ideas/things?
How does our language (English) solve
this problem?

Spoken Language
We don’t know when spoken language
originated – no direct evidence
 Speculated at 100,000 – 300,000 years ago (??)
 Pre-dates any uniform written language

Written Language Origins

Cuneiform: Written Sumerian language
(Mesopotamia) [Government?]


Used for tax records
Hieroglyphics: Picture writing of ancient
Egypt (Religious?)

Used symbols of common items in Egypt
The Rosetta Stone
196 B.C. – tax records and statue construction
orders
 Written in a spoken Egyptian dialect (demotic
language), hieroglyphics and Greek
 25 years to translate to hieroglyphics
 Discovered by Napoleon in 1799 A.D.

Indus Valley + Sanitation
Located in Pakistan and India
 One of the earliest public water system
 Some cities had toilets connected to sewer
system
 Wells used to bring water into homes

Why was Mesopotamia in
the “Fertile Crescent?”
Located in modern day Iraq
 Region has curved shape – sort of like a
crescent moon
 Land is very fertile – located between two
major rivers
 Farmers there grow wheat and barley
 But, it went through long periods without rain
– How to solve this problem??

Ancient Mesopotamia
Fertile Crescent
 “Cradle of Civilization”
 About 4000 BC

Mesopotamia’s Successes
Modern agriculture
 Organized irrigation
 World’s first city-states
 Trade internally and
externally


Crop surpluses allowed
for long distance trade
Continued Successes
Created and used first known number system
– emergence of math
 One of earliest written languages (Cuneiform,
Phoenician alphabet)

Culture

Hammurabi’s Code – 1st uniform law code


Rid society of evil-doers, Outline government
responsibilities
Gods controlled forces of nature
TRE – Thesis, Reasons,
Evidence

Thesis (Complete): Mesopotamia was gifted
as an early civilization because…
TRE Continued
Reasons:
 1. Its location gave it many environmental
advantages.
 2. (Think of your own)
 3. (Think of your own)

TRE part 3

Evidence:

Reason 1: Location/Environment
Evidence 1: located between two rivers, which
made transportation within and outside the
civilization easier
 Evidence 2: (think of your own)

Ancient Egypt
{
Nile River
Longest river in the world – 4,100 miles
 Life-blood of Egypt

Nile River Flooding
Environment
Desert barrier
 Less war, less trade
 Predictable flooding (seasons)
 Not much usable land

Government & Religion
Pharaohs are god-kings
 Polytheism
 Pharaohs ruled after death
 Mummification saved body for afterlife
 Pyramids = burial chambers

Egyptian Burial

Sarcophagus protects the physical
body