Download Early River Valley Civilizations

Early River Valley
Civilizations
3500 BC – 450 BC
Ch 2
City-States in
Mesopotamia
Ch 2 Sec 1
Objectives
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Understand why early civilizations formed on
fertile river plains
Understand the how geography affected life in
the Fertile Crescent
Understand the importance of Hammurabi’s
Code
Geography of the Fertile
Crescent
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Fertile Crescent-an
arc of rich farmland in
Southwest Asia,
between the Persian
Gulf and the
Mediterranean Sea
Mesopotamia-Greek
for “land between the
rivers”, plain between
the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers
Rise of Civilization
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The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flooded at
least once a year
The fertile silt left behind by the floodwaters
allowed farmers to grow large quantities of
wheat and barley
The surpluses from the harvests allowed
villages to grow
Environmental Challenges
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Good soil attracted people to the Fertile Crescent
Sumerians arrived here around 3300 BC but there
were 3 disadvantages to the new environment
1. Unpredictable flooding and little or no rain
2. No natural barriers for protection
3. Few natural resources, building materials and
other necessary items were scarce.
How would you solve
these problems?
Solving Problems
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1. Irrigation carried water to the fields
2. Built city walls with mud bricks for defense
3. Sumerians traded grain, cloth, and crafted
tools with people from the mountains and
desert for raw materials such as stone, wood,
and metal
Sumerians Create City-States
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By 3000 BC the Sumerians had created a
number of city-states-city and its surrounding
land that function as an independent political
unit
Although these cities shared the same culture
they each developed their own government and
rulers
Government
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The earliest governments in Sumer were
controlled by the temple priests
The center of all the cities was a ziggurat,
large temple, that was both a place of worship
and a kind of city hall
In times of war, military leaders, would rule
the city
Dynasties
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As wars became more frequent military leaders
became permanent rulers
These leaders usually passed power on to their
sons creating a dynasty – series of rulers from
a single family
Spread of Cities
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The cities grew prosperous as food surpluses
continued to increase
Trade also increased as the cities grew leading
to cultural diffusion – spread of ideas or
products from one culture to another
What kind of religion do
you think they had in
Mesopotamia?
Sumerian Culture
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Polytheism- belief in more than one god
Sumerians believed in many gods and demons
The Sumerians used religion to explain natural
phenomenon such as the weather
Enlil was the god of storms and air who controlled
flooding
Sumerians built large ziggurats and offered sacrifices
of animals, food, and wine to please the gods
Social Classes
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With the rise of civilization came the beginning of
social classes
Kings, landholders, and some priests made up the
highest level
Wealthy merchants
Farmers
Slaves
Women in Sumeria had many of the same rights as
the men
Science and Technology
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Arithmetic and geometry-used to build walls
and irrigation systems
Architecture- arches, columns, ramps, pyramid
shape of ziggurats
Cuneiform
Early Empires
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City-states were constantly at war
Sargon of Akkad defeated the city-states
around 2350 BC and created the world’s first
empire, political unit in which a number of
peoples in controlled by a single ruler
Hammurabi
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Around 2000 BC, a group of nomadic warriors
took over Mesopotamia and created the
Babylonian Empire
The Babylonian Empire reached its peak from
1792 BC to 1750 BC with the reign of
Hammurabi
Egypt
The Discovery of Egypt
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Middle Ages knew of Egypt only as a Roman
colony and Christian settlement
The Renaissance presumed civilization began
with Greece
The Enlightenment knew nothing of Egypt
beyond the pyramids
New Discoveries
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French scientists made
many new discoveries
including the temples at
Luxor and Karnak
Hieroglyphics
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For many years
Napoleon’s scientists
were unable to read the
inscriptions of the
Egyptian monuments
Importance of the Rosetta Stone
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Rosetta Stone- Allowed scientist to decipher
hieroglyphics because they knew Greek
Opened the way to the recovery of a lost world
Geography
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Northern Africa
Nile River -4100 miles long, longest river in
the world
Fertile land near the river
Surrounded by desert
Yearly floods
Delta- broad marshy triangular area of land
formed by deposits of silt at the mouth of the
river
Geography
Importance of the Nile
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Floods were key to keeping the soil fertile
Water was needed for irrigation due to the
surrounding desert climate
Transportation
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Northbound boats floated with the current
Southbound boats were able to sail
Egypt Unites into a Kingdom
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Egyptians lived in farming villages as far back
as 5000 BC
By 3200 BC the villages were under control by
two kingdoms
Sometime around 3000 BC the kingdoms were
united
Some scholars believe the Scorpion king
united the colonies but more solid evidence
points to a king named Narmer
Pharaohs Rule as Gods
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In Mesopotamia, kings were considered
representatives of gods
In Egypt, kings were gods
Pharaohs-Egyptian god-kings
Theocracy- type of government in which rule
is based on religious authority
Pharaohs were the center of religion,
government and army
Pyramids
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Egyptians believed the pharaohs continued to
rule after their deaths. He had an eternal life
force called ka that continued to take part in
the governing of the country
Because kings would rule forever the tombs
were more important than the palaces
NOVA | Explore Ancient
Egypt
What do the pyramids tell us
about Ancient Egyptian
society?
Pyramids
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Reflect the strength of the society
Economic strength to support the building
project
Technological means to complete the task
Leadership and government organization to
carry out the construction
Religion and Life
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Polytheistic like Mesopotamia
Re – sun god
Osiris – god of the dead
Isis – ideal mother and wife
Believed they would be judged for their deeds
in the afterlife
Mummification- embalmed and dried the
corpse to preserve it
mummy
Egyptian Society
Science and Technology
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Calendar- keep track of time between floods
365 days, 12 months of 30 days
System of writing numbers
Mathematics- geometry
Medicine- check heart rates, set broken bones,
surgery
Indus River Civilizations
Geography
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Indian Subcontinent- Area that includes India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh
Indus Valley is protected by the Himalaya
mountains and Thar Desert
Indus River and Ganges River
Like Egypt and Mesopotamia, much of the
Indus River runs through the Thar desert and
farming is possible only near the river
Climate
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Monsoons- seasonal winds that dominate
India’s climate
During the winter months the winds blow dry
air from the northeast
During the summer months the winds blow
moisture from the ocean
Environmental Challenges
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Yearly floods are unpredictable
Rivers sometimes change course
Cycle of wet and dry seasons is unpredictable
Civilization
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Evidence of farming in villages around 3200
BC
Around 2500 BC cities were being built with
levees to keep out flood waters
Largest cities were Harrapa, Mohenjo-Daro,
and Kalibangan
Harrapan Civilization- Indus Valley
Civilization
Planned Cities
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One of the most remarkable achievements was
the sophisticated city planning
Mesopotamia was a maze of winding streets
while the cities of the Indus Valley were
carefully planned
Precise grid system
Buildings constructed of oven-baked standard
sized bricks
Harappan Planning
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Built partially on mud-brick platforms
City surrounded by a thick brick wall 3 ½
miles long
Houses featured bathrooms where waste
flowed out to the street and then to sewage pits
outside the city walls
How did people get fresh
water and remove waste in
ancient cities?
Mohenjo-Daro
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Almost every house had a private bathroom
and toilet
People took showers with pitchers of water
Pipes connected to each house carried
wastewater to an underground sewer system
Sewers had manholes so workers could inspect
the drains
No other civilization achieved this level of
convenience until the 19th and 20th centuries
Harrappan Language
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Like Egypt and Mesopotamia they had a
written language but it has never been
deciphered
About 400 different symbols
What do these artifacts tell you
about Harappan society?
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Houses that have been uncovered are all about
the same
Clay and wooden children’s toys
Few weapons have been found
Many animal images on artifacts
Culture
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Housing suggests social divisions in the
society were not great
Toys suggest a prosperous society that could
afford to produce nonessential items
Few weapons suggests that conflict was
limited
Presence of animals suggests they were an
important part of culture
Religion
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Believed to be a theocracy
No temples have been found
Artifacts reveal links to modern Hinduism
Government
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Well planned cities imply a strong centralized
government
Few weapons found also implies a strong
centralized government
Economy
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Thriving trade with other peoples in the region
Gold and silver from the north in Afghanistan
Semiprecious stones from Persia
Seals used by Indus merchants have been
discovered in Sumer
Indus Culture Ends
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Around 1750 BC the quality of building
declines and the great cities fall into decay
In the 1970s satellite images revealed evidence
of earthquakes and floods that may have
diverted the rivers and destroyed many of the
cities
River Dynasties in China
Background
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First cities built around 2000 BC
1000 years after Ur, the pyramids, and the
planned cities of the Indus River Valley
Unlike the other 3 civilizations the civilization
that began in China continues to thrive today
Geography
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Natural barriers isolated ancient China from
all other civilizations
Pacific Ocean to the east, Taklimakan Desert
and Plateau of Tibet to the west, Himalayas to
the southwest, Gobi desert to the north
River Systems
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2 major rivers systems flow from the
mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean
Huang He River or Yellow River is found in
the north
Chang Jiang River or Yangtze River in
central China
Environmental Challenges
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Flood’s could be disastrous
Early civilizations had to rely on their own
goods because of their geographic location
Natural boundaries did not protect them from
invaders from the north and south
China’s Heartland
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Only about 10% of China’s land is arable
Area between the rivers known as the North
China Plan
Center of Chinese civilization
Ancient Humans in China
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Fossil remains show that the ancestors of
modern humans lived in China 1.7 million
years ago
A fossil known as Peking man shows that
people settled in the river valley as early as
500,000 years ago
The First Dynasties
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Around 2000 BC early settlements grew into
cities
According to legend the first Chinese dynasty,
the Xia Dynasty, emerged about this time
Its leader was a mathematician and engineer
named Yu whose flood control and irrigation
techniques allowed settlers to create cities
Shang Dynasty
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First family of Chinese rulers to leave written
records
Ruled from 1700 BC to 1027 BC
Elaborate palaces and tombs
Early Cities
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Anyang- one of the capitals of the Shang
Dynasty
Unlike Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt,
Anyang was built mostly of wood
Higher classes lived in timber houses with clay
and straw walls within the city walls while
peasants and craftspeople lived in huts outside
the city
Early Cities
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The cities were surrounded by massive earthen
walls
Archaeological remains at one city include an
wall of packed earth 118 feet thick at the base
that encircled an area of 1.2 square miles
Shows us the rulers’ abilities to raise and
control large forces of workers
Culture
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Outsiders were considered barbarians
because the Chinese saw their country as the
center of the civilized world
From earliest times the group seems to be
more important than the individual
A person’s chief loyalty is to family
Owed respect and obedience to the ruler just as
they did to elders in their family
Family
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The family is central to Chinese society
Most important virtue is respect for one’s
parents
Elder men in the family controlled property
and made important decisions
Women were treated as inferiors and were
expected to obey their fathers, husbands, and
their own sons
The only way for a woman to improve her
status was to bear sons for her family
Social Classes
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Society was sharply divided between nobles
and peasants
The Shang Dynasty was governed by a ruling
class of warrior-nobles headed by a king
Noble families owned all the land and sent
tribute to the king in exchange for local control
Religious Beliefs
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Family was linked closely to religion
Believed that spirits of family ancestors had
the power to bring good fortune or disaster to
living members of the family
Spirits were not treated as mighty gods but as
troublesome or helpful neighbors who
demanded attention and respect
Every family paid respect to the father’s
ancestors and made sacrifices in their honor
Religion
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Through the spirits the Shang consulted the
gods
They worshipped one supreme god, Shang Di,
as well as many lesser gods
Kings consulted the gods through oracle bones
Development of Writing
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Each character generally stands for on syllable
or unit of language
Practically no links between China’s spoken
language and the written language
Could read the language without knowing how
to speak it
People in all parts of China could understand
the written language even though they spoke
different languages
Advantages and Disadvantages
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The written language made it easy to unify a large
and diverse land and made control much easier
Enormous number of written characters to be
memorized
A person needed to know 1500 characters to be
barely literate
To be a scholar one needed to know 10,000
characters
Severely limited the number of educated
Zhou Dynasty
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Around 1027 BC, a people named the Zhou
overthrew the Shang
Culture remained pretty much the same but the
new rulers brought some changes to Chinese
civilization
Mandate of Heaven
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Mandate of Heaven- a just ruler had divine approval
A wicked or foolish king could lose the Mandate of
Heaven and the right to rule
Central to the Chinese view of government
Floods riots and other calamities could be signs that
the spirits were displeased with a king’s rule
Dynastic Cycle-pattern of rise, decline, and
replacement of dynasties
Control through Feudalism
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Feudalism- political system in which nobles
or lords are granted the use of land that legally
belongs to the king
In exchange for land the nobles provided
loyalty and military service to the king
Technology
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Roads and canals were built to improve trade
and agriculture
Coined money was introduced
Blast furnaces that produced cast iron were
developed
Used iron for weapons and agriculture
End of Zhou Rule
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Around 256 BC
In 771 BC the capital was sacked and the king
was murdered
Some family members escaped and set up a
new capital but they were unable to control the
nobles