Download Ancient Egypt & the Fertile Crescent

Ancient Civilizations
The Fertile Crescent—Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Israel,
Phoencia, Assyria, Persia
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Ancient Egypt
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Gift of the Nile
I. "Gift of the Nile"
A. Ancient Egypt was a river valley civilization
1. Very dry climate
2. 9/10 of the land is desert.
3. Almost the entire population lived within ten-fifteen miles of the
Nile River.
The Nile River
I. Nile River
A. The world's longest river, approximately 4,000 miles.
1. Overflowed each year around the month of April and subsided around
October.
a. The flood waters were caused by rains in Eastern Africa
spread rich deposits of fertile soil along the banks of the Nile River called
Silt.
b. Enabled food to be easily grown.
2. During the dry season, farmers learned to irrigate the land.
a. Irrigation- The watering of dry land by means of streams, canals, and
pipes.
B. Economy was based on farming.
1. Crops were usually planted in October and were harvested in the spring.
The Nile River
The Nile River flows south to north
Egyptian Society
*Egyptian society was made up of many social groups.
Egyptian Society: Pharaoh(s)
I. Pharaoh
A. Made up 1% of the population.
1. Egyptian supreme ruler. (Most powerful)
a. People believed that the pharaohs were descended from the gods and ruled
as god's representative on earth.
2. The Pharaohs owned all the land and made all the laws.
a. Farmers had to pay rent to the Pharaohs to farm the land.
1a. Sometimes 2/3 of all crops had to be given to the pharaohs.
Egypt Before the “Old Kingdom”
I.
Before the “Old Kingdom,” Egypt was divided into Upper
and Lower kingdoms.
A. Lower Egypt was in the NORTH.
B. Upper Egypt was in the SOUTH.
•The early people who settled along the Nile River
banded together into two main groups.
Lower Egypt
•One group lived around the mouth of Nile River,
near the Mediterranean Sea. Their king wore a
Red Crown. Their land was called Lower Egypt.
•The other group lived near the mountains to the
South. Their king wore a White Crown. Their
land was called Upper Egypt.
Upper Egypt
•These two groups had much in common. They
spoke the same language. They worshipped the
same gods. They had the same culture. But, they
did not get along and constantly fighting.
“Old Kingdom”
II. Old Kingdom (3400 B.C. to 2500 B.C.)
A. Egypt was united under into a single prosperous nation under the
leadership of King Menes.
B. Memphis became the new Egyptian capital.
King Menes conquered Lower Egypt. Both
kingdoms continued to fight. One day, King
Menes had an idea. If the color of a crown was so
important, why not invent a new crown? King
Menes created the Double Crown, a mix of white
and red. His idea worked!
The Pyramids & Great Sphinx
III. Pyramids were built.
A. Served as royal tombs where Egyptian Pharaohs were buried.
Pyramids were huge structures built to hold a
royal tomb. Pyramids had storage rooms,
courtyards, secret passageways, and traps to
catch robbers who might break into the
pyramid.
The Great Sphinx is a large humanheaded lion that was carved from a
mound of natural rock. It is located in
Giza where it guards the front of
Khafra's pyramid.
The Pyramids: Diagram
Decline of the “Old Kingdom”
IV. Decline of the “Old Kingdom”
A. The government during the Old Kingdom grew corrupt.
1. Leaders fought among themselves for power and wealth.
a. Civil war erupted and ended the Old Kingdom.
“Middle Kingdom”
I. Middle Kingdom: Age of Nobles (2,500 to 1,580 B.C.)
A. Egypt was divided into forty regions
1. Governors were appointed to rule each region.
B. Egyptian Nobles became very powerful and engaged in a civil war
against the Pharaohs.
C. Chaos and continued disunity had made Egypt very weak.
Decline of the “Middle Kingdom”
II. Decline of the “Middle Kingdom.”
A. About 1700 B.C., the Hyksos invaded Egypt.
1. Hyksos were desert nomads who were less civilized than the Egyptians.
a. The Hyksos had superior weapons and technology.
1a. Overwhelmed the Egyptians using Chariots.
b. The Hyksos conquered and ruled Egypt for over 200 years.
1b. The Hyksos were very cruel.
2. Egyptians learned to use bronze and horse drawn chariots from the Hyksos
and ousted the Hyksos and regained control of Egypt.
“New Kingdom”
I. New Kingdom: The Age of Empire (1580 B.C. to 1150 B.C.)
A. The Pharaohs regained full control of Egypt.
B. Hatshepsut became the first woman ruler in history.
1. Began the succession of ruling families called dynasties.
2. Expanded Egyptian Empire through trade and conquest.
a. Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, Cyprus, and Nubia.
b. Many conquered people became Egyptian slaves.
c. Imported gold, ivory, ostrich feathers, fish, and wine.
d. Exported glassware, linens, and pottery.
3. Thebes became the new capital of Egypt.
In public Hatshepsut
dressed like a man and
wore a false beard so
people wouldn’t know she
was a woman.
Decline of the “New Kingdom”
C. The Decline of Ancient Egypt (1,150 B.C. to 31 A.D.)
1. Egypt was conquered in succession by Libya, Assyria, Persia, and
Rome (31 A.D.)
Egyptian Contributions: Religion
I. Religion
A. Ancient Egyptians worshipped many gods. (Polytheism)
1. Examples included:
a. Ra (the Sun God)
b. Osiris (the God of the Nile.)
B. First conception immortality (life after death.)
For more info on Egyptian gods and goddesses:
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/explore/main.html
Egyptian Contributions: Religion
Egyptian Contributions: Religion
Egyptian Contributions: Art
II. Art
A. The Egyptians excelled in architecture and sculpture.
1. Great temples, pyramids, and other structures were built.
B. Egyptian sculptors carved lifelike statues of men and beasts.
C. Beautiful jewelry and other objects of copper and bronze were made.
Egyptian Contributions: Writing
III. Writing
A. Hieroglyphics
1. A crude system of writing using pictures and symbols.
B. Rosetta Stone
1. Discovered in 1799, the Rosetta Stone provided the key to understanding the
history of Ancient Egypt.
a. Written in Hieroglyphics, late Egyptian, and Greek languages.
Rosetta Stone
Hieroglyphics Alphabet
Can you spell your name using
Hieroglyphics?
Other Contributions Credited to Ancient Egypt
IV. Other contributions credited to Ancient Egypt.
A. Made paper from Papyrus reed.
B. Invented the plow and irrigated their fields during the dry seasons.
C. Used geometry for building and surveying.
D. Invented the decimal system.
E. Used a twelve-month calendar of 365 days, based on the movement of the
sun.
F. Performed surgical operations in which drugs were used as anesthetics.
G. Law and order
1. Laws were very strict and stern.
a. Those found guilty were whipped, tortured, burned, or thrown to the
crocodiles.
Egyptian Contributions: Science
V. Mummification
A. Egyptians preserved dead bodies by embalming them.
Preparing an Egyptian mummy sometimes took up to 70 days. On some mummies
that have been unwrapped, the total length of the bandages has been about 1.5
miles.
Ancient Sumer
I. Ancient Sumer
A. Sumerians were nomads who had settled in the Fertile Crescent.
B. Sumerian city-states:
1. City-State is a self-governing city and the lands surrounding it.
a. Everyone spoke the same language, shared customs, religious beliefs,
and worked together.
2. Sumer was not united:
a. Separate city-states had own rulers.
b. Competition over land and water rights often led to war.
1b. For many years, the city-states of Ur and Erech fought each other.
.
City-State
Ur and Erech constantly fought each other
Religion in Sumer
II. Religion in Sumer:
A. Sumerians did not worship their leaders as gods, instead they worshipped
nature.
B. Built tremendous temples called Ziggurats
1. To honor the gods and goddesses of nature.
2. Most important buildings in the city-states.
a. Constructed to be the tallest structure.
b. Ziggurats were believed to be the stairway to the gods.
Sumerian Writing
III. Sumerian writing
A. Cuneiform
1. Developed to keep accounts of business deals.
The Babylonians
I. Babylonians
A. Were Nomads before they conquered Sumer and adopted her ways.
B. Contributions of the Babylonians.
1. Code of Hammurabi, written by Hammurabi (c. BC 1792-1750)
a. First account of recorded laws, total of 282 specific laws.
b. Known as the "Eye for an Eye" laws
2. Constructed the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
a. A magnificent palace with many levels of gardens and palaces.
1a. King Nebuchadnezzar built it for his homesick wife.
According to accounts, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were
built to cheer up Nebuchadnezzar's homesick wife, Amyitis.
Code of Hammurabi
Birth of Judaism
I. The origins of Judaism
A. Abraham led his immediate family from Sumer to Canaan. (present day
Israel)
B. Followers of Abraham became known as Hebrews.
C. A great famine forced the Hebrews to flee to Egypt.
1. Life in Egypt was harsh.
2. Hebrews were forced into slavery by the Egyptians.
D. Moses and the Hebrews fled Egypt and returned to Canaan.
Judaism
Judaism
II. Ten Commandments
A. God (Jehovah) gave Moses the laws by which Hebrews would live and abide.
1. Belief in one God (Monotheism)
2. Governed religious beliefs and behavior.
a. Laws forbade lying, stealing, murder, etc.
The Kingdom of Israel
King Solomon 970-930 BC
United the tribes of Israel into the Kingdom of Israel.
Solomon was the son of King David, and was known as a
wise king.
During this time Jerusalem
became the capital of the
Kingdom of Israel.
Under the leadership of Solomon,
Israel reached the height of its power.
He built a great temple in Jerusalem which
became the focal point of the Jewish Religion.
The remains of this temple, now known as the
Western Wall or Wailing Wall are still a focal
point of the Jewish faith.
The Divided Kingdom
After Solomon’s death the kingdom of Israel split into two parts
Division: The Kingdom of Israel was the ten northern tribes with
the capital city of Samaria.
The Kingdom of Judah was the two tribes in the South
with the capital of Jerusalem.
The Assyrians destroyed the kingdom of Israel and scattered the
people in 722 B.C., these are known as the lost tribes of Israel.
The Kingdom of Judah remained until it was
destroyed by the Chaldeans (Neo Babylonians)
and King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. beginning
the Babylonian captivity which would last until
the defeat of the Chaldeans by the Persian
Empire and Cyrus the Great.
The Babylonian Captivity of the Jews was known as the first
Diaspora.
The Diaspora is the scattering of the Jewish people.
There have been two Diasporas.
The first was the Babylonian captivity, which ended when
the Persians freed the Jews and the Jews returned to
Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple.
During the Captivity there was an Age of Prophecy
Prophets such as Isaiah and Ezekiel
declared that the people
needed to return to the original
covenant or face punishment.
The Jews stayed in Israel until the Romans destroyed the
Temple again in 70 AD, beginning the second Diaspora.
After that the Jews were scattered throughout Europe.
European anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages and the
Holocaust of WWII forced many Jews to emigrate to the
United States and many began to return to Israel.
This led to the formation of the state of Israel by the
United Nations in 1948 ending the second Diaspora. Many
Jews consider any Jew not living in the Holy Land to still
be in the Diaspora.
The Phoenicians
The Phoenicians established a trade
empire, and colonies, throughout the
Mediterranean.
They traded several goods including
glass and lumber.
Their most important product was
Tyrian purple, a dye made from boiling
the Murex snail.
This purple dye was very difficult and
expensive to produce. It was very
valuable to the rich.
Murex snail
The Phoenicians spread their alphabet throughout the
Mediterranean
Their alphabet consisted of 22 letters, it did not have vowels.
Unlike many early alphabets which were made of pictograms, the
Phoenician alphabet was phonic (based on sound). These sounds
could be assembled to make words.
The Greeks eventually adopted this alphabet, which influenced
the Latin Alphabet which we use today.
Phoenician alphabet -- note their writing reads
right to left, and that some symbols were later
re-used and made into vowels.
Phoenician Artifacts
The Assyrians
Semitic-speaking people who exploited the use of iron weapons
to build an empire by 700 B.C.
Included Territory From Mesopotamia, some of the Iranian
Plateau, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
Eventually, the Assyrian Empire fell to several groups
including the Chaldeans (Neo-Babylonians) and the Medes.
Assyrian kings ruled with absolute power.
Kingdoms were well organized and efficient.
Kept direct contact with the people who
helped administer their empire
Assyrians established a system where they
could relay messages by horseback back
and forth in a week’s time.
Ashurbanipal
Considered the greatest Assyrian King.
He collected the writings of Mesopotamia
and est. the great library of Nineveh, the
capital.
Nineveh
Military Strength
The Assyrian military was one of the
strongest in the ancient world.
They used fierce iron weapons and
psychological warfare.
The Assyrians would often attempt to get
an area to surrender before attack.
If people refused and were defeated they were
treated harshly.
King Ashurnasirpal once stated
“3,000 of their combat troops I felled with
weapons . . . Many I took alive; from some of these I
cut off their hands to the wrists, from others I cut
off their noses, ears and fingers; I put out the eyes
of many of the soldiers. . . . I burned their young
men and women to death.”
The Persians
Cyrus the Great
Persian King who defeated Babylon and ended
the Jews’ captivity.
Cyrus ruled from 559 to 530 B.C. and was a
great leader, hence the name Cyrus the
Great.
Cyrus was very respectful of other cultures.
Not only did he free the Jews, but he also
treated conquered peoples fairly. He allowed
them to keep their own religions and customs.
This respect made the people who lived under
him respectful of his rule and less likely to
revolt.
Expansion of Empire under Darius I
Ruled from 521-486 B.C. added western India to
the Persian Empire.
Then added Thrace in Europe and expanded the
Empire to its greatest size. He also brought the
Persian Empire into conflict with the Greeks.
Satrapies
Darius divided his empire into provinces called
Satrapies to make it more manageable.
Each province was ruled by a governor called a
Satrap.
This man was the protector of the kingdom.
They collected taxes, provided justice
and security, and got soldiers for the army.
The Royal Road
The Royal road stretched from Lydia to Susa,
the chief capital of the empire. It used a
system of couriers similar to the Assyrians. This
allowed for efficient communication in the
empire
Persian Military
The Persians had an elite military. It contained
people from all over the Persian Empire.
The Immortals
The Elite fighters of the Persian Empire.
They were so called because in battle their
numbers were never allowed to fall below 10,000
men. They were constantly replaced from
behind so they appeared to never die.
Persian kings became greedy and
so the empire became weak.
Family spats and assassinations became the rule of the day.
The Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great during the
330’s B.C.
Persian Religion
Zoroastrianism--Original Religion of the
Persian Empire
Zoroaster--Founder and Prophet of the
Religion. Also known as Zarathustra.
Book: Zend Avesta, the recorded
teachings of Zoroaster.
Monotheistic--Taught belief in one
universal, all-powerful god.
Ahura Mazda--The god of Zoroastrianism