Download Chapter 1: The First Humans

Chapter 2: Western Asia and Egypt
Section 1. Civilization begins in Mesopotamia
The Fertile Crescent
 Mesopotamia “land between the rivers”
 Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
Controlled water flow leads to:
 growing crops on regular basis
 Civilization develops
First Civilization
 The Sumerians 3500 BC
1. Cities
 City-State: basic unit of the Sumerian civilization
2. Government
 Theocracy – ruled by divine authority
 Kings got their power directly from the gods
 Priest & priestesses supervised the temples and had a great deal of
power
3. Religion
 Temples were dedicated to the chief god or goddess of the city
 Built on a massive stepped tower called a ziggurat
 Polytheistic – belief in may gods
 The Ziggurat
4. Social Structure
 Nobles – royal & priestly officials
 Commoners – farmers, merchants, craftspeople
 Slaves – belonged to palace officials
 Education for wealthy boys only
5. Writing
 Cuneiform – “wedged shaped” system of writing
 Scribes held the most important positions in society
6. Art & Technology
 Wagon wheel
 Potter’s wheel
 Sundial
 Astronomy
 Number system based on 60
 Geometry
First Empires
 Large political state or unit, usually under a single leader, that controls
many people or territories
 Easy to create & difficult to maintain
Babylon
Hammurabi – leader
 Established a legal code based on strict justice
Code of Hammurabi
 Based on the principle of retaliation – “An eye for an eye, tooth for a
tooth”
 Patriarchal society – dominated by men
 Page 41 & 44 in your textbook
Chapter 2 – Section 2: Pyramids of the Nile
Cultural Hearth: Nile River Valley
 Lower Egypt – land upstream
 Upper Egypt – land to the south
The Gifts of the Nile
1. Water - food
2. Transportation
3. Protection
4. Sense of security & confidence
1. Cities
 Established in the Nile River Valley at the tip of the delta – the point at
which the Nile divides
 Cairo
 Giza
 Saqqara
2. Government
 Theocracy – “God-Kings”
 Dynasty
 Pharaohs
Famous Pharaohs
 Hatshepsut – first woman pharaoh
 Akhenaton – worshiped only one god – Aton (god of the sun disk)
 Tutankhamen – “King Tut” – restored the worship of multiple gods
Ramses II
 Ruled 60 years
 Put Egypt back on the offensive
 Wars and building projects weaken Egypt
 New Kingdom collapses 1085 BC
Cleopatra VII
 Tried to reestablish Egypt’s independence
 Involvement with Rome led to suicide & defeat
 Egypt became part of Rome’s empire
3. Religion
 Polytheistic
 Gods associated with heavenly bodies & natural forces – sun gods &
land gods (p. 46, 47)
 No word for religion – inseparable from their world
 Anubis, god of mummification
4. Social Structure
 Organized like a pyramid
 Upper class – pharaoh, nobles, priests
 Middle class – merchants, artisans, scribes, tax collectors
 Lower class – peasants who farmed the land & military service
5. Writing
 Emerged around 3000 BC
 Hieroglyphics – “priest carvings” or “sacred writings”
 Hieratic script
 Papyrus
 The Rosetta Stone
6. Art & Science
 Pyramids, temples, monuments
 Math and engineering
 Accurate calendar
 Effective medicine
Chapter 2 - Sections 3 & 4: New Centers of Civilization
Phoenicians
 Best known for their alphabet
 Simplified writing by using 22 different signs to represent the sounds of
speech
 Passed on to the Greeks and eventually to us
The Children of Israel (Judaism)
Movement of the Jews
 7000 B.C. move from Ur to Palestine
 Drought around 1650 B.C. moved them from Palestine to Egypt
 Jews were enslaved in Egypt
 Moses leads Jews back to Palestine
Monotheists
 Believed in only one God
 All other religions at this time were polytheistic
 Covenant, Commandments, Prophet
 Torah - “Bible” of the Jews
922 BC Split in 2
Zoroastrianism
 Religion of the Persians
 Founder was Zoroaster
 Teachings written in the Zend Avesta
 Monotheistic
 Pg. 64