Transcript ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS - Home - Novell Open Enterprise Server 2

Before we begin!!!!!
Political: Who controls what? What type of
government is there? Anything to do with
laws or war.
Economic: What type of economy? How
do people make a living?
Geography: Where is it? Is the land
mountainous? Desert? Oceanic?
Social: Religious, intellectual, artistic
Ancient River Valley Civs
ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
Oldest known
civilization
Cradle of Human
Civilization
Old Testament
Nebuchadnezzar
Ziggurat (right)
Hanging gardens
Geography
This civ rose in the
valleys between the
Tigris and
Euphrates rivers.
Some say this
Fertile Crescent
was the real Garden
of Eden.
In what modern day country was
the Fertile Crescent?
Ur, the capital city of
Mesopotamia
Political:What was the earliest kingdom
in Mesopotamia? The second?
FIRST SUMERIANS
Sumerians first arrived in
region around 5000 BC
Typical Paleolithic people
motivated by search for
game
Settled in region and took
up farming
• Built dams, dikes, and
short canals to use
water from the
Euphrates
• Grew barley and dates
and raised sheep and
goats
SUMERIAN CITY-STATES
City-states gradually emerged
over next 1000 years
Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Nippur,
Kish, Umma, etc.
Larger than Neolithic
settlements and displayed
evidence of economic
specialization and strong
political organization
Included the urban center
plus surrounding countryside
Each was also an
independent political unit
SUMERIAN AGRICULTURE
Each was crisscrossed by
irrigation system of major canals
and minor channels
Designed to bring water from
Euphrates to farmland
Farmland divided into square
and rectangle-shaped plots
Farmers worked land with
plows, seed-drills, and stone
hoes and received yield of
40:1
Other areas set aside as gardens
and fruit orchards
Carts pulled by donkeys and
boats on the canals took produce
to the urban center itself
CITY CHARACTERISTICS
Each city surrounded by
walls
Permanent garrisons of
soldiers stationed in
towers and at each gate
Wide boulevards crossed city,
lined by houses of the wealthy
Rest of city made up of
narrow, twisting alleys
surrounded by small, flatroofed huts
• Homes of farmers, and
small craftsmen
Social
This is cuneiform.
Babylonians wrote
using this “wedgeshaped” writing on
clay tablets.
The Sumerians
invented writing.
INVENTION OF WRITING
As early as 3500 BC, the
Sumerians used pictograms to
represent certain physical
objects
Drawn on clay
By 3500 BC, they began to use
ideograms (symbols standing
for abstract, non-physical
concepts) and phonograms
(symbols representing
phonetic sounds)
Meanwhile pictograms
became more stylized
Emerging writing system known
as “cuneiform”
Means “wedge-shaped”
Impressed on clay tablets
with wood stylus
Very complicated
Originally 2000 symbols
• Reduced to 500 over time
Only small group of
professional scribes could
master it
• After 15 years of training
• A secret held by only a
few specially-trained
individuals
More cuneiform writing
ZIGGURAT
Most dominant structure in
each city was its temple
Dedicated to patron god
of the city
Largest structure in city
Resembled a gigantic
stepped pyramid
• Designed to look like
mountains because
Sumerians believed
their gods liked to live
on top of mountains
More ziggurats
Babylonia
The ancient city of Babylon, under King Nebuchadnezzar
II, must have been a wonder to the traveler's eyes. "In
addition to its size," wrote Herodotus, a historian in 450
BC, "Babylon surpasses in splendor any city in the known
world."
Herodotus claimed the outer walls were 56 miles in length,
80 feet thick and 320 feet high. Wide enough, he said, to
allow a four-horse chariot to turn. The inner walls were "not
so thick as the first, but hardly less strong." Inside the walls
were fortresses and temples containing immense statues of
solid gold. Rising above the city was the famous Tower of
Babel, a temple to the god Marduk, that seemed to reach to
the heavens
Hanging gardens of Babylonia
Tower of Babel
Another painting of the hanging
gardens with Tower of Babel in back
Economic: trade and farming
Sumerians
(Mesopotamians) were
known to trade with
the Egyptians and the
Indus Valley
civilizations.
In later years, these
trade routes became
Silk Road.
Sumerians invented the wheel!
The wheel was
invented by 6000 BC!
It helped military,
farming and trade.
At right, this is made
of wood.
THE PURPOSE OF LAW
If inequality and exploitation become too naked, society
will not survive
Ancient Mesopotamia rulers realized this
They established law to define the limits of exploitation
In order to prevent such terrible acts of oppression
that it would have sparked the oppressed to rise up
and the destroy the entire system
Law was invented by those on top to protect their
superior status by limiting the abuses they theoretically
had the power to commit
Political:Mesopotamian Law
Code of Hammurabi
“eye for an eye
tooth for a tooth”
HAMMURABI’S LAW CODE
Greatest of his
accomplishments
Carved on a huge stone
slab
• Discovered in Syria in
1901
• Probably carried off
from Babylon after
Ebla destroyed the
Babylonian Empire
Contained 282 sections
and incorporated many
unique features
FEATURES
Basic feature was “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”
Revolutionary new legal principal
• Earlier Sumerian laws calculated all
punishments, no matter what the crime, in
monetary fines
Punishments varied according to the social status of
offender
Very harsh punishments
No concept of “cruel and unusual punishment”
Detailed regulation of economic life
Subsidiary status of women
That concludes
Mesopotamia.
Any questions before the quiz?
Mesopotamia Quiz
Political:What law system did Sumerians
use? Hint: It can be summed: eye for eye;
tooth for tooth.
Economic: How did Mesopotamians earn a
living?
Geography:Between what 2 rivers did the
Fertile Crescent appear?
Social:What type of writing did they use?