Chapter
1
The Origins of Western Civilizations
Outline
  1. Introduction
    1. Çatalhöyük—7,000 to 9,000 years ago (south central Turkey)
      1. A "city" of 8,000 living in 2,000 homes
      2. An organized and technologically sophisticated society
      3. Religious rites and burial of the dead
      4. Domesticated plants and animals
      5. How do we explain the emergence of Çatalhöyük?
  2. The Stone Age Background
    1. Prehistory: before written records appeared (c. 3000 B.C.E.)
    2. Early man and archeological evidence
      1. Tool-making hominids appear about 2 million years ago
      2. Paleolithic man (old stone age)
      3. Heidelberg man (350,000 years ago)— deliberately buried their dead
      4. Neanderthal (30,000 to 200,000 years ago)—abstract thought?
      5. Upper Paleolithic Age, c. 40,000 B.C.E.
        1. Homo sapiens sapiens
        2. Finely crafted tools
        3. Cave paintings
    3. Hunters and gatherers constantly on the move (c. 11,000 B.C.E.)
    4. Social, economic, and political consequences
      1. Without domesticated animals, there were no significant material possessions
      2. Disparities in wealth were unlikely to occur
      3. Hierarchical structures of leadership were unknown
      4. Undeveloped division of labor
      5. Acquiring food and tools was the top priority
      6. No storable surpluses
  3. The Neolithic Revolution: New Stone Age, c 11,000 B.C.E.
    1. Major characteristics
      1. Development of managed food production
      2. Permanent settlements
      3. Intensification of trade
      4. More complex society
      5. Specialization
      6. Social distinctions
    2. The origins of food production in the ancient Near East
      1. Domestication of plants and animals
      2. A gradual process with revolutionary consequences
      3. The Fertile Crescent (ancient western Asia/ancient Near East)
      4. Population increase
      5. Surplus and storage
    3. The emergence of towns and villages
      1. Emergence of villages
      2. Jericho (c. 9000 B.C.E.)
        1. Grain-producing settlement
        2. Massive building program (walls and a tower)
        3. Supported 3,000 inhabitants
        4. Pottery used for storage
      3. Food storage
        1. Led to inabilities of wealth
        2. Tied people to a specific community
      4. Trade and the exchange of commodities
        1. Accelerated exchange of commodities and new ideas
        2. Increasing social stratification
        3. Social elites
  4. The Development of Urban Civilization in Mesopotamia
    1. Mesopotamia ("the land between the rivers")
      1. The Tigris and Euphrates
    2. Ubaid culture
      1. Sophisticated irrigation systems
      2. Temple-building
      3. Religious structure
        1. Rise of a priestly class
        2. Managing economic resources
    3. Urbanism in the Uruk Period (4300–2900 B.C.E.)
      1. Transition to Sumerian city-states
        1. Temple architecture
        2. Urbanization and expansion of trade routes
    4. The development of writing
      1. Record keeping
      2. Pictographs
      3. Cuneiform ("wedge-shaped writing")
      4. Scribal schools
  5. The Sumerians Enter History
    1. Sumerian writing
    2. Sumerian cities: Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Eridu, and Kish
    3. Religion
      1. Pantheon of Sumerian gods (around 1,500 of them)
      2. Each city-state protected by its own patron god
    4. Redistributive economy and the temple/warehouse complex
    5. Slavery
      1. Prisoners of war
      2. Slaves as forms of property
    6. The Early Dynastic Period begins (2900–2500 B.C.E.)
      1. War leadership and kingship
      2. Conflict between city-states
      3. Lugal (big man)
      4. The Epic of Gilgamesh
        1. Legendary king of Uruk
        2. Military conquest
        3. Gilgamesh v. Enkidu—city v. wilderness
        4. Pessimistic toward natural environment
    7. Sumerian religion
      1. Humans exist to serve their gods
      2. Religion influenced life and culture
      3. Ziggurats
      4. The afterlife
        1. The "Land of No Return"
        2. Even Gilgamesh could not escape his own fate
    8. Science, technology, and trade
      1. High degree of self-reliance and ingenuity
      2. Produced copper weapons and tools
      3. Invention of the wheel (chariots and carts)
      4. Mathematics
        1. Lunar calendar
        2. Divided time into multiples of sixty
      5. Trade
        1. Acquired raw materials
        2. Interacted with Egyptians and Persians
    9. The end of the Early Dynastic Period (2500–2350 B.C.E.)
      1. Intensification of intercity warfare
      2. Politically and religiously unified elite
      3. Royal Tombs of Ur
        1. Increased power of the lugal
      4. Sumer remained a collection of independent city-states
  6. The Akkadian Empire (2350–2160 B.C.E.)
    1. Sargon of Akkad—aided Sumerian unification
      1. Lived north of Sumer
      2. Program of conquest—conquers Sumer in 2350 B.C.E.
      3. A new capital at Akkad
      4. From city-states to a kingdom united under Sargon
      5. Naram-Sin—extended Akkadian empire
    2. The Dynasty of Ur (2100–2000 B.C.E.)
      1. Ur-Nammu and Shulgi
        1. Pursued military conquests
        2. Commercial expansion
      2. Incessant warfare
  7. The Old Babylonian Empire
    1. Hammurabi
      1. Ascends throne in 1792 B.C.E.
      2. Hammurabi's power not based on force alone
        1. Political strategy, cunning, and double-dealing
        2. Portrayed himself as a friend to all
      3. Elevated Marduk, patron deity of Babylon
    2. Religion and law
      1. Interweaves political power with religious practice
      2. Wars of aggression
      3. The Code of Hammurabi
        1. Actual rulings of Hammurabi
        2. The code was probably never intended to be a code of laws in the modern sense
        3. The code as propaganda, used to publicize the king's devotion to justice
    3. Old Babylonian society
      1. Upper class nobles controlled large estates and wealth
      2. Below the nobles, an enormous class of legally free individuals
        1. "Dependents" of the palace or temple
        2. Laborers, artisans, small merchants, farmers, and officials
      3. At the bottom were the slaves
        1. In general, the slaves were treated harshly
        2. Slaves acquired through trade or captured in war
      4. Punishments for crimes varied according to one's social class
      5. The treatment of women
    4. Hammurabi's legacy
      1. The creation of a durable state
      2. Helped establish a conception of kingship
      3. The importance of religion
      4. Diplomacy and writing as political tools
      5. Law was necessary for any ambitious ruler
  8. The Development of Civilization in Egypt
    1. General observations
      1. Geography and the Nile
      2. Black Land–Red Land
      3. Egypt as center of the cosmos
      4. Powerful, centralized state controlled by pharaohs
      5. Kingdoms and periods
    2. Predynastic Egypt (c. 10,000–3100 B.C.E.)
      1. Hunters and gatherers
      2. Increased population
      3. First settlement (4750 B.C.E.)
      4. Upper Egyptian towns (3200 B.C.E.): Nekhen, Naqada, This, and Abydos
        1. High degrees of social specialization
        2. Sophisticated fortifications
        3. Elaborate temples
        4. Attracted industry and travelers
      5. Upper vs. Lower Egypt
    3. Unification of Egypt: the Archaic Period (3100–2686 B.C.E.)
      1. Pharaonic rule
      2. Ruled as a divinity
      3. An earthly representative of the falcon-god Horus
      4. Pharaoh as personification of the Egyptian land
    4. Language and writing
      1. Hieroglyphs ("sacred carvings")
      2. Writing as tool for Egyptian government and administration
      3. Hieratic scrip—used for everyday business of government and commerce
      4. Papyrus
    5. The Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2160 B.C.E.)
      1. Difficulty of interpreting records
      2. Centralized power of pharaoh—pharaoh was Egypt
      3. 3.Appointed local governors (nomarchs)
      4. Extensive bureaucracy
      5. Imhotep and the step pyramid
        1. Right-hand man to Djoser (Third Dynasty pharaoh)
        2. "Step-pyramid"
          1. The symbol of pharaonic power
      6. Fourth Dynasty (2613–2494 B.C.E.)
        1. Great pyramids of Giza
        2. Pyramids built not by slaves, but by tens of thousands of peasant workers
        3. Tensions increase between pharaonic religion and local gods and leaders
    6. Society in Old Kingdom Egypt
      1. The elite: royalty and nobility
      2. The poor: everyone else
      3. Women in the Old Kingdom
        1. High degrees of legal status
        2. Rigidly patriarchal society
        3. Barred from state office
      4. Science and technology
        1. Solar calendar
        2. Irrigation and water control
    7. Egyptian religion and world view
      1. The uniqueness of the Egyptians
      2. Life, re-creation, and renewal
      3. The myth of Osiris and Isis—life from death
      4. The Egyptian death cult
        1. Osiris as central deity
        2. Death was unpleasant but a necessary part of the cycle
        3. Ka (otherworldly existence)
        4. Embalming and mummification
        5. Ma'at—binding together the endless cycle of life, death, and the return of life
        6. Confidence and optimism
    8. The end of the Old Kingdom
      1. Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (2494–2181 B.C.E.)
      2. Less monumental architecture
      3. Nomarchs evolved into a hereditary nobility
      4. Nubian restrictions on the Egyptian economy
      5. Pharaoh's link to ma'at diminished
      6. Rapid diffusion of cultural forms throughout Egyptian society
      7. Mentuhotep II declares himself ruler of a united Egypt
    9. Middle Kingdom Egypt (2055–c. 1650 B.C.E.)
      1. Unified government at Thebes
      2. Amenemhet (Twelfth Dynasty)
        1. Exploitation of trade to the south
        2. Nubia under Egypt's control
      3. Viewed world beyond Egypt's borders with suspicion and fear
      4. Changing position of pharaoh
        1. Having ma'at was not enough
        2. Pharaoh had to protect his people
      5. Why is the concept of "Indo-Europeans" historically significant? Who were they and what did they do?
      6. What ideas and factors made it possible for the ancients to believe in many different gods simultaneously? Why did monotheism tend to develop after polytheism?
      7. We are fortunate that we have the Code of Hammurabi at our disposal. Does the code have any modern aspects or does it seem like a specifically ancient document? Was the way justice was defined by the code identical to the way it is defined today?
      8. During his lifetime, every pharaoh was Horus-Ra; at death he became Osiris. How did the evolution of Egyptian funeral customs demonstrate a "democratization of death"?
      9. How does ancient history suggest that progress is often the result of war or invasion?
      10. What is the main contribution of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian civilizations to western civilizations?
  9. Conclusion
    1. From hunter-gatherers to permanent settlements
    2. Sumerian advances
    3. Mesopotamians and Akkadians
    4. Egyptians
    5. Ancient Near Eastern kingdoms and empires
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