StudySpace: Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 2 e.

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1. Snapshot of the City of Uruk
2. Settlement, Pastorialism, and Trade
1. Development of Cities (3500 B.C.E.)
1. Populations moved close to reliable water sources
2. Climate change led to longer growing seasons
3. Cities scarce and only in select areas
1. Needed stable river system
2. Fertile soil
3. Access to water for irrigation
4. Availability of domesticated plants and animals
4. Labor specialization led to trade outside cities
1. Raw materials traded for finished goods
2. Early Cities Along River Basins
1. Three areas developed
1. Tigris and Euphrates basin (modern Iraq)
2. Indus River basin (modern Pakistan)
3. Northern Nile River (modern Egypt)
2. Changed how humans farmed and fed themselves between 4000 to 2000 B.C.E.
1. Intensive irrigation agriculture
2. More people moved to cities
3. Community organization
4. Changed how they worshiped
1. Prayed to many anthropomorphic gods
2. Kings and priests involved
5. New types of record keeping
1. Also happened along Yellow River in China
3. New technologies
1. Wheel for pottery and vehicles
2. Metallurgy and stone working
3. Writing systems
4. Urban-Rural divide
1. Urban life characterized by mass production and specialization
2. Rural life characterized by closeness to nature; cultivated land and tended livestock
3. Two lifeways co-dependent
4. Closely linked through trade, politics, and religion
5. Smaller settlements around 3500 B.C.E.
1. Most people lived in small, egalitarian village communities
2. Organized by clan and family allegiances
3. Tools: stone, wood, and gourds
4. Environment limited size of settlement
1. Chicama Valley, Peru example
5. Villages had ceremonial structures
6. Valley of Tehuacan people raised corn but did urbanize
7. Sub-Saharan Africa
1. Lake Chad settlements
1. Yams, oil palms, and plantains
2. Sudan
1. Millet and sorghum
3. Lake Victoria
1. Farms and villages
4. Traded long distances
5. Pottery style similar across region
3. Pastoral Nomadic Communities
1. Herding and breeding sheep and goats
2. Moved to periphery of settlements for pastures
3. About 3500 B.C.E., nomadic groups moved cyclically from highlands to lowlands
4. Small, impermanent settlements
1. Afro-Eurasia's mountains and desert barriers
2. Steppe lands from inner and central Eurasia to Pacific Ocean
5. Lived next to and traded with settled agrarian people when in the lowlands
6. Horses used in the steppe lands of Afro-Eurasia
4. The Rise of Trade
1. Settled communities increased need for trade
2. Settlements allowed for accumulation of material wealth
3. Luxuries traded
1. Obsidian
2. Trickle, or down-the-line, trade
4. Long-distance trade established by 5000 B.C.E. for raw materials
1. Outposts established to coordinate and monitor resources
5. Trading stations or entrepots at borders
1. Allowed multiple exchanges
2. Pack-animal caravans
3. Between Two Rivers: Mesopotamia (5500-2000 B.C.E.)
1. Tapping the Waters
1. Mesopotamia means country "between two rivers"
2. Tigris and Euphrates rivers wild and unpredictable
3. Revolutionary irrigation system created
4. Area included modern-day Iraq, parts of Syria and southeastern Turkey
1. Varied topography
2. Unified by interlocking drainage basin
3. Rivers provided irrigation and served as transportation routes
5. First settlements foothills of Zagros Mountains
1. Simple irrigation led to higher agricultural yields
6. Plains living required more sophisticated waterworks
1. Levees, ditches, canals, and water storage
7. Grew wheat, millet, sesame, and barley
1. Barley used for diet staple, beer
2. Crossroads of Afro-Eurasia
1. Mesopotamia had few natural resources
2. Needed to trade with surrounding areas
1. Cedar from Lebanon
2. Copper and stones from Oman
3. Copper from Turkey and Iran
4. Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan
3. Few boundaries made easy trade
4. Good soil, water, and trade led to growth of cities
5. Vulnerable to invaders from desert and mountains
6. Became meeting ground for several different cultures
1. Sumerians in the south
2. Hurrians in the north
3. Semites in west and central areas
3. First Cities
1. Fourth-century B.C.E. migration from rural villages to growing city centers
1. Eridu
2. Nippur
3. Uruk
2. Early cities grew gradually
1. Buildings of mud brick
3. Eridu
1. Housed Sumerian water god, Ea
2. Sacred site with temples
3. Temple rebuilt over 20 times, more elaborate each time
4. Over 35 cities with major divine sanctuaries throughout Mesopotamia
4. Cities were meeting places for peoples and their deities
1. Urban design reflected city's greatness
1. Sheepfolds
2. Suburbs
3. Common layout
5. City-states developed
1. Common culture
2. Intense trade
3. Shared environment
4. Gods and Temples
1. Sumerians and Akkadians gods shaped worldview
1. Epic of Gilgamesh depicts gods' power
2. Each god occupied major floodplain city
1. God's character shaped city's society and culture
3. Temples homes of gods and symbols of urban identity
1. Allowed gods to hoard wealth where mortals lived and traded
2. Distinguished urban from rural
3. Architecture demonstrated city's power
1. Rulers and important people gained status by contributing to temple's construction and upkeep
4. Altars held cult image
5. Stepped platform called ziggurat
4. Temple god's estate
1. Housed priests, officials, laborers, and servants
2. Engaged in productive and commercial activities
3. Enormous work force
4. Workshops produced textiles and leather goods
5. Employed skilled craftsmen
6. Sponsored long-distance trade
7. Household model used throughout Sumerian and Akkadian economy
5. The Palace and Royal Power
1. Appeared around 2500 B.C.E.
2. Defining landmark of city life
3. Palace become rival to temple
4. Palace and temple life often overlapped
1. Sacred Marriage
5. Located on edge of city
6. Became powerful expressions of secular, military and administrative authority
7. Rulers tied their status to gods through burial arrangements
1. Royal cemetery at Ur
1. 16 high-status graves
2. Graves contained bodies of sacrificial victims
3. Demonstrated elaborate burial festivals
6. Social Hierarchy and Families
1. Needed communal effort to build and maintain irrigation system
1. Collect taxes
2. Draft labor to build and preserve waterworks
2. City-states run by elders and young men
3. Empowered elite became permanent part of society
4. Rulers
1. Privileged access to economic and political resources
2. Used bureaucracy, priesthood, and law
3. Priests and bureaucrats served the rulers
5. Occupation determined social status
1. King and priest
2. Bureaucrats
3. Supervisors
4. Specialized craft workers
5. Male and female workers
6. Household operated as a closed economic unit
7. Movement between economic classes unusual
8. Independent merchants risked long-distance trade
9. Family households also hierarchical
1. Senior male patriarch dominated
2. Single-family household
1. Husband and wife bound by contract
2. Monogamy the norm
3. Sons inherited in equal shares
4. Daughters received dowry gifts
5. Adoption used if no male heir
3. Most women lived in contract marriages
4. A few women joined temple as priestesses
1. could own estates and productive enterprises
2. Father or brothers still responsible for woman
7. First writing and early texts
1. First written history in Mesopotamia cities
1. Promoted power of temples and kings
2. Writing used to keep track of trade
3. Complex societies required a way to communicate between people and over distance
4. Reading and writing emerged in Mesoamerica, China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt
5. Precursor to writing appeared in Mesopotamia
6. Rebus: transfer of name of thing to sounds
7. Writing: technology of symbols that uses marks to record specific discrete sounds
8. Scribes special in Mesopotamian society
1. Wrote on clay tablets with reeds
2. Wedge-shaped writing: cuneiform
3. Writing allowed for ideas to be transmitted across time and distance
4. Literacy limited to an influential scribe elite
9. Ancient cuneiform script reveals Mesopotamia history
1. Rebus first appeared 3000 B.C.E.
2. 2400 B.C.E. political, historical, and economic events
3. Cuneiform adapted to different languages
4. Literacy spread and gave rise to narratives
1. The temple hymns 2100 B.C.E.
2. Sumerian king list 2000 B.C.E.
3. Includes Great Flood Story
8. Spreading Cities and First Territorial States
1. Early Dynastic Age (2850-2334 B.C.E.)
2. Akkadian territorial state (2334-2193)
1. Founder King Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 B.C.E.)
2. United southern Mesopotamian cities
3. Created first multiethnic collection of urban centers-the territorial state
3. Sargon sponsored monumental architecture, art work, and literature
4. Sargon increased geographic influence
5. Akkad capital conquered in 2190 B.C.E.
1. Legend of "barbarians" wreaking havoc on "civilization"
4. Indus Valley: A Parallel Culture
1. Harrappan, on banks of Ravi River
1. Local traditions combined with other outside traditions
2. Early settlements along foothills of Baluchistan Mountains
3. Fertile soils yield surplus
4. Fortified cities established with major public works
5. Flooding most important natural force to riverine folk
2. Indus Valley boasted many ecological advantages
1. Predictable flooding from Himalaya snow runoff
2. No torrential monsoons as on the Ganges plain
3. Wheat and barley planted after waters receded
4. Food surplus freed many inhabitants from having to grow food
5. Specialization and urbanization led to growing cities
1. Two largest cities-35,000 inhabitants
1. Harappa
2. Mohenjo Daro
6. Harappan cities two to three times bigger than Mesopotamian cultural zone
3. Harappan City Life
1. Less is known about Harrapan culture
1. Many sites remain under water
2. Cannot identify spoken language
3. 400 symbol scripts; may be a nonlinguistic symbol system
4. Only stamps found
5. Unable to catalog political history
2. What is known is through archaeological reconstructions
1. Harappan cities and town followed same general pattern
1. Fortified citadels and residential area
2. Main street with covered drainage
2. Citadels were likely centers of political and ritual activities
3. Mohenjo Daro citadel contained a great bath
4. Houses for notables, city walls, and water drainage all built from brick
5. Well-built houses contained bathrooms, showers, and toilets
4. Trade
1. Along Indus River, into Iranian Plateau to the Persian Gulf
2. Traded raw and finished goods for gold, silver, gemstones, and textiles
3. Trade towns located in remote but strategic locations
1. Lothal located on Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay)
2. Provided access to the sea and to raw materials
3. Precious gemstones such as carnelian were sought after
4. Other stones had to be imported
5. Metals such as copper and silver were mined
4. Used script and weights and measures in trade
5. The Gift of the Nile: Egypt (5000-2000 B.C.E.)
1. Ancient Egypt was a melting pot
1. People came from Sinai, Libya, Nubia, and central Africa
2. Blended cultural practices and technologies
3. Much in common with Mesopotamia
1. Dense population
2. Depended on irrigation
3. Monumental architecture
4. Rulers had immense authority
5. Complex social order
4. Egypt geography distinct
1. Nile River
2. Desert
3. Limited cultivable land
2. The Nile River and Its Floodwaters
1. Longest river in the world
1. 4,238 miles
2. Source in the African highlands
3. People migrated to Nile valley from south
4. Two branches: Blue and White
5. Annual floods created green belts
6. Most people lived close to the river
7. Most "riverine" of the riverine cultures
8. Nile predictable
1. White Nile, steady stream of water
2. Blue Nile provided floodwaters
9. Early basin irrigation system devised
1. Led to new layer of topsoil each year
10. No role by the Egyptian state in flood control
11. Government assisted in building storehouses
3. Egypt's Unique Riverine Culture
1. Geography led to development of Egyptian culture
2. Fewer outsiders than In Mesopotamia or Indus River basin
3. Natural resources available locally
1. Metals, colorful stones, gold, exotic woods, plants, and animals
2. Additional labor came from the south in Nubia
4. Some differences between Lower and Upper Egypt
5. Pharaoh needed to provide stability-ma'at
6. Ma'at allowed all that was good to occur
4. The Rise of the State and Dynasties
1. Egypt developed quickly
2. King's task to control nature, especially the Nile floods
3. Invaders threatened from east and south
4. Egyptian history organized by dynasties
5. Thirty-one dynasties
1. Old Kingdom (2649-2152 B.C.E.)
2. Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 B.C.E.)
3. New Kingdom (1550-1070 B.C.E.)
6. Periods of weak authority between kingdoms
1. First, Second, Third Intermediate Periods
5. Rituals, Pyramids, and the True Order
1. Old Kingdom, the golden age of Egypt
2. Ruler possessed divine powers
1. Ma'at, true order, personified
3. Rulers built and used impressive architecture
1. Sed Festival renewed vitality of king
2. Came from need for water
3. King Djoser (r. 2630-2611) celebrated at Saqqara
4. World's oldest stone edifice at Saqqara
1. Began as a mastaba ("bench")
2. Imhotep was architect
3. Six renovations led to step pyramid
4. Step pyramid and complex served as a stage for ritual
5. Pharaoh, king as god, used tomb to embody the state's ideology
6. Myth of death leading to everlasting life
7. Many symbols and special names for power
8. Cosmic order as unequal and hierarchical
9. Pharaoh's power derived from his godhood
1. Gods were serene, orderly, merciful, and perfect
10. Pyramid building evolved rapidly
1. Fourth-Dynasty kings built Giza pyramids
1. Pyramid of Khufu, largest stone structure in the world
2. Khephren's pyramid guarded by Sphinx
2. Royal tombs are nearby
3. Enormous labor required to build pyramids
1. Peasants and workers
2. Slaves from Nubia
3. Captured peoples from Mediterranean
6. Religion of Ancient Egypt
1. Religion played an important role
1. World inhabited by three groups
1. Gods
2. Kings
3. Rest of humanity
2. Each region had different gods
1. Thebes had Amun
3. Gods evolved over time
1. Gods represented by animal and human symbols
1. Horus, the hawk god
2. Osiris, god of regeneration and underworld
3. Hathor, god of childbirth and love
4. Ra, the sun god
5. Amun, creator, the hidden god
4. Official religious rituals took place in temples
5. Kings cared for gods in their temples
6. Contractual relationship between gods and humans
7. Humans had active role in their belief in gods powers
1. Cult required rituals and communication with gods
2. Priesthood responsible for rituals
8. Creation of priesthood
1. Elaborate rules
2. Extensive training
3. Highly stratified
4. Only priests could enter temple
9. Gods only left temples in portable shrines
10. Unofficial popular religions also existed
1. Ordinary people visited local shrines
2. Magic played a strong role
1. Amulets
2. Omens and divination
3. Animals believed to have supernatural powers
7. Writing and Scribes
1. Literacy shaped divisions between rural and urban life
2. Scribes held a special place in society
1. Recorded trade
2. Religious, historical, and literature records
3. Egyptian script complicated
1. Became simpler overtime
2. More Egyptians than Mesopotamians literate
4. Most high-ranking Egyptians were trained as scribes
1. Worked for king's court, army, or priesthood
2. Sometimes kings and royal family could write
5. Two basic forms of Egyptian writing
1. Hieroglyphs, "sacred carving"
1. Used in temple, royal, or divine contexts
2. Demotic writing, cursive script
1. Most common and practical writing
2. Administrative records
3. Private writing
4. Literature
5. Manuals and other texts
6. Training for scribes
1. Started young
2. Entered bureaucracy
3. Literacy high achievement
4. Literate people buried with textbooks
8. The Prosperity of Egypt
1. Population grew to 5 million by 1500 B.C.E.
2. Strong state rooted in bureaucracy
1. Maintained records
2. Watched over society
3. Regulated Nile's floodwaters
3. Culture predictable and highly resistant to change
4. No large-scale cities
1. Divide between rural and urban life less stark
5. Most people lived along Nile River basin just beyond the floodplain
9. The Later Dynasties and Their Demise
1. State became more dispersed
2. More variation and adaptation by Fifth Dynasty
3. By Middle Kingdom, more officials had access to certain burial rituals
4. Sixth-Dynasty Egypt extended power
5. Trade increased
6. Expansion and decentralization ended Old Kingdom
1. Pepy II last ruler of the Old Kingdom
7. Old Kingdom followed by First Intermediate Period (2150-2040 B.C.E.)
6. Riverine Peoples in East Asia (5000-2000 B.C.E.)
1. The future Chinese state originated along the Yellow River and Yangzi River
1. Chinese culture slower to develop than Mesopotamia, Indus River, or Egypt
2. Remained a localized agrarian culture
3. Lack of domesticated animals and plants
4. Geography isolated China
2. From Yangshao to Longshan cultures
1. Yellow River Basin evidence challenges traditional history
1. 4000-2000 B.C.E.
2. China never completely isolated like Americas
3. Mongolian steppe allowed new technologies through
1. Chariot introduced by nomads
2. Bronze
4. Nomads eventually settled on the rivers in more complex cultures
1. Breakthroughs in communication
2. Yangshao pottery shows signs and symbols by 5000 B.C.E.
3. Shamans, many of them women, used signs in performing rituals
5. Early Chinese riverine societies
1. Produced stone and pottery storage vessels
1. Longshan black pottery and town enclosure found
2. Contrast with more primitive sites in Yangshao
3. Deer scapulas used by diviners
6. Longshan people likely migrated from peripheries
1. Developed between 5000 and 2000 B.C.E.
2. Several regions shared similar pottery and tools
3. Likely came into contact with other regions
4. No city-states, but agriculture flourished
7. Longshan showed beginnings of urban life
1. Buried dead in cemeteries outside of village
1. Tombs contain objects
2. Shaman performed rituals with jade
1. Jade quarrying required advanced technology
3. Organized violence
1. Mass grave with scalped household members
2. Defensive wall found
4. More interregional contact
1. Migration to East Asian coast
5. Objects show a shared cultural and trading sphere
6. Short-lived and scattered political organizations
1. Chieftains
2. Era of Ten Thousand States (Wan'guo)
3. Life in Liangzhu
1. Grew rice and fruits along the Qiantang River
1. Used tools and domesticated animals
2. Familiar with watercraft
2. Stone and bone artifacts highly developed
1. Produced black pottery
2. Created ritual objects from jade
4. Third-millennium droughts
1. Chinese recovered and created elaborate agrarian systems during second millennium B.C.E.
1. Yellow River
2. Yangzi River
2. Similar civilizations to those along Eupharates, Indus, and Nile
1. Extensive trade networks
2. Highly stratified social hierarchy
3. Centralized polity
4. Chinese social and political systems diverged
1. Emphasized the past
2. Tradition
3. Rising scholarly elite
7. Afro-Eurasian Life on the Margins
1. Aegean Worlds
1. Outside the river basins
1. Warrior-based ethos
2. Chiefs and military men were top social tier
3. More egalitarian than urban dwellers
4. Politically less centralized
2. Geography stopped urban development
1. Scattered settlements separated by natural obstacles
1. Crete traded with other regions
2. Communities remained small villages
3. Knosses emerges second millennium B.C.E.
2. Anatolia
1. Regional cultures emerged because of trade routes
2. Small cities emerged around fortified citadels
1. Horoz Tepe
2. Alaça Hüyük
3. Troy important third millennium B.C.E. site
1. Famous from Homer's Iliad
2. Modern mound of Hissarlik
3. First rediscovered in 1870
4. Well fortified with monumental stone gateways
5. Troy II had five buildings called megarons
1. Megarons were forerunners of Greek temples
6. Artifacts active trade system linking Aegean and southwest Asia
3. The Western Frontier: Europe
1. Early Europeans moved into settlements and created complex societies
2. Hierarchies replaced older egalitarian ways
3. Warfare dominated social development
4. Plowing and clearing woodlands expanded agriculture
5. Households and small communities
1. Organized irrigation and settlements
6. Frequent conflicts over resources
7. Flint mining an example of social and cultural change
1. Made resources cheaper so more tools available
2. More communities flourished
8. Large communities by 4000 B.C.E.
1. Gave label for construction of large fixed monuments
2. Megalith, "great stone"
1. Avebury
2. Stonehenge
9. Increased interaction led to more wealth and warfare
1. Burials with drinking cups, "bell beakers"
10. Agricultural communities produced surpluses
11. Surpluses and desire for land led to more tribal warfare
12. Split between eastern and western Europe
1. West battled over territory and resources
1. Agriculture and metalworking part of daily life
2. Warfare led to need for better weapons
1. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin
2. Weapons produced in bulk
3. Trade network distributed weapons
13. Warfare made Europe more innovative
1. Fueled demand for weapons, alcohol, and, later, horses
8. Conclusion
1. Near some giant rivers, complex human cultures emerged
1. Most densely populated regions
1. Occupation specialization
2. Social hierarchy
3. Rising material standards of living
4. Highly developed systems of art and science
5. Centralized production and distribution of food, cloth, and other goods
2. Ceremonial sites and trading entrepots became cities
1. Centralized religious and political systems emerged
2. Scribes, priests and rulers labored to keep complex societies together
3. Sharper distinction between urban and rural dwellers
4. Urbanization shaped social and cultural distinctions
1. Affected the roles of men and women
5. Riverine cultures distincts
1. Single river such as Nile or the Indus
2. Floodplain such as Tigris or Euphrates
3. Later, Chinese culture developed along Yellow and Yangzi rivers
6. Some advancement in trade and agriculture but not so much as in riverine cultures
1. Anatolia
2. Aegean
3. Europe
4. Part of China
7. Climate affected everyone and could slow or reverse development

 

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