Part 1: Sub-Sahara AfricaPart 2: Persia

Lsn 7

ID & SIG:

• Bantu migrations, chiefdoms, gold trade, Great Zimbabwe, Islam in Africa, kin-based society, Kilwa, Kingdom of Kongo, Kingdom of Mali, Mansa Musa, Swahili Coast, Timbuktu, trans-Sahara trade route

Bantu

• Among the most influential people of ancient Sub-Sahara Africa were those who spoke the Bantu languages

• Bantu people showed an early readiness to migrate– Canoes enabled the Bantu

to move easily– Agricultural surpluses

enabled the Bantu to increase their population more rapidly than the hunting, gathering, and fishing people

Bantu

• After about 1000 B.C., Bantu began to produce iron tools which enabled them to clear land and expand their zone of agriculture

• Iron weapons allowed them to defeat competitors

Iron spearheads and hoes gave the Bantu an advantage

Political Organization

• By 1000 A.D, most of the migrations were complete

• Instead of continued migrations, Africans developed increasingly complex forms of government that enabled them to organize their existing societies more efficiently

• Initially the Bantu established “stateless societies” in which they governed themselves mostly through family and kinship groups

Political Organization

• Stateless societies worked well in small-scale communities but as they grew into large populations, resources became strained and conflicts became more frequent

• Bantu communities began to organize themselves militarily and this development encouraged more formal structures of government– Chiefdoms overrode kinship networks and

imposed their own authority• In general, between 1000 and 1500, clusters of

smaller entities gradually formed into larger states

Kingdom of the Kongo: Toward Centralization

• One of the most active areas of political development was the basin of the Congo (or Zaire) River– One of the most

prosperous of the Congolese states was the Kingdom of the Kongo

Kingdom of the Kongo: Toward Centralization

• Perhaps the most tightly centralized of the early Bantu kingdoms– King and his officials who oversaw military,

judicial, and financial affairs– Six provinces administered by governors– Each province had several districts

administered by subordinate officials– Each district had villages ruled by chiefs

African Empires: Kingdoms Built on Trade

West Africa(Ghana, Mali, Songhay) East Africa

(Swahili Coast,

Kilwa) Southern Africa(Great

Zimbabwe)

Cities

Cities: Timbuktu

• Located on the southern edge of the Sahara; served as an important post on the trans-Sahara caravan route– Founded 1100 A.D.

as a seasonal camp by nomads

• Incorporated within the Mali Empire by Mansa Musa who built the Great Mosque of Djingareyber and a royal residence, the Madugu

Djingareyber

Cities: Timbuktu

• Center for the expansion of Islam– Intellectual and spiritual

capital – Home of Sankore, a

Koranic university• In the 14th century

Timbuktu became an important focal point of the gold-salt trade– With the influx of North

African merchants came the settlement of Muslim scholars

Cities: Gao

• Mansa Musa expanded Mali’s influence into Gao which, like Timbuktu, was a terminus for trans-Saharan caravans

• As Mali declined, Gao reasserted itself and eventually became the Songhay Empire

Cities: Kilwa

• On the east coast (Swahili Coast), Kilwa was one of the busiest city-states

• Traded gold, slaves, and ivory obtained from the interior for cotton, silk, perfume and pearls from India and porcelain from China

Cities: Great Zimbabwe

• zimbabwe means dwelling of a chief

• About the early 13th Century, a huge stone complex known as Great Zimbabwe began to arise in what is now Tanzania

• Walls 32 feet high and 16 feet thick

• Stone towers, palaces, and public buildings

• At its height during the late 15th Century, up to 18,000 people lived in the vicinity of Great Zimbabwe

Cities: Great Zimbabwe

• Kings residing at Great Zimbabwe controlled and taxed trade between the interior and coastal regions– Organized flow of

gold, ivory, slaves, and local products from sources of supply to the coast

Social Hierarchy

Sunni AliKing of Songhay (1464-1493)

Painting by Leo Dillon

Social Hierarchy

• Kingdoms, empires, city states– Ruling elites– Military nobles– Administrative officials– Religious authorities– Wealthy merchants– Artisans– Business entrepreneurs– Common people– Peasants– Slaves

• Small states and kin-based societies– Aristocratic or ruling elite– Religious authorities– Beyond that principal

considerations were kinship, sex and gender expectations, and age groupings

Social Hierarchy: Kinship Groups

• Extended families and clans served as the main foundation of social and economic organization– Villagers functioned in society first as members of a

family or clan• Notion of private property ownership did not

exist in sub-Sahara Africa– Communities claimed rights to land and used it in

common• Villages consisted of several extended family

groups• Male heads of families jointly governed the

village

Social Hierarchy: Sex and Gender Relations

• Sex largely determined work roles– Men usually did the heavy labor– Both sexes participated in planting and harvesting– Women tended to domestic chores and child rearing

• Men largely monopolized public authority but women in sub-Sahara Africa generally had more opportunities than their counterparts elsewhere– Women enjoyed high honor as the sources of life– Women acted as merchants– Some women engaged in combat and formed all-female military

units– Even the arrival of Islam did not drastically curtail opportunities

for women

Social Hierarchy: Age Grades

• Members of age grades performed tasks appropriate for their development and bonded with one another socially and politically

• Age grades offered some integration to a society otherwise organized based on family and kinship

Social Hierarchy: Slavery

• Most slaves were captives of war– Others were debtors, suspected witches, and

criminals

• Slaveholding allowed owners to advance their personal wealth in the absence of private land ownership

• After the 9th Century, expanded trade stimulated interest in slave traffic– Slave raiding increased to meet the demand– The Islamic slave trade between 750 and 1500

created a foundation for the future Atlantic slave trade

Part 1: Persia

Theme: Centralization and Localization

Lesson 16

ID & SIG:

• Darius, Persepolis, Royal Road, satrap, religious tolerance, legal tolerance, standardized taxes

Achaemenid Empire (558-330 B.C.)

• Medes and Persians migrated from central Asia to Persia before 1000 B.C.

• The Medes and Persians were a considerable military power

• Cyrus the Achaemenid ruled from 558-530 B.C. and launched the Persians’ first imperial venture

• Darius reigned from 521 to 486 and expanded the empire both east and west

Darius

• Darius’s empire stretched some 1,865 miles from the Indus River in the east to the Aegean Sea in the west and 933 miles from Armenia in the north to the first cataract of the Nile in the south

• Population of some 35 million people encompassing over 70 distinct ethnic groups– Description of the construction of the palace at Susa

testifies to the diversity of the empire

Palace at Susa

… the sun-dried brick was molded, the Babylonian people -- it did (these tasks). The cedar timber, this -- a mountain named Lebanon -- from there was brought. The Assyrian people, it brought it to Babylon; from Babylon the Carians and the Ionians brought it to Susa. The yakâ-timber was brought from Gandara and from Carmania. The gold was brought from Sardis and from Bactria, which here was wrought. The precious stone lapis lazuli and carnelian which was wrought here, this was brought from Sogdiana. The precious stone turquoise, this was brought from Chorasmia, which was wrought here. The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt.

Palace at Susa

The ornamentation with which the wall was adorned, that from Ionia was brought. The ivory which was wrought here, was brought from Ethiopia and from Sind and from Arachosia. The stone columns which were here wrought, a village named Abiradu, in Elam -- from there were brought. The stone-cutters who wrought the stone, those were Ionians and Sardians. The goldsmiths who wrought the gold, those were Medes and Egyptians. The men who wrought the wood, those were Sardians and Egyptians. The men who wrought the baked brick, those were Babylonians. The men who adorned the wall, those were Medes and Egyptians.

Darius• Governing such a far-flung empire would

be a more difficult challenge than conquering it

• Darius was an excellent administrator• He arrived at a finely tuned balance

between central initiative and local administration

• Centralization– Authority– Persepolis– Royal Road– Standardized taxes

• Localization– Satraps– Tolerance

Authority: Centralization

• Achaemenid rulers held the official title of “The Great King, King of Kings, King of Persia, King of Countries”

• Darius ruled by the grace of Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of light– “A great god is Ahura Mazda, who created the earth,

who created the sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king.”

• Zoroastrianism was a Persian religion which emphasized the duality of good and evil and the role of individuals in determining their own fate

Authority: Centralization

• King’s decision on all matters of policy was final

• King was commander-in-chief of the army and ceremoniously took his position in the center of the formation– There he was protected

by an elite royal bodyguard

The Greeks called the bodyguard the Ten Thousand Immortals

Persepolis: Centralization

• Soon after Darius came to power he began centralizing his administration

• About 520 he began building a new capital in Persepolis– Would become the

nerve center of the Persian empire Palace of Darius

Persepolis: Centralization

• Persepolis had vast reception halls, lavish royal residences, and a well-protected treasury

• It was designed to be not just an administrative center but also a monument to the Achaemenid dynasty

Gate of All Nations at entrance to city

Persepolis: Centralization

• Persepolis was full of advisors, ministers, diplomats, scribes, accountants, translators, and other bureaucratic officials

• Governors served as agents of the central administration to oversee affairs in the various regions

Persepolis is near modern day Shiraz in Iran

Satraps: Localization

• Darius divided the kingdom into 23 satrapies– Administrative and

taxation districts governed by satraps

• Satraps were royal appointees, often members of the royal dynasty by birth or marriage– Satrapies tended to

become virtually hereditary domains

Satrap receiving a visitor

Satraps: Localization

• Principal duty of the satrap was to collect taxes and deliver them to the central treasury

• Before Darius, Cyrus had accepted irregular, periodic “gifts” as tribute from subject lands and cities

• Though often lavish, these gifts did not provide a consistent and reliable source of income– Darius changed all that

Standardized Taxes: Centralization

• Darius replaced the irregular payments with formal tax levies

• Each satrapy was required to pay a set quantity of silver– and in some cases a levy of horses and slaves also– to the imperial court

• In order to expedite payments, he issued standard coins

Gold coin issued by Darius, known after him

as a daric

Localization: Legal Tolerance

• Darius did not abolish the existing laws of individual lands and peoples

• He had no uniform law code for the entire empire

• He did direct legal experts to codify the laws of the subject people and modify them as necessary to harmonize them with the legal principles observed by the empire as a whole

Localization: Religious Tolerance

• “Now then, Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and you, their fellow officials of that province, stay away from there. Do not interfere with the work on this temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on its site.”– Ezra 6: 6-7

• Darius also funded the project and provided harsh penalties for anyone who interfered

Royal Road: Centralization

• The Royal Road stretched 1,600 miles from the Aegean port of Ephesus to Sardis in Anatolia, through Mesopotamia along the Tigris River, to Susa in Iran, with an extension to Pasargadae and Persepolis

• Caravans took 90 days to travel the route

• Inns along the way provided lodging

• The road was well policed for safety

Royal Road: Centralization

• Darius established 111 postal stations at 25 to 30 mile intervals along the route

• Each station kept a fresh supply of horses so couriers could travel the entire route in one week– Like the Pony Express

• Herodotus praised the couriers saying, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”– Motto of the US Postal Service

Checks and Balances

• Since the satraps were often far away from Persepolis, there was always the possibility they might ally with local groups and become independent of the central authority

• To prevent this Darius:– Placed a contingent of military officers and tax

collectors in each satrapy to serve as a check on the satrap’s power and influence

– Appointed agents to serve as “the eyes and ears of the king” by traveling throughout the empire conducting surprise audits and gathering intelligence

Alexander the Great

• Ultimately the Persian Empire is going to fall to Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.– We’ll talk about the military

conquests of Alexander in Lesson 20

• Alexander is going to have an even larger empire and he will rely largely on established Persian institutions such as the satrapies to govern it

How were populations controlled by the Persians?

How were populations controlled by the Persians?

• Combination of centralization and localization– Centralization

• Authority• Persepolis• Royal Road• Standardized taxes

– Localization• Satraps• Tolerance

Next Lesson

• Greece and Medieval Europe