WHG Era 2 – Early Civilizations and Cultures and the Emergence of

Pastoral Peoples, 4000 to 1000 BCE Part I

What is pastoralism, and

why is it important? Why is Mesopotamia called ‘the cradle of

civilization’?

What’s so fascinating about Ancient Egypt?

WHGCEs Middle School SeriesSession 6. Craig Benjamin

W2.1 Early Civilizations and Early Pastoral Societies

Analyze early Eastern Hemisphere civilizations and pastoral societies

• During this era early civilizations and pastoral societies emerged. Many of the world’s most fundamental institutions, discoveries, inventions, and techniques appeared. Pastoral societies developed the herding of animals as a primary food source that enabled them to inhabit the semi-arid steppes of Eurasia and Africa.

• This era introduces students to one of the most enduring themes in history: the dynamic interplay, between herding and agrarian societies involving both conflict and mutual dependence.

Analyze early Eastern Hemisphere civilizations and pastoral societies contd.

7 – W2.1.1 Development of human language, oral and written, and its relationship to the development of culture

- verbal vocalizations- standardization of physical (rock, bird) and abstract (love, fear)

words- pictographs to abstract writing (governmental administration, laws,

codes, history and artistic expressions)

7 – W2.1.2 Use historical and modern maps and other sources to locate, describe, and analyze major river systems and discuss the ways these physical settings supported permanent settlements, and development of early civilizations

- Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Session 6)- Nile River (Session 6)- Indus River (Session 7)- Yangtze River (Session 7)

Analyze early Eastern Hemisphere civilizations and pastoral societies

(contd)

7 – W2.1.3 Examine early civilizations to describe their common features (ways of governing, stable food supply, economic and social structures, use of resources and technology, division of labor and forms of communication)

7 – W2.1.4 Define the concept of cultural diffusion and how it resulted in the spread of ideas and technology from one region to another (e.g., plants, crops, plow, wheel, bronze metallurgy)

7 – W2.1.5 Describe pastoralism and explain how the climate and geography of Central Asia were linked to the rise of pastoral societies on the steppes.

What are ‘Agrarian Civilizations’?

• Regions in which 1. Agriculture was the main technology

(‘Agrarian’)2. Cities were the largest communities

(‘Civilization’ is linked to ‘city’)3. States were the most powerful political

structures

• Some Other features:– Tributes (states could exact resources by

force)– Division of Labor (many different

specialized professions, so that people were inter-dependent)

– Writing and Bureaucracies– Hierarchies of wealth, gender, power and

ethnicity The Roman Emperor Augustus

An Interconnected World• But these civilizations were never completely separated

from other human lifeways – nothing existed in a vacuum• Regions of agrarian civilizations traded, fought, exchanged

ideas with– Each other– With Pastoralists– With Early Agriculturalists– With Foragers

Nomadic traders of the Sahara Desert

www.cascadeclimbers.com

Part 1: The Role of Pastoralists‘Secondary Products Revolution’

• From c. 6,000 years ago in Afro-Eurasia …• Humans discovered more efficient ways of using

livestock– Not just for their meat and hides– Also for their ‘secondary products’, products they

yielded while still alive:• Wool• Milk and blood• Traction power (hauling carts and plows)

– These are essentially more efficient ways of turning grass into food and energy

Pastoralism – created by the ‘Secondary Products Revolution’

A New Lifeway Emerged for Humans: Pastoralism

• Pastoralism (nomadic livestock herding) – Colonization of arid steppes of Africa and Eurasia

– All of Afro-Eurasia becoming linked into a single system of exchange, the largest zone of collective learning on earth

– Which is a major reason for the

exceptional dynamism of the

‘Afro-Eurasian’ world zone

(See Session 8 Part VI on the Silk Roads)

An Afro-Eurasian World System:

The Silk Roads, c. 1 BCEIndependentFarmers Foragers

Pastoralists

= Areas of Agrarian Civilization

Pastoralists

• Mesopotamian Civilization (c3200-1600 BCE)

• The Akkadians (2370-2150)

• Old Babylonian Period (2000-1600

• Hittites (2000-1200 BCE)

Part 2. Early Civilizations of Southwest Asia

The First Agrarian Civilizations, c. 3,000 BCE: SW Asia and Egypt

Mesopotamia: The Cradle of Civilization

• Mesopotamia - ‘land between two rivers’ - where the first agricultural communities, towns, cities and states first appeared.

• Eventually in this region Sargon of Akkad established the first agrarian civilization in human history in southern Mesopotamia (Sumer)

• Gradually civilizations spread from Sumeria north along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, until all of West Asia was under the control of coercive leaders and states

www.cnn.com

The Sumerians: Proto-Literate Phase

(3200-2800)

• Most of population of Sumer living in large cities by early 3rd millennium BCE

• Period saw the emergence of basic forms of writing - (so known as ‘Proto-literate’ period)

• Another important early invention was the wheel – for transport and pottery making

• These ideas made their way east to the Indus Civilization of the Indus Valley, and south west into Egypt (via cultural diffusion)

• Evidence that as early as the late 4th Millennium these civilizations were already in contact with each other

www.knowledgecontext.org

Economic Innovations: Bronze• Intense craft specialization,

so Sumerian craftsmen made great advances in technology

• Bronze metallurgy a result of alloying copper with tin

• Bronze had an immediate impact on military affairs: swords, spears, axes, shields and armor from bronze

• Mesopotamian farmers used bronze tools and plows, which increased agricultural production

Sumerian bronze weaponswww.anythinganywhere.com

The Wheel• First use of wheel dated to

c3500 BCE; Sumerians certainly building wheeled carts by 3000 BCE

• Increased amount of resources that could be hauled - including grain, bricks and metal ores – and made it easier to transport them over longer distances

• The wheel rapidly diffused throughout Eurasia and became a standard means of overland transportation

www.zyworld.com

Early Sumerian war chariot from Ur

Shipbuilding and

Maritime Trade

• Sumerians also experimented with maritime technology

• By 3500 they had built ships that allowed them to venture into the Persian Gulf

• By 2300 they were trading with merchants of the Indus Civilization in present-day Pakistan via the Persian Gulf and Arabian sea

• Resulted in the emergence of Mesopotamian land and maritime trade networks Models of Sumerian ships

hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca

Donkey Caravans Cross the Desert

Correspondence from the later Assyrian Era shows that donkey caravans traveled 1000 miles across the desert carrying silver, tin and textiles

www.michna.com

Old Sumerian Period (2800-2300)• By 2800 Sumerian cities at the center of large,

complex states under the control of coercive rulers: semi-divine chiefs called ‘lugals’

• Centre of each city-state was the temple• Most famous lugal was Gilgamesh, the semi-

legendary ruler of Uruk (2700 BCE) hero of the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’

Sumerian Cylinder Seal of Gilgameshwww.historywiz.com

Sumerian Lugals

• Earliest form of government probably assemblies of prominent citizens

• During crises assemblies yielded power to individuals who combined sacred and secular power - possessed absolute authority during the crisis

• Eventually individual rulers usurped the authority of the assemblies and established themselves as monarchs

• But even though the lugals had absolute power in theory, they ruled in cooperation with local nobles in practice

• This arrangement is a feature of the Epic of Gilgamesh Gilgamesh, lugal of Uruk

owl.ben.edu/TitleIII

Administration of Sumer meant

keeping track of tributes and other resources: Writing• As resources accumulated it was vital to keep

records of them• The first writing systems were really lists of

objects: writing began as accounting• In Sumer, these were recorded by marks in

clay, using triangular shaped wedges of papyrus: this was ‘cuneiform’ writing

Writing began as

accounting

Early Mesopotamian cuneiform writing, done with a stalk of papyrus cut to form a wedge-shaped stylus

Cuneiform Writing

Dated to c. 3,000 BCE, this consists mainly of numbers and symbols for objects.

Richer writing systems appears in Mesopotamia several centuries later

The evolution of Sumerian writing systems

• At first, marks referred to things (say ‘arrows’)

• But if the mark for ‘arrow’ was pronounced like the word for ‘life’, the arrow symbol could be used to mean, ‘life’

= ‘arrow’, pronounced ‘ti’; but ‘ti’ also means ‘life’

The ‘Rebus principle’ allowed written language to become as expressive as spoken language

By 2,500 BCE, there had emerged in Sumer the first written literature in the world. The ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ is about a heroic ruler of Uruk

The Akkadians (2370-2150)

• North of Sumer was a region occupied by the Akkadian peoples

• These were Semitic people who had migrated into Mesopotamia from Arabia in the 4th Millennium)

• Sargon I (2370-2315) a powerful Akkadian ruler eventually conquered Sumer, creating world’s first agrarian-based empire

• Akkad a city near Kish and Babylon - never discovered by archaeologists

• At its height the Akkadian Empire stretched from the Persian Gulf almost to the Mediterranean Sea

Sargon I (2370-2315)

Akkadian Empire Map

www.utexas.edu/courses

The Rise of Sargon• Sargon of humble origins; abandoned by his mother and placed in a reed basket on the river

(basis for the Moses story)• Began his political career as a minister to the King of Kish• C. 2334 staged a coup against the king, recruited an army, and conquered the Sumerian

cities one by one• Destroyed their defensive walls and placed them

under his control, appointing his own ministers as administrators

• Eventually his army grew larger and more professional

• Also seized control of trade routes and natural resources (silver)

• Then worked for the prosperity of his empire, supporting all classes (particularly the peasants and merchants) through social legislation and military operations

Cylinder seal with story of Sargon’s rise inscribed

Successors of Sargon

• For several generations successors maintained empire

• But later successors less able; empire weakened under pressure from rebels

• Because of desire for independence by the ruling classes in Sumeria, the empire collapsed c. 2150 BCE

• His example an inspiration for all later would-be conquerors

Post-Sargon Akkadian cuneiform administration script, British Museumwww.nv.cc.va.us

Neo-Sumerian Period (2150-2000)

• Order restored by the lugals of Ur, who established centralized administration in both Sumer and Akkad

• The lugal of Ur now regarded as a living god

• Other city-states became provinces administered by governors

• In 2000 BCE Elamite peoples from Iran invaded and defeated Ur, destroying the power of the Sumerians

• Although defeated, Sumerian culture dominated all subsequent civilizations of the region

Reconstruction of Ur c2000 BCE www.crystallinks.com

Ziggurat of Ur

The Ziggurat at Ur is a massive stepped pyramid about 210 by 150 feet in size; the best preserved monument from the Sumerian Age. Consists of a series of successively smaller platforms which rose to a height of about 64 feet, and was constructed with a solid core of mud-brick covered by a thick skin of burnt-brick to protect it from the elements. Its corners are oriented to the compass points, and its walls slope slightly inwards, giving an impression of solidity.

Old Babylonian Period (2000-1600)• After the collapse of Ur,

Sumer was fragmented and chaotic

• Some local rulers remained powerful and continued to pass impressive social legislation

• A group of Semitic Amorites gained power in the city of Babylon

• The most important ruler of this period was Hammurabi

www.cheliscenografie.it

Hammurabi’s Gate, Babylon (now in thePalazzo di Serse Plast Fiera, Milan)

3200-2000 BCE: Sumer & Babylon

Hammurabi’s Law Code was inscribed on this tall basalt pillar.It is the first known written code of laws.Hammurabi ruled Babylon from1792-1750 BCE

The First Written Law Code

Old Babylonians Spoke a Semitic Language

• Semitic a family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people across much of West Asia, where they originated, and N and E Africa

• By far the most widely spoken Semitic language today is Arabic, followed by Aramaic, Hebrew, and Tigrinya

• Semitic languages were among the earliest to attain a written form, with Akkadian writing beginning in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC

• The term "Semitic" for these languages, after Shem son of Noah, is etymologically a misnomer but is nonetheless standard

almashriq.hiof.no

The Hittites (2000-1200)

• Despite Hammurabi’s strong administration, wealth of Babylon and Sumeria attracted invaders, particularly the Hittites, who were unknown until the 1920s

• Hittite language is the oldest known example of an Indo-European language

• They entered Asia Minor from the northeast c2000 BC as Indo-European-speaking peoples from south Russia

• The Babylonian Empire crumbled before them

Indo-European Languages

• IE languages include some 443 (estimated) languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people

• Includes most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily.

• Contemporary languages in this superfamily include English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish (each with more than 100 million native speakers), as well as numerous smaller national or minority languages.

New Technologies and the Spread of Indo-European Languages

Pastoralism took Indo-European Languages to many parts of Eurasia, as a perfect example of cultural diffusion

As they migrated they took with them their languages, technologies and ideas, like iron metallurgy

Likely homeland of Indo-European languages

Iron Metallurgy

• After c1300 Hittite craftsmen developed techniques of forging very strong iron tools and weapons

• From the Hittites iron metallurgy spread throughout Anatolia and Mesopotamia

• Ingredients of iron (iron ore deposits) much cheaper than the ingredients of bronze (copper and tin) and the metal much stronger

Hittite iron weapons

www.madsci.org

Hittite History• Hittite kings fought with nobles

constantly, limiting power of the monarchy

• Powerful army used chariot to conquer much of West Asia.

• Bloody battles with Rameses II in Palestine resulted in the signing of a peace treaty in 1269

• After 1260 Hittites threatened by another wave of Indo-European invaders.

• Survivors of this new conflict (associated with the Trojan Wars?) fled the region by sea and settled all over the Mediterranean.

• Included Philistines, Sicilians and Etruscans

Hittite WarriorsIdcs1011.lib.edu

Hittite Empire collapsed partly as a result of these migrations in c 1200

Part 3. Major Civilization of NE Africa: Nile Valley and Agriculture

• Role of Nile crucial in creating Egyptian civilization; valley of rich alluvial soils and water for irrigation

• Egyptians called the Nile valley ‘Kemet’ which means ‘the black land’ - annual floods spread rich black soil along the 750 mile valley between the First Cataract and the Nile Delta

• Because of their prosperity, Herodotus called Egypt ‘the gift of the Nile’

www.egyptguide.net

The Nile• Fed by rain and snow in

the high mountains of East Africa, Nile is the world’s longest river

• It flows 4,160 miles from Lake Victoria to its delta on the Mediterranean

• Each spring melting snow and rain swells the river, which surges north through Sudan and Egypt

• Until the completion of the dam at Aswan in 1968, the annual floods left behind a rich layer of alluvial soil

The Pre-Dynastic Period: 5000 - 2660 BCE

• After 5000 BCE Egyptian farmers learned to plant crops in the floodplain in late summer (after the recession of the flood)• Crops matured during cooler months of the year - harvested in winter and early spring• Increased populations gathered together in villages and practiced intensive irrigation agriculture• By 4000 BCE numerous villages dotted the Nile’s shores, from the Mediterranean in the north to the 4th Cataract in the south

Unification• After 3100 BCE,

Egypt followed a very different path to that of smaller Nubian kingdoms in Upper Nile

• Egyptian rulers forged all the territory between the delta and the 1st cataract into a single, powerful unified kingdom

The Archaic Period (3100-2660 BCE)

• Tradition holds that unified rule first came to Egypt in the person of a conqueror named Menes

• Menes was an ambitious minor official from a southern Egyptian kingdom

• In 3100 King Menes united Upper Egypt, then began to incorporate Lower Egypt (the Delta region)

King Menes – LegendaryFounder of Egyptwww.crystallinks.com/dynasty1

Old Kingdom (2660-2160)

The Pharaohs

• The early pharaohs (from per-ao, or great house) both divine and human; they claimed to be gods living on earth in human form

• In this respect they continued tradition of divine kingship inherited from early Sumerian states

• Job was to represent the people to the gods, and maintain justice and order

• Owned vast royal lands, supporting administrators, priests, scribes, artisans and merchants.

Old Kingdom ( aka the ‘Pyramid Age’) - 3rd to 6th Dynasty kings – established order throughout Egypt

• Early pharaohs associated with Horus, the sky god• Pharaohs depicted with a falcon or hawk, the symbol of Horus• Later pharaohs viewed as offspring of Amon, a sun god – the

pharaoh was son of the sun• After his death, the pharaoh would merge with Amon• Pharaohs always depicted as enormous figures towering over

their people and their lands

grenier2clio.free.fr

Horus Amon

www.ra-horakhty.co.uk

Living Gods

End of the Old Kingdom

• Late in 6th Dynasty prosperity came to an end. Cost of building the pyramids exhausted the state; also famine

• Several regions of Egypt became independently powerful (because of agricultural surpluses) and pursued their own interests

• Central political power waned and disappeared, leading to upheaval and social unrest

• During this ‘First Intermediate Period’ (2160-2040 BCE) civil war raged in Egypt; outside peoples took advantage of the weakened state to raid the valley

Koptos stele of the First Intermediate Period - UC 14318 (probably from Koptos) ‘Stele of Nadt’

Middle Kingdom

(2040-1640)• Stability restored by rulers of

the 11th and 12th Dynasties

• Kingdom reunited under pharaonic authority; pyramids revived; downtrodden protected

• But pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom were not as powerful as their predecessors

• Gradually Egypt came under pressure from foreign peoples from SW Asia, particularly a Semitic people the Egyptians called the Hyksos (’foreign rulers’)www.acacialand.com/ shepher_copy.html

Hyksos Invasions?

Hyksos Invasion• In the13th Dynasty Egypt conquered by Hyksos (‘foreign rulers’)

who settled in Egypt as traders during the Middle Kingdom

• Took advantage of weaknesses in the ‘Second Intermediate Period’ (1800-1570 BCE) and gradually took control

• Hyksos were originally

a horse-riding nomadic

peoples who first brought

the horse to Egypt

• They spoke a Semitic

language

Egyptian War Chariot – Introduced by the Hyksos

www.civilization.civil

Hyksos Rule• Hyksos rule provoked strong

reaction in Upper Egypt, where disgruntled nobles organized revolts against the invaders

• Adopted Hyksos military technologies for their own troops

• Also equipped their troops with Hyksos-style bronze weapons

• Working from Thebes and later Memphis, Egyptian leaders gradually pushed Hyksos out of the Nile Delta

• By mid-16 C BCE Egyptians had regained independence and founded a powerful new state known as the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BCE)

New Kingdom (1550-1070)• Pharaohs of the New Kingdom presided over a prosperous

and productive Egypt • Agricultural surpluses supported a

population of c. 4 million, with a large army and bureaucracy divided into several departments:

- Court and royal estates- Military- Religion- Treasury- Agriculture- Local Affairs- Administration of conquered territories

Egyptian bureaucracy - scribe

www.touregypt.net

Imperial Expansion

• New Kingdom an era of imperial expansion for Egypt

• Pharaohs sought to prevent further invasions by seizing control of regions that might pose a threat in the future

• Best known Egyptian imperialist was the Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425) – pictured right

• Personally led Egyptian armies on 17 campaigns as far as Syria and the Euphrates

• Palestine became the nucleus of an Egyptian Empire

• Conquered king’s sons taken to Egypt as hostages

• For half a millennium Egypt was an imperial power throughout much of the Eastern Mediterranean, Southwest Asia and the Nile Valley

Egyptian Empire c. 1400 BCE

xenohistorian.faithweb.com

Amenhotep• Egyptian Empire reached

its peak under Amenhotep III (1402-1363)

• Pharaohs of the New Kingdom did not build pyramids, but did erect numerous temples, palaces and statues to their power

• Amenhotep III built temples to Amon (at Thebes) which made it most magnificent city in the world

• Tribute flowed into Egypt from all over its empire

Amenhotep IIIwww.artic.edu

Akhenaton and Tutankhamen

• Late in the New Kingdom Egypt entered period of decline

• Egyptian rule provoked uprisings in their empire; eventually Egyptian forces were driven out of Nubia and SW Asia

• Under Amenhotep IV empire declined further becauseof power struggle between the king and priests of Amon

• Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaton to demonstratehis loyalty to an alternative sun-god Aton

• He then tried to replace Amon with Aton as the sole, all-powerful god

• In the conflict that followed, much of the Egyptian empire was lost

• His 9-year old son Tutankhamen (1347-1338) returned to the worship of Amon; his son Horemheb founded the 19th dynasty

TutankhamenKingtutone.com.pharaohs

Ramses I and II• Horemheb (son of the boy pharaoh

Tutankhamen) changed his name to Ramses I

• Rameses tried to regain Syria and Palestine, leading to conflict with the Hittites, who had invaded the region from Turkey

• Climaxed in reign of Ramses II (1290-1224) – regained Palestine, but could not drive the Hittites from Syria

• They signed a very ‘modern’ peace treaty instead• Rameses’ long reign was Egypt’s last era of national grandeur• Built great temple for Amon at Karnak, and the temple at Abu

Simbel. • After his reign, royal authority was lost to the priests of Amon

Third Intermediate Period (1070-332)

• Amon priesthood at Thebes established their own dynasty to rule Upper Egypt in the Third Intermediate Period

• As the Egyptian state fragmented, merchant princes also established their own dynasty in the Delta

• Libyans invaded from the west in 940 and also established their own dynasty

• In c. 760 Egypt was conquered by rulers of Kush• King Kashta of Kush founded a Kushite

dynasty that ruled Egypt from 760 – 670• During the mid-seventh century the

Assyrians also invaded Egypt and drove out the Kushites

End of Independent Egypt

• During the 26th Dynasty (663-525) Egyptian prestige briefly revived

• Assyrians expelled, Egyptian culture restored, first Egyptian navy created.

• 12,000 laborers dug most of a canal from the Nile mouth to the Red Sea

• Egypt then conquered by the Persians in 525, regained independence briefly in 404, then conquered by Alexander of Macedon in 336

• Eventually Egypt would become a province of the Roman Empire

Hieroglyphic Writing and Education• Writing appeared in Egypt from at least 3200 BCE, possibly

as a result of Mesopotamian influence• Earliest script was pictographic, but Egyptians added

symbols representing sounds and ideas• Came to be called hieroglyphics because they were prominent on

temples – from two Greek words meaning ‘holy inscriptions’• Hot, dry climate of Egypt has also preserved many papyrus rolls

which were administrative and commercial records, and literature

www.ncsli.org

Beautifully preserved after4000 years –Royal ‘Cubit’Papyrus, BM

Hieroglyphic Alphabet

www.nku.edu/~anthro/ awards

www.kottke.org/order

Close up from Tutankhamen’s Tomb

Pyramid of Khafre, Giza, Egyptwww.black-triangle-ufo-roma.com/ EgyptImagesMA...

Okay, that’s enough about Sumeria and Egypt – the first two civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere (and world history)! After the break, we will take a look at the early civilizations of the Indus and China