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Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Near Eastern Civilizations

Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Near Eastern Civilizations. Mesopotamia The Oriental Institute Egypt The Field Museum. www.oi.uchicago.edu www.fieldmuseum.org. Review: Prehistory and Early Cultures. Upper Paleolithic Period (40,000-11,000 BCE) Neolithic Period (11,000-4,000 BC)

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Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Near Eastern Civilizations

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  1. Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Near Eastern Civilizations

  2. MesopotamiaThe Oriental InstituteEgyptThe Field Museum www.oi.uchicago.edu www.fieldmuseum.org

  3. Review: Prehistory and Early Cultures Upper Paleolithic Period (40,000-11,000 BCE) Neolithic Period (11,000-4,000 BC) Emergence of Art Technology in Early Cultures Stone Age Technology Origins of Agriculture Emergence of villages

  4. Review: What Is A “Civilization?” • Form of urban life, involving the construction of permanent settlements • System of governmentthat regulates political relations • Development of social classes distinguished by wealth and occupation • Tools and specialized skills for production of goods, leading to manufacturing and trade • Shared system of religious beliefs, whose officials play significant role in community affairs

  5. Move to Metals • Gradually learned to mine and use copper • Bronze (copper + tin) discovered around 3,000 BCE • Copper found in Anatolia • Tin found in Serbia, Bulgaria, England (!) • Importance of bronze: • Strength • Ability to hold edge

  6. Move to Metals

  7. The Dawn of the Bronze Age (3,000-1,000 BCE) Metals supply forced trade and organization Dawn of Bronze Age (c. 3,000 -1,000 BCE) gave rise to first fully organized states First arose in Mesopotamia and Egypt, in the so-called Fertile Crescent

  8. Review: The Fertile Crescent

  9. Review: The Fertile Crescent

  10. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • Mesopotamia (site of modern Iraq) was not a particularly promising site (cp. Chicago): • Heat • Marshes • Unpredictable, violent floods (different from regular Nile flooding) • Invaders from Zagros mountains and Arabian desert

  11. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • But no other place holds deeper significance for the history of human progress: • First urban centers • Shift of loyalty from clan to community (ziggurats, irrigation) • Art and technology, specialization and commercial enterprise grew • Writing

  12. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • Key role known only relatively recently: • Biblical mentions; reports from 12th century travelers • 19th century treasure hunters (Babylon, Dar-Sharrukin, Nineveh) • 1920s: Ur (Woolley); Erech/Uruk (Germans); Kish (British and Americans); Baghdad (Americans); Mari (French)

  13. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • Mesopotamia is clearly site of man’s urban revolution; what of agricultural revolution? • R.J. Braidwood (UofC): Hilly flanks theory tested in 1948 at Jarmo and KarimShahir; uncovered oldest permanent farming community then known • Further researches in Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, and Iran suggest that agricultural/economic revolution may actually have occurred outside Mesopotamia proper (Jericho)

  14. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • Difficult to generalize • Parade of peoples/achievements • Related peoples on periphery (e.g., Hittites, Syrians) • Still, region’s history falls into three broad periods: • Ubaidian (5,900-3,500) • Sumerian (3,500-2,350) • Semitic (2,350-612)

  15. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • Sumerians came from central Asia via Iran • Move from clan to community • Humble shrines replaced by elaborate temples • Growth of specialized priesthood • Rise of secular administration • Increase in size and number of farms and fields • Growing complexity of irrigation systems • Emergence of kingship

  16. Mesopotamia and the Birth of History • With rise of kingship, story of Sumer is largely a story of war, as rulers of a dozen city states vie for regional control, interrupted by periods of foreign domination

  17. The First Three Kingdoms • Sumerian: 3500-2350 BCE • Cities: Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Adab, Eridu, Isin, Kish, Lagash, Larsa • Gods: Anu, Ki, Enlil, Enki (Ea); Nannu, Utu, Inanna • Akkadian: 2350-2000 BCE • Sargon, Naram-Sin, Gudea • Babylonian: 2000-1600 BCE • Hammurabi

  18. Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and the Birth of History • Settlement between Tigris and Euphrates dates from c. 7th millennium BCE • Around 5,900 BCE Ubiad move to region, perhaps to escape great flood that hit Black Sea (Noah? Gilgamesh?) • Brought irrigation/mud-brick buildings • Land flat; dikes and canals needed • Large projects led, over time, to towns

  19. Ubiad Building This cut-away of an early mud-brick dwelling of the Ubiad culture of Mesopotamia suggests how elaborate village dwellings soon became, even given the severe limitations in building materials available on the Tigris-Euphrates flood plain.

  20. Ubiad Building

  21. Ur, Early Sumer, and the Origins of Writing • Around 4,300 BCE, largest Ubiad villages merged, creating cities…and city states • Largest was Uruk (modern Warka), in area called Sumer • Theocratic (ruler = gods’ representatives) • Labor specialization • Slave-driven (captives in war) • Urban/commercial • Rich cultural life • Commerce led to invention of writing

  22. The Invention of Writing Supported commerce, government, religion Cuneiform moved from pictogram to ideogram to phonogram

  23. The Rise of Kingship • Institution of kingship emerged in Sumer around 2,900 BCE • Kings (lugals) appear to have been priestly warlords • Kings claimed that institution went back to beginning of time (Sumerian King List, Eridu, c. 2125) • N.B. Kings ruled city-states; there was no single king of Sumer.

  24. Kings and Control Kish (Etana “stabilized all the lands) Erech (Meskiaggashers “entered the sea, ascended the mountains; Dumuzi = Hebrew Tammuz; Gilgamesh) Elamites Adab (Lugalannemundu, “who made all foreign lands pay steady tribute to him”) Lagash (Eannatum; Urukagina) Umma (Lugalzaggesi,”controlled territory from lower sea to upper sea”) Akkad(Sargon, Naram-Sin) Gutians Erech (Utuhegal) Ur (Ur-Nammu, Shulgi); destroyed around 2000, ending Sumerian period

  25. Gilgamesh • Most famous Sumerian king was Gilgamesh (c.2,700 BCE) • Story as we know it patched together from fragments found on cuneiform tablets • Gives sense of bleak view of life (life is hard…and then you die; futility of achievement)

  26. Enheduanna and Inanna Mesopotamia gave world is 1st known literary figure: Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon. Best-known work is Exaltation of Inanna– Sumerian goddess of love

  27. The Role of Religion • Focus of life was temple • Most important festival was New Year • Female creative power key Warka head, Uruk, c. 3200 BCE

  28. The Role of Religion: Tell Asmar (Iraq) Statuettes These are not silent statues; they seem to speak as they stare open-eyed offering supplication to the gods on behalf of their donors. Part of a religious ritual of leaving stand-ins at a temple, the statues are stylized, with large eyes and in a pose of supplication They represent the hierarchy of the society.

  29. The Role of Religion: Priests • Governing power in hands of priests • Representative of gods, but not divine (cp. Egypt • Inscriptions speak of ensi(governors) and lugals(big men) Note: Although the corpus of inscriptions grows richer in the 27th and 26th centuries, history cannot be written solely on the basis of archaeology. Without written documents, such findings contain as many riddles as they seem to offer solutions.

  30. Sumerian Culture: Technology • Cuneiform writing • Purification of copper/development of bronze (arsenic, tin) • Development of wheel (pottery)/wheeled carts • Systematic study of mathematics (irrigation, architecture, calendar)

  31. Sumerian Culture: Architecture

  32. Sumerian Culture: Art

  33. Sumerian Culture: Royal Cemetery

  34. Sumeria Slips • In “Phase III” dynasties (2500-2350 BCE) power moves away from priest to king • Free population declined as people fell into hereditary debt slavery • Kings demonstrate power/wealth through ziggurats • Warfare prominent…including wars with Akkadians

  35. Akkad and Centralized Rule • Between 2334 and 2279 BCE King Sargon of Akkad invaded Sumer • Goal not plunder/slaves; instead wanted control • Set up new capital in Kish, renamed Akkad • Succeeded by son, Naram-Sim • Region recognized two sets of gods and spoke two languages

  36. Sargon and Naram-Sim

  37. The Role of Migrations (1) • After Naram-Sim’s death, Akkadian rule disintegrated • Gutians (from Iran) conquered Sumer • Succeeded by Ur kings (Nammu and Shulgi) • These kings were last Sumerians to rule Mesopotamia; Semitic peoples ruled the region after them

  38. The Role of Migrations (2) • Sumerians replaced by Semitic and Indo-European peoples • IE peoples from east (India/Pakistan) • Semitic peoples from West • Amorites (Babylonians) rule in Sumer from about 2000 BCE • Key Amorite/Babylonian figure is Hammurabi

  39. Hammurabi Hammurabi most famous for law code, but… Set up Marduk as chief of all gods; established a religious system for political aims; and Used law code to legitimize kingship and increase authority

  40. Marduk

  41. Babylonian Art and Architecture

  42. Successors to Babylon • Kassites (1550) • Assyrians (peak = 1000-612) • Medes • Persians

  43. Mesopotamia: Humanities Summary • Dikes, canals, irrigation • Invention of writing (cuneiform) • Religion • Gods linked to natural phenomena • Temples (ultimately ziggurats) • Importance of female creative power • Emergence of formal priesthood • Civil Law • Code of Hammurabi • Outlook • Dim view of life (Epic of Gilgamesh) • Brightens a bit under Akkadians and Babylonians (Sargon, Victory Stele of Naram-Sin) • Vigor in Assyrian reliefs at palace of Assurbanipal

  44. Nile River Valley: Egypt

  45. Nile River Valley: Egypt • Earliest settlers c. 6000 BCE • First signs of village life/farming date from c. 4800 BCE • As early as 3500 BCE communities of Lower Egypt had developed common culture • Villages arose in Upper Egypt about this time

  46. The Civilization of the Nile River Valley: Major Periods • Early Dynastic 3100-2700 BCE • Old Kingdom 2700-2185 • First Intermediate 2185-2050 • Middle Kingdom 2050-1800 • Second Intermediate 1800-1552 • New Kingdom 1552-1079 • Late Dynastic 1079-525 NOTE: History divided into 31 dynasties by Manetho

  47. The Civilization of the Nile River Valley: Major Periods The most striking feature of Egyptian culture is its unity and consistency. Nothing is stronger in contrast to the process of dynamic change in Mesopotamia and Greece -- and still characteristic of our own culture -- than the relative absence of change in Egyptian art, religion, language, and political structures over thousands of years.

  48. Early Dynastic Period: Major Events • Early Dynastic (3100-2700 BCE) • Menes unifies Lower and Upper Egypt • Now, Egypt is “a state to be reckoned with” • Kings bring prosperity through: • Economic control • Diplomacy/dynastic marriages

  49. Early Dynastic Period: Kingship and Religion • Little known about first kings (Scorpion King, Narmer) • But do know that Pharaohs viewed themselves not as descendents of gods, but as gods in earthly form • Viewed their land as center of earth • Had cyclic view of life • Death played important role (Osiris, Isis, Horus) • Had writing: Hieroglyphics

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