Water and Soil, Stone and Metal

10,000 BCE – 2100 BCE

The Tigris and the Euphrates• Fertile Crescent• Sumerian crop yields

– Levees, reservoirs, irrigation canals• Development of Agriculture

– Grain storage in Jericho 9000 BCE– Farming in Sumer 7000 BCE– Farming techniques spread east to India

and west to the coastal plains and Western Europe

• Before domesticated animals, all agricultural work was done by hand• Women – agriculture• Men - hunt, gather, rule

• Agriculture Rise of Villages• Primitive metal tools 7000 BCE• Bronze Age (4000-1500 BCE)

Early Sumer: Kings and Warriors, Priests and Scribes

• Sumerians developed trade relations to get access to stone and metal – Development of writing

• Economic specialization developed• Stonemasons, merchants, rivermen, weavers, dyers,

civil and hydraulic engineers, metalworkers, potters, scribes

• Clan elders, then shift to Militarily backed Monarchies and Divinely Appointed Priesthoods– Independent city-states governed by King

(lugal) and/or priests• Writings from Sumer

– Epic of Gilgamesh: Flood myth– King List

• Akkadian conquest c. 2350 BCE-2100– Adopted Sumerian language, institutions,

and religion

The Idea of Empire• Sargon, an Akkadian

king, placed family members in control of conquered territories – Contrast to Sumerian

conquests

• Decline of Sumer – Invaders 2000 BCE – Invaders disdained

the Sumerian way of life, possibly due to an economic decline

Mesopotamian Life: Cities and Slaves

Artist’s Reconstruction of the Ziggurat of Ur

Each city had a patron god, for whom they erected vast

terraced pyramid-like mounds called ziggurats.

• 90% of the population were farmers

• Whole clans owned land• Inheritance was patrilinear• Barter Economy• Sumerian religion

– Benevolent gods who need to be appeased by priests

• Slaves developed as debt bondage or as captives from war– Usually worked in cities

Mesopotamian Life: Letters and Numbers

• Priests invented writing to keep records– Cuneiform– 1 set of markings for words,

another for numbers• Math

– Time – Basic geometry to deal with

property lines post-flooding• Written law as early as 2300

BCE under ruler Ur-Ukagina of Lagash

Early Writing figureA clay receipt, c. 2300 BCE,

tallying the number of sheep and goats in a particular herd.

Religion and Myth: The Great Above and the Great Below

• Heaven– Day and night sky, where spirits known as Igigi dwelt

• The Great Above– Dwelling of the gods, known as Annunaki

• The Great Below– The world beneath the surface of the Earth– Includes the Land of No Return

• Religion in Sumer as a way to appease the gods • Gods as flawed as humans• Second millennium: rise of moralized Sumerian hymns

Ancient Egypt: Geography• Two long strips of land on either

side of the Nile and a vast triangular delta– Arid desert, unless you were on the

shores of the Nile• Narrow Sinai peninsula

– Easy land access to communication and transport

• Natural resources: stone and metal• Small villages spread out along river

– Regional groupings called nomes• Nomes unified into one kingdom c.

3150 BCE

Ancient Egypt: Language and Writing

• Human settlements centered on agriculture 5000 BCE

• The Hamitic and Semitic languages– Suggest settlers came from

North Africa, Palestine, Syria• Egyptian civilization began

when Sumerian society did (third millenium BCE) – Hieroglyphs– Papyrus

Narmer PaletteThis plaque commemorates King

Narmer, the first ruler to unite Lower and Upper Egypt.

Social Strata in Egypt: Hierarchy

Pharaoh

Elite Professionals (physicians, scribes,

architects, priests, civic officials)

Luxury craftsmen (goldsmiths, jewelry makers, perfumers)

Artisans (brewers, weavers, stonemasons, bricklayers)

Farmers

Slaves

Social Strata in Egypt: Life and Law

• Monogamous marriage was the norm– Adultery by men was accepted, but by women

was harshly punished• Men and women could both own property,

enter contracts, and go to court• Basic diet of grains, vegetables, and fish• Minimal clothing and brick homes used to

combat brutal heat

Social Strata in Egypt: Pharaoh

• Pharaoh was a living god• Controlled every aspect of public life • Appointed all local bureaucrats (nomarchs and viziers)

and military officials• Benevolent pharaohs enabled a high standard of living – Ca. 2100 BCE, pharaohs could no longer meet

administrative costs• Supreme virtue of Egyptian culture: ma’at, an

acceptance of the world as it is

The Kingdom of the Dead

A Section from a Book of the Dead scroll

• Local deities in each nome• Major deities ruled over local gods,

helping to create a shared culture • Isis-Osiris myth• Each living pharaoh is the incarnation

of Horus• Upon his death, he becomes Osiris• Souls of deceased wander through a

dim wasteland filled with demon-spirits until they find the House of Judgment– Dead pharaoh’s heart weighed on a

scale by Anubis– Decision was based not on moral life,

but on proper send-off (pyramids, burial gifts, etc)