Unit 9 river civilisation. introduction

MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPTIntroduction

River civilizationsThe writing

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River civilizationsThe first civilization appeared during the 3rd millenium B.C. from the first towns of the Metal Age. They are known as River civilizations.

EGYPTMESOPOTAMIAINDOCHINA

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During the Metal Age some villages started having kings who became very powerful and formed great empires and civilizations.

River civilizations started next to big rivers such as: Tigris and Éuphates in Mesopotamia, Nile river in Egypt, Indus river in India and Yangtze river in China.

In these regions the flooding of the rivers fertilised the land and produced abundant harvest that provided enough food for large populations living in towns.

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River civilizations

CHARACTERISTICS OF RIVER CIVILIZATIONS:

• URBAN SOCIETIES, big towns with large populations

• GREAT POLITICAL POWER. The king led the army, made laws and was the religious leader. He has some state officials to help him

• SOCIAL HIERARCHY. There were 2 social groups: a small minority of privileged people (the king and his family, noblemen, priests, state officials and some members of the army) and a the rest of the people (peasants, craftsmen and merchants who paid lots of taxes)

• LARGE-SCALE BUILDING WORKS: Irrigation canals that carriers water from the rivers to the fields. And also temples, palaces and tombs as a symbol of the king’s power.

• CULTURE, SCIENCE AND ART had a great development.

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River civilizations

WRITINGWRITING = HISTORY

MESOPOTAMIA 5000 years ago. WHY?

In a growing city writing was an essential method to remember important information about taxes, trades and population.

Soon people started to write about other issues such as religious books, codes about laws, science books and story books.

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Cuneiform writing.Was developed in Sumer. It was written by making signs on a clay tablet with a reed. It was called cuneiform because the patterns looked as if they were made by a wedge (cuneus in latin)

WRITING. …….WHERE, WHEN, HOW?

•MESOPOTAMIA. Cuneiform writing. In a clay tablet. Straight and round signs. 2.000 symbols.

•EGYPT. Hieroglyphic writing made on papyrus.(A plant that grows near the river Nile). Hieroglyphic writing represented words and sounds. There were 700 different signs.

•CHINA. Paper was invented by Chinese peopIe in 105 B. C. Chinese writing use around 10.000 signs.

•The writing we used today was invented by the phoenicians in 1200 B.C. when they created an alphabet of 22 consonants. Later on, greeks added the vowels.

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River civilizations

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É It is a trilingual stela. The same text is writing in Hieroglyphs, in demotic and in Greek, provided the first clues based on which Young and Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphic script.

The Rosetta stone was discovered in 1799 and it is displayed in the British Museum since 1802.

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ÉCARTRIDGE