The Emergence of

civilizations

(@ 4000-3000 BCE)

EARLY RIVER

VALLEY

CIVILIZATIONS

Origins

• Why Mesopotamia?

• Fertile Crescent/Tigris/Euphrates (pg 30)

• Where? Modern day Kuwait and Iraq.

• Who were first to arrive? Sumerians

Disadvantages:

1.unpredictable flooding (unlike Egypt)

2.No natural protection

3.Limited natural resources

• How where these problems solved?

• City-states

The Standard of Ur

Clearly defined social classes

Emergence of organized formalized

religions

SUMER (p. 29-33)

• Cuneiform- knife carves wedges into a tablet

• Scribes worked with over 580 letters. Few could use cuneiform

• Epic of Gilgamesh

• Cultural diffusion

• Ziggurats

• Conquered by Sargon and the Akkadians

• World’s first________.

• After Sargon’s death Akkadians begin a slow decline

• Gutians?

cuneiform

writing

Sumerian farmers plowing

Bronze Age tools and

weapons

sailboat

limestone bowls Ur

Sumerian statues of Gods and Goddesses

Standard of Ur

Scenes of Peace

Scenes of war

Sumerian necklace

Sumerian Bull's Head,

Lyre from Tomb of

Paubi, c. 2600 B.C.

Early Sumerian

writing—

pictographs

Later Sumerian

writing—represent

sounds down from

3000 to 300

The Behistun Rock: the key to

deciphering cuneiform

BABYLON (p.33)

• Amorites invade Mesopotamia around 2000 BC

• Establish capital at Babylon on the Euphrates

• Hammurabi and his code (“eye for an eye”)

• Concept of “codification”

• Rights to women?

ASSYRIANS (p.95-97)

• Capital is Ninevah

• Known for being nasty, violent, and vile (often massacred conquered cities)

• Militaristic people with advanced weapons

• Eventually conquered by neo-Babylonians (Chaldeans)and Medes

• 2 important kings= Sennacharib and Ashurbanipal

Relief: Assyrian conquest of Israel

CHALDEANS (p.97-98)

• “New” or “Neo” Babylonians

• Nebuchadnezzar

• Legends about Babylon: Hanging Gardens, 11 mile long wall, walls were supposedly thick enough for a 4 horse chariot to ride on

Solomon’s Temple

Wailing Wall

Lion Hunt