1. Homework Middle East Review Book Assignment due tomorrow. Outline on Belief Systems (essay 11 in the green packet) due tomorrow Castle Learning #5 (sections 7 and 8 in the yellow packet) due Thursday at 11:59 pm. Extra credit thematic essay due Friday.

2. Middle East Regents Review May 31, 2016

3. Neolithic Revolution (10,000 B.C. – 3000 B.C.) -People stop being nomadic, create the first permanent settlements (villages/cities). This leads to: The start of farming and domestication of animals. A surplus of food = specialization of jobs The first governments and civilizations (many of the earliest civilizations will have traditional economies).

4. Ancient Mesopotamia Mesopotamia (Iraq) – Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, part of the fertile crescent. Ancient Sumerians – invented the wheel and earliest writing system (Cueniform)

5. Hammurabi’s Code Created in Mesopotamia by King Hammurabi of the Babylonian Empire. One of the first written codes of laws “Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Social classes were treated differently (rich were treated better than the poor, men were treated better than women).

6. Egyptian Civilization – “Gift of the Nile” – Hieroglyphics, pyramids, irrigation systems, papyrus – Polytheistic/theocratic (Pharaoh was incarnation of Sun God) – Great location for trade along river, river cataracts (rapids and waterfalls) interfered with trade along the Nile at certain locations. – Sahara desert offered protection from invaders, Mediterranean offered protection at first

7. Alexander the Great Alexander the Great of Macedonia established an empire in the 300s B.C. that stretched from the Adriatic Sea to India. He conquered the Persian Empire and brought much of the Middle East under his control. Alexandria in Egypt became a great center of learning and culture, and Hellenistic (Greek) culture and education were spread through the empire.

8. Islam (followers are Muslims) Monotheistic religion (just like Judaism and Christianity) Founded by Muhammad. Holy book in the Qur’an, people pray in mosques, follow the Five Pillars: – Faith in one god (Allah) – Praying five times a day in the direction of Mecca (city where Muhammad was born) – Help the poor – Fast during the holy month of Ramadan – Visit the holy city of Mecca at least once in your lifetime (hajj). Muslim Empire in the Middle East (600’s-1200’s): The Umayyad and Abbasid Dynasties preserve Greek and Roman knowledge, have major accomplishments in art, literature, philosophy, medicine and math (create algebra), tolerant of other cultures. Split into Sunni and Shia sects over who the successor to Muhammad should be: still in conflict today.

9. Muslim Empire

10. Byzantine Empire (500s-1400s) – Eastern ½ of Roman Empire survived in modern Turkey, spread Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the cyrillic alphabet to Russia – Capital was Constantinople, great location for trade, founded by Constantine, (1 st Christian Emperor) – Emperor Justinian codified (wrote down) laws, influenced modern European laws (Justinian’s Code) – Preserved Greek and Roman architecture, art, literature, philosophy, and law codes – Destroyed by Islamic Ottoman Turkish Empire