 Mesopotamia  “the land between the rivers”  In the heart of the fertile crescent  By 5000 B.C.E., elaborate irrigation networks built  Surplus of food  Growing population

 Sumer  Southern half of Mesopotamia  Attractive because of agriculture and wealth  Around 4000 B.C.E. first cities were built  City-states developed from need to keep order and protect resources  By 3000 B.C.E. kings took control of the cities

 Human Interaction  Migrants  Wealth of Sumer attracted migrants from other regions (mostly from Semitic peoples)  Semitic languages— Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician.  Semitic peoples=nomadic herders who came from Arabian and Syrian deserts.

 Culture  Government organized work projects (ex. Palaces, temples, defensive walls, etc.)  ZIGGURATS: distinctive stepped pyramids that housed temples and altars to the principal local deity.

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 Cuneiform  World’s earliest known writing—started as pictographs  Used to keep track of commercial transactions and tax collections (economics)  Around 2900 B.C.E. changed to graphic symbols to represent sounds, syllables, ideas and physical objects  Procedure: stylus made from a reed on wet clay  cuneiform= “wedge shaped”

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 Hammurabi and Babylon  Emperor of Babylon from B.C.E  Great administrator— regular taxation and central government  Babylon was capital— deputies sent to other territories

 Hammurabi’s Code  Lex talionis or “law of retaliation”  Helped promote cultural unity throughout the empire  Included civil and criminal laws  Punishment depended on social class  Laws established high standard with strict punishments

 Mesopotamia Overview  Social:  patriarchal society, but women had some rights under Hammurabi’s code  3 social classes (ruling class, priests, commoners)  Political:  organized into city-states  ruled by kings (sons of the gods)  empires created (Sargon, Babylon, Assyria, New Babylon)  Interaction:  population increased with settlements  many diverse peoples migrated  Culture:  polytheistic originally, but also monotheistic Jews  Used irrigation, bronze/iron metallurgy, used the wheel, made ships  Developed cuneiform, astronomy, and mathematics (education)

 Mesopotamia Overview  Economics:  developed effective irrigation, used commoners as laborers  Taxed lower class  Community projects

 Egypt and Nubia  “Gift of the Nile”  Nile River flooded predictably every year  Left behind fertile soil  Nubia, to the south, not as productive.

 Annual flooding of the Nile

 Menes  Unified lower and upper Egypt around 3100 B.C.E.  Founded the capital of Memphis, became cultural and political center  Centralized government ruled by the pharaoh  “gods living on earth”

 Archaic Period and Old Kingdom  Archaic Period ( B.C.E.)  Old Kingdom ( B.C.E.)  Power of pharaohs was greatest  Built pyramids as royal tombs

 New Kingdom ( B.C.E.)  Hyksos (foreign rulers) introduced the horse to Egypt—kicked out to begin the New Kingdom  Elaborate government: separate responsibilities (military, agriculture, courts, treasury, etc.)  Imperialism: controlled coastal region of the Mediterranean and Nubia

 Hieroglyphics  Started around 3200 B.C.E.  “holy inscriptions”  Written on Papyrus— paper-like material fashioned from papyrus reeds

 Religion  Polytheistic  Amon (sun, creation, fertility)  Re (sun)  Monotheistic  Aten (“sole god, like whom there is no other”)

 Cult of Osiris  Dismembered man put back together as god of the underworld  Associated with the Nile (flood, retreat, flood again) and crops (grow, die, grow again)  Osiris has power to decide who got the blessing of immortality  Individual souls had their hearts weighed against a feather—if heavy (evil) no immortality

 Final Judgment of Osiris

 Mummification 1. Linen 6. Natron 2. Sawdust 7. Onion 3. Lichen 8. Nile Mud 4. Beeswax 9. Linen Pads 5. Resin 10. Frankinsense

 Egypt Overview  Social:  military and government administrators, slaves  Patriarchal society  Woman had more influence than in Mesopotamia  Political  Pharaoh was supreme central ruler  Rarely had a woman ruler  Interaction:  Egypt became imperialistic  Conflict with Nubia (Kush)  Culture:  Different forms of writing (hieroglyphics, hieratic “priestly”, Demotic, and Coptic  Scribes led comfortable lives

 Egypt Overview  Economics:  Bronze/Iron metallurgy  Boats could travel both ways fairly easily  Traded with Nubia and eventually around the Mediterranean