 Sumer: BCE  Ancient Egypt: BCE  Indus Valley: BCE  China:  Shang BCE  Zhou BCE

 Rivers provide drinking water, fish, game, and transportation for people, armies, and products.  Flooding deposits a layer of silt – rich soil.  To control floods and store water for the dry season – dikes, reservoirs, and irrigation canals were constructed.

 Cities  Organized Central governments  Priest-kings were followed by military leaders who were followed by hereditary monarchs  Bureaucracy - government organized into departments  Complex Religion  Polytheistic – belief in many gods that control the forces of nature  Most gods behave like humans

 Job Specialization/Social Classes ~ Hierarchy  Priests  Nobles  Wealthy Merchants  Government Workers  Artisans (skilled craft workers)  Soldiers  Peasant Farmers  Slaves

 Public Works  Irrigation Systems  Roads  Bridges  Defensive Walls  Arts & Architecture  Writing

 Cuneiform – 3200BCE  First-Known Writing  Wedge-like shapes made on clay tablets

HIEROGLYPHICS

 Seals have not been deciphered.

ANCIENT CHARACTERSMODERN CHARACTERS

 Tigris and Euphrates rivers – unpredictable floods  Fertile Crescent: Persian Gulf to Mediterranean Sea  Mesopotamia (between the rivers)  Modern-day Iraq  City-States constantly fought

 Nile River – 4160 miles – longest in the world.  Center of a ten-mile wide strip of fertile land.  The desert protected against invasion, but limited settlement and the acquisition of new ideas.

 Indus River  modern-day Pakistan  Barriers

HUANG HE RIVER AKA YELLOW RIVER AKA RIVER OF SORROWS

 Goal was to keep gods happy with sacrifices and ceremonies.  Each city-state had a special god or goddess.  Fear of natural disasters led to a pessimistic world view.  At death, people went to a huge cave filled with dust and silence.  Inanna and Dumuzi

 Village gods  Afterlife = Good go to Happy Field of Food – Bad go to crocodile-shaped eater of the dead.  Mummification to provide a home for the soul.  Wealthy entombed with everything needed for eternity.  Pharaoh considered a god – son of Amon-Re.

 Figurines representing a mother goddess and a three-faced god have been discovered.  Sacred animals included the bull.  Certain trees were revered.

 Shang Ti ruled over the other gods.  Priests acted as intermediaries between humans and the gods.  Veneration (respect) of ancestors because deceased relatives would intervene with the gods on your behalf.  Household gods oversee activities in the home.  Taoism/Daoism  Confucianism  Legalism

 Mandate of Heaven – gods grant the right to rule to a dynasty  Dynastic Cycle – rise and fall of dynasties (ruling families)

 First Writing – Cuneiform  First Wheeled Vehicles – carts and war chariots  Basic Algebra & Geometry  Number System based on 6 ~ 360-degree circle & 60-minute hour  Accurate 12-month Calendar tracked seasons  Ziggurats  First to use arches, columns, ramps  Complex Irrigation Systems

 Old Kingdom – BCE – Pyramid Age  Pharaohs, Mummification, Pyramids  Middle Kingdom – BCE – Turbulent Age  Major Construction – land drainage, canal to Red Sea, temples at Luxor & Karnak  New Kingdom – BCE – Empire Age  Empire at its largest – from Kush to the Euphrates  Famous Rulers: Akhenaton, Hatshepsut, Ramses II

 Women had high status  Education for wealthy males  Geometry  Astronomy  Engineering  Painting, Sculpture, Literature  Best medicine in the ancient world

 Son-in-law (maybe son) of Akhenaton ruled BCE.  Died at 19.  Tomb discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.  Curse: many associated with the opening of the tomb died soon after – fueling the legend ~ true cause = mold.

 Written in Hieroglyphics (important and religious documents), Demotic (everyday script), and Greek (rulers at the time).  Written in 196BCE and discovered by one of Napoleon’s men in 1799.

 Discovered in 1922  Cities: Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro and farming villages over 950 miles  First city planning: grid pattern, uniform building style, rectangular city blocks, plumbing  First to cultivate and weave cotton

SHANGZHOU  Small kingdoms  Silk Making  Bronze Tools  Characters  Oracle Bones – Questions written on bones or tortoise shells  Astronomy  Feudalism  Iron Tools & Weapons  Use of Money  First Books  Soybeans