1. Cities and Civilizations
World History A
Seminar #1
Warm Up: Read pages in World History: Connections to Today and list the eight features of a civilization.

2. Cities and Civilizations Seminar
We begin at about 8,000 BC
when village life began in the New Stone Age. . . Also known as the
Neolithic Revolution.
NEW STONE AGE

3. What is the REVOLUTION? A TOTALLY new way of living:
From
Hunter-Gatherers
to Agriculture
Click on words and pictures for web links.

4. The invention of Agriculture changed the way people lived.
Agriculture (Farming)
Growth of Cities
Division of Labor (Specialization)
Trade
Writing and Mathematics

5. GEOGRAPHY influenced the development of river valley civilizations.
Click on the map for an interactive website map of the four earliest river valley civilizations.

6. Early River Valley Civilizations
Environment
Flooding of Tigris and Euphrates unpredictable
No natural barriers
Limited natural resources for making tools or buildings
Sumer
Flooding of the Nile predictable
Nile an easy transportation link between Egypt’s villages
Deserts were natural barriers
Egypt
Indus Valley
Indus flooding unpredictable
Monsoon winds
Mountains, deserts were natural barriers
Huang He flooding unpredictable
Mountains, deserts natural barriers
Geographically isolated from other ancient civilizations
China

7. Mesopotamia – Fertile Crescent
Sumer – The Earliest of the River Valley Civilizations
Sumerian Civilization grew up along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Kuwait.

8. Find a similar map in e textbook. Define “Fertile Crescent.”

9. Define “Fertile Crescent”
A well-watered and fertile area,
the fertile crescent arcs across the northern part of the Syrian desert. It is flanked on the west by the Mediterranean and on the east by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and includes all or parts of Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. From antiquity this region was the site of sophisticated settlements.

10. (Iraq) Greeks called the northern part of the Fertile Crescent
Mesopotamia “Between Two Rivers”
(Tigris River and Euphrates River)
The southern part of Mesopotamia was called Babylonia, originally Sumer.
Which country is Mesopotamia today?
(Iraq)

11. Sumer - Sumerians (Kuwait) ca. 3500 to 3000 BC. (ca. = circa)
Sumer gave us the city-state.
Define: city-state
Political unit made up of a city and the surrounding lands. Each city state has its own government, even when it shares a culture with neighboring city states.

12. Sumerian Writing: cuneiform
Click on the picture for more information about cuneiform.
Click here to write like a Babylonian.
Cuneiform is created by pressing a pointed stylus into a clay tablet.

13. Sumerians invented: Brick technology Wheel
Base 60 – using the circle degrees
Time – 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute
12 month lunar calendar
arch
ramp
ziggurat

14. Ziggurat – Holy Mountain
Click on the pictures for more information on ziggurats.

15. Babylon Define “rule of law”
Gave us the first know written law code and was the first civilization where the citizens live by the “Rule of Law”
Define “rule of law”
Government by law. The rule of law implies that government authority may only be exercised in accordance with written laws, which were adopted through an established procedure.

16. Hammurabi’s Code - 1792 BC Hammurabi’s Code was this law code.
Hammurabi ruled the Babylonian Empire for 42 years. At the end of his long
reign, Hammurabi’s legal decisions were collected and inscribed on a stone tablet
in a Babylonian temple. The 282 laws of the Code of Hammurabi represent one of the earliest known legal systems.
For more information about Hammurabi’s Code, click here and on the picture.

17. “If a man stole the property of church or state, that man shall be put to death; also the one who received the stolen goods from his hand shall be put to death.”
The laws governed such things as lying, stealing, assault, debt, business partnerships, marriage, and divorce. In seeking protection for all members of Babylonian society, Hammurabi relied on the philosophy of equal retaliation, otherwise known as “an eye for an eye.”

18. EGYPT “The Gift of the Nile” (Herodotus)
Look at the map and answer the following question:
What did Herodotus mean when he said that Egypt is the “gift of the Nile?”
Nile River
Sahara Desert
Because of the geography of the area, without the Nile River, there would be no Egypt.

19. Egyptians invented: Hieroglyphics Pyramids Geometry
Advances in medicine and surgery

20. Hieroglyphics
Early Egyptian writing found on tombs was indecipherable.
Hieroglyphics
Sacred Carving
No one could read these sacred carvings until Napoleon invaded Egypt and his archaeologists found the Rosetta Stone.
Click on the picture to see your name in hieroglyphics.

21. Video: Write a short summary of the finding, translation, and importance of the Rosetta Stone.
For more information on the Rosetta Stone, log on to one of the following web sites. OR

22. Papyrus is one of the first examples of paper
Papyrus is one of the first examples of paper. It is created from reeds growing along the Nile River.
Papyrus

23. Indus River Valley (page 53) 2500 BC – 1500 BC
Around 2600 B.C. the various regional cultures were united in what is called the Indus Valley Civilization. It is also commonly referred to as the Harappan culture after the town of Harappa (where it was first discovered.)
Click on the map for more information about ancient Indus River valley civilizations

24. Excavations at the ancient Harappan and Mohenjo Daro mounds revealed well planned cities and towns built on massive mud brick platforms that protected the inhabitants against seasonal floods. In the larger cities the houses were built of baked brick while at smaller towns most houses were built of sun-dried mud brick. Each city is laid out in a grid pattern and shows signs of stunningly modern plumbing systems.
Much writing has been found at these sites, but it has not yet been translated.

25. Shang China 1600 BC – 1122 BC
Lack of contact with foreigners helped give the Chinese a strong sense of identity and superiority. They regarded their land as the only civilized land and called it Zhongguo or the Middle Kingdom. This Chinese isolation contributed to the Chinese belief that China was at the center of the earth and the sole source of civilization.
Turn to the map on page 60. Note the geographic features which isolated China.

26. The first true emperor of China, was Shi Huangdi.
Turn to page 90.
Shi Huangdi’s most remarkable achievement was the Great Wall.
Click here for a panoramic tour of the Great Wall. Read the information under the pictures and send your teacher a postcard from one of the panoramic sites to show that you visited! Click on each picture here to see more information on Shi Huangdi and the Great Wall.