SOUTHWEST ASIA
AND EGYPT
The Ancient and Classical
Period
CYCLE OF CIVILIZATION
 Nomadic group overruns sedentary area
 Nomadic group settles down
 Nomadic group adopts sedentary culture
 New culture rises to greater heights
 Culture weakens
 Culture overrun by new nomadic group
 Common civilization preserved,
 Typical for all river valley civilizations
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STATE STRUCTURES
 Sumerian City-states
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Small, independent but not totally autonomous
Local differences but much similarity
Run originally by priests, then warrior-kings
Aristocratic nobles assisted kings
 Akkadian Empire
 Conquest state
 Tribute state
 Cuneiform culture of Sumer but Semitic
2nd STATE STRUCTURES
 Ever larger conquest empires
 Egypt
 Three periods called Kingdoms
 First two periods, Old and Middle are ancient
 New Kingdom is an empire
 Pharaoh became increasingly “human”
 Priests had enormous power in government
 Babylonian and Assyrian Empires
 Conquest, tribute empires
 Old Babylonian Empire: Hammurabi’s Code
 Assyrian Empire used terror, regular army
SOCIAL STRUCTURES
 Ruling Classes
 Aristocracy
 Royalty
 Nobility
 Priestly and Military
 Other Classes
 “Free” classes
 Merchants
 Artisans
 Intellectuals
 Peasants and slaves
GENDER STRUCTURES
 Patriarchal
 Patrilocal
 Polygamous
 Male Roles
 Female Roles: Public vs. Private
CULTURAL
 Religious
 Polytheist, anthropomorphism of nature
 Priests hold great power, own land, temples
 Divine Right vs. Theocracy
 Intellectual
 Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics: Scribes
 Literatures: Gilgamesh, Book of the Dead
 Arts and Architecture
 Public Architecture, public art
 Art Conventions very rigid
TECHNOLOGY
 Man is a tool maker and user
 The ability to make and use tools
 Man innovates to meet needs, deficiencies
 Sumer is major source of first inventions
 Metallurgy: Iron Age
 Maths and Sciences
 Tools
DEMOGRAPHY/ENVIRONMENT
 Man alters his environment
 More pronounced in Mesopotamia
 Environment is unpredictable, harsher
 Irrigation, dikes, dams, sluices
 Agriculture alters environment
 All societies were overwhelmingly agrarian
 Heavy agriculture increases human population
 Some crops really deplete soil
 Cities are artificial and alter environment
 Extreme concentration of humans in small space
 Wastes, diseases concentrated
INTERACTIONS
 Movement
 Human migration: pastoralists, mass migration
 Semites: Arabs, Jews, Hyksos, Nubians, Phoenicians
 Indo-Europeans, Indo-Iranians: Hittites, Medes/Persians
 Culture, social blending
 Disruptions
 War
 Interaction increases as resources become rare
 As technology improves, so does war
 Diplomacy arises as conflicts increase
 Exchanges such as Trade, Diseases
 Goods and skills exchanged
 Ideas, diseases exchanged
TWO EXCEPTIONS
 Hebrews
 Abraham: Origins – nomadic pastorialist
 Ethical Monotheism
 Yahweh, Moses, Covenant, Commandments
 Phoenicians
 Traders throughout Mediterranean
 Artisans: Cloth, Dye, Metallurgy
 Alphabet: Aleph and Beth