The First River Valley Civilizations,
3500 – 1500 B.C.E.
Civilization
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Cities
Government
Artisan, craftsmen
Social Structure
Writing
Trade
Art, and Science
I.
Mesopotamia
A. Settled Agriculture in an Unstable
Landscape
1. Mesopotamia is a Greek word
meaning “land between the rivers”.
2. Mesopotamia civilization developed
in the plain alongside and between the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Mesopotamia
3. Agriculture did not come to
Mesopotamia until appx. 5000 B.C.E.
4. By about 4000 B.C.E., farmers were
using plows pulled by cattle to turn over the
Earth.
5. Shortly after 3000 B.C.E. they
learned to construct canals to supply water
as needed.
6. The earliest people living in Mesopotamia in
the “historical period” are the Sumerians.
7. They created the main framework of
civilization in Mesopotamia.
8. Eventually, Semitic speaking peoples from
the northerly cities became dominant culturally
and the language of Mesopotamia became
dominantly Akkadian by about 2000 B.C.E.
Sumerian or Sumer
B. Cities, Kings, and Trade
1. Mesopotamia was a land of villages and
cities.
2. Cities were not developed for the purpose
of becoming cities. In fact, most cities started
with combination of one or more villages.
3. We use the term city-state to refer to
independent ancient urban centers and the
agricultural territories they controlled.
4. The production of food was vital to the
survival of the Mesopotamians that they opened
new land to agriculture by the production of
irrigation.
5. This could only be done by compelling large
numbers of people to work together.
6. The two centers of power for which there
are written records are the temple and the palace
of the king.
7. Each Mesopotamian city contained a central
temple that housed the cult of the cities deity or
deities.
8. By the 3rd millennium B.C.E., another type
of figure arose called the “lugal” or “big man”.
9. The first truly epic piece of literature comes
from Mesopotamia and is called “The Epic of
Gilgamesh”. It was probably based on the stories
of the king of Uruk.
Gilgamesh tablet
10. Eventually after the fall of the Akkadians
and the city of Ur came the Amorites which
founded a city named Babylon.
11. The best known Babylonian king was a
man named Hammurabi.
12. Hammurabi is best known for his law
code, inscribed on a polished black stone pillar.
13. This code provided judges with a lengthy
set of examples illustrating the principles they
were to employ in deciding cases.
C. Mesopotamian Society
1. One persistent feature of urbanized
civilizations is the development of social
divisions.
2. Society was divided into three
classes: (1) the free, landowning class (2)
farmers and artisans (3) slaves.
3. Penalties for crimes in the Law Code
depended on the class of the offender.
4. Women have no political role, but
they were able to own property, maintain
control of their dowry, and even engage in
trade.
5. Some women worked outside the
household, in textile factories and breweries
or as prostitutes, tavern keepers, bakers,
and fortunetellers.
D. Gods, Priests, and Temples
1. The ancient Mesopotamians believed
in a multitude of gods who embodied the
forces of nature. (polytheistic = belief in
many gods.)
2. For the Sumerians the god Anu was
the sky, Enlil the air, Enki the water, Utu the
sun, Nanna the moon.
3. The Mesopotamians feared their gods and
believed the gods were responsible for the
changes that occurred.
4. Mesopotamian creation myths, like all
creation myths, were generally intended to give a
satisfactory explanation for their environment.
5. The most visible part of the temple
compound was the ziggurat. A multistory, mud
bricked, pyramid-shaped tower approached by
ramps and stairs.
Ziggurat
E. Technology and Science
1. The word technology means “specialized
skill”
2. One example of technology employed by
the Mesopotamians was irrigation.
3. Another example of technology is their
writing system which first appeared before 3300
B.C.E.
4. Their most common method of writing is
called Cuneiform. It is not a language but a
system of writing.
Cuneiform
Egypt
A. The land of Egypt: “Gift of the Nile”
1. The most fundamental geographical
feature of Egypt, ancient and modern, is
the Nile River.
2. The Nile originates at Lake Victoria
and flows northward toward the
Mediterranean Sea.
II.
Nile River
3. Nearly the entire population of the
region lives in the twisting, green ribbon
alongside the river. 90% of the geography
is a bleak and inhabitable desert of
mountains, rocks, and dunes.
4. The ancient Egyptians referred to
life-sustaining dark soil as the “Black Land”
and the deadly outlying desert as the “Red
Land”
5. Because of Egypt’s relative
geographic isolation and natural
environment its culture was unique.
6. The Nile River was the main means
of travel and communication.
7. Because the river flows south to
north the southern part of the country is
called “Upper Egypt” and the northern part
of the country is called “Lower Egypt”.
Upper and Lower Egypt
B. Divine Kingship
1. The pivotal event in Egyptian history
was the unification of both Upper and Lower
Egypt by King Menes.
2. King Menes, a ruler from the south
around 3100 B.C.E., was either a historical
figure or a mythical one. We’re not sure!
3. In contract to Mesopotamia, Egypt
was unified early in its history.
4. Historians typically organize Egyptian
history into thirty dynasties (kings from the same
family) identified by Manetho, and Egyptian from
the 3rd century B.C.E.
5. From a much broader point of view,
scholars also refer Egyptian history as the “Old”,
“Middle”, and “New Kingdoms”.
6. The central figure in the Egyptian state was
the King aka Pharaoh - which wasn’t used until
the period of the “New Kingdom”.
7. Unlike the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians
believed the Pharaoh was a god come to earth.
8. They also believed that the Pharaoh had
been placed on earth by the gods to maintain
ma’at, divinely authorized order of the universe.
9. Because the Egyptians believed the
Pharaoh was divine they felt no need to write a
law code like Hammurabi did in Mesopotamia.
10. The death of a Pharaoh was such a
critical moment in Egypt that Djoser, a 3rd
dynasty king, ordered the construction of a
step pyramid for a burial tomb.
11. Between 2550 and 2490 B.C.E., the
Pharaohs Khufu and Khefren erected huge
pyramids at Giza – the largest stone
structures ever built by human hands.
Pyramids of Giza
C. Administration and Communication
1. Various cities served as the capitals of
Egypt based entirely on the preference of the
Pharaoh.
2. Memphis, on the lower Nile near the apex
of the delta, held the central position during the
Old Kingdom.
3. Thebes, far to the south, came to
prominence during much of the Middle and New
Kingdom periods.
4. A system of writing, called Hieroglyphics,
were picture symbols standing for words, syllables,
or individual sounds.
5. Early Hieroglyphics were laborious to
reproduce and cursive script eventually replaced it.
6. By 2500 B.C.E., administrators working with
ink wrote on a material called papyrus, after the
reed from which it was made.
Papyrus Script
D. The People of Egypt
1. The population of ancient Egypt is
estimated at between 1 million and 1.5
million people.
2. It was physically heterogeneous,
ranging from dark-skinned people related to
the populations of sub-Saharan Africa to
light-skinned people akin to North Africa
and western Asia.
3. At the top of their Social Stratification were
the King and high-ranking officials.
4. In the middle were low-level officials, local
leaders, priests and other professionals.
5. At the bottom were peasants, constituting
the vast majority of the population.
6. Compared with Mesopotamia, the Egyptian
population was more rural and agricultural.
7. Slavery existed on a limited scale but
was of little significance for the economny.
8. Women, for the most part, were
treated more respectfully and had more
legal rights and social freedom compared to
women in Mesopotamia.
E. Belief and Knowledge
1. The religion of the Egyptians was
rooted in the landscape of the Nile Valley
and in the vision of cosmic order that this
environment evoked.
2. Unlike in Mesopotamia, the river rose
on schedule every year, ensuring a
bounteous harvest.
The Indus Valley Civilization
A. Material Culture
1. The Indus Valley civ. flourished from appx.
2600 to 1900 B.C.E.
2. It thrived in the floodplain of the Indus
River and the now dried up Hakra River 25
miles east of the Indus.
2. This particular culture is best known from
two of its largest cities: Harrappa and MohenjoDaro.
III.
Indus Valley
3. The culture built major urban centers
that swelled in population to 35,000 people.
4. Like the Egyptians and
Mesopotamians, the Indus valley civ had a
writing system.
5. This writing system contains at least
four hundred signs to represent syllables
and words.
Writing System
6. Indus valley cities were arranged in a
rectangular grid that allowed for easy
transportation.
7. The regular size of the streets and
length of the city blocks have been taken as
evidence for a strong central authority.