The Mediterranean and
Middle East, 2000 – 500 BCE
COSMOPOLITAN MIDDLE EAST
Hittites
• 1600 to 717 B.C.E.
• Upper Mesopotamia/
Anatolia
• Primarily a trading society
• Polytheistic- Hattia, Battle god
• Indo-European language family
• IRON, 1300 B.C.E.
Why Cosmopolitan?
Relationship to Babylon
• Same religion- Gods and goddesses of Babylon
and Sumer
• Changed Hammurabi’s law codes around- made
them far less severe
• Also had city-states
• Hittites invade Babylon 1595 BCE
Relationship to Egypt
• First peace treaty in the world, 1285 BCE
• Forged alliances with Egyptian Kings
• Traded a lot
New Kingdom Egypt
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1532 - 1070 BCE
Overthrew Hyksos (Bronze)
4M people
Bureaucracy that separated gov’t
Akhenaton – monotheism
Rameses II - expansion
Aggressive
Conquered by Kushites then Assyrians
(Iron)
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What factors led to Egypt losing its
isolationist perspective in the Near East?
Aegean World
• Minoan Crete
• MINOANS: c. 2200
B.C.E. (very
approximate) to about
1450/1400 B.C.E.
• Europe’s first advanced
civilization- CRETE
• Very advanced culture,
peaceful
• Strong commercial ties
(especially with Egypt
and Sumer)
• Mycenaean Greece
• Migration to southern
Greece c. 2,000 BCE
of Indo-Europeans
• Lots of contact with
Minoans- traded,
adapted parts of their
culture
• Attacked Crete
(Knossus) c. 1,450
BCE
• Very prosperous
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What are the similarities and differences
between the rise of civilization in the
Aegean Sea area with the rise of earlier
world civilizations?
What are the benefits and limitations of
oral histories?
Assyrian Empire
• 911 to 612 BCE
• BIGGEST EMPIRE WE’VE SEEN SO FAR
• Would DESTROY those who opposed them/take
into slavery
• Transplant across empire BUT opportunities for
conquered to rise within the military/government
• Military
• All powerful kings
• Libraries
• Why have historians called the Assyrian
Empire of the first millennium BCE the first
true empire?
• How were the Assyrians able to conquer
and control such a large and diverse
empire?
• How should the Assyrian Empire be
judged?
Israel
• Existence CONFIRMED by outside sources
(Egyptian steles) in second millennium
• Pastoral nomads from Mesopotamia
• Monotheistic
• Many connections to other Middle Eastern
civilizations
• Monarchs- 1020-930 BCE- Saul, David,
Solomon
• TEMPLE
• Role of prophets
• North kingdom conquered by 722 BCE
Judea conquered 586 BCE
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How reliable are religious documents as
records of history? (Bible)
What were the causes and
consequences of the migrations of the
people ultimately known as the
Israelites?
PHOENICIANS
PHOENICIANS
• 1200-800 BCE (Dominated trade)
• Present-day Lebanon
• Established the “Phoenician Triangle”
• Similar in many ways to Mesopotamia
• Carthage (monopoly/navy)
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How would you describe the nature and
extent of Phoenician expansion in the
Mediterranean?
What is meant by the description of
Carthage as a commercial “empire”?
Some civs still obviously very closely
linked to rivers, but why are others not so
directly centered on rivers?