Hist 100
World Civilization I
Instructor: Dr. Donald R. Shaffer
Upper Iowa University
Lecture 2
Sumerians (1)
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Generally credited as the first
“civilization” appearing in what
is today Iraq around 3,000 BCE
Sumerian civilization grew
around the Tigris and Euphrates
(Mesopotamia), rivers that while
they nourished civilization,
because of their unpredictable
flow lent a pessimistic and
capriciousness to the Sumerian
worldview
Sumerian civilization centered
around “city-states”
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City states sometimes went to
war with each other, at other
times cooperated
Tigris and
Euphrates
Rivers
in
Mesopotamia
Lecture 2
Sumerians (2)
 Cuneiform
 A system of writing devised
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by the Sumerians
Scribes pressed wedges into
damp clay tablets
Partly symbolic, partly
phonetic, it enabled the
Sumerians to express
symbolic ideas in writing
Difficult to learn, hence
literacy largely limited to
scribes and the elite
Scribes also scholarly class,
studying math, botany and
language
Sumerian
Cuneiform
Lecture 2
Sumerians (3)
 Sumerian Culture
 Religion:
 Polytheistic: believed in a
hierarchy of gods
 Anthropomorphic: gods
behaved like human beings,
had constantly to be
appeased
 Literature
 Suggested by some scholars
as source for creation myth in
the Bible
 Epic of Gilgamesh
 Three social classes
 Nobles
 Commoners
 Slaves
Ziggurat
Lecture 2
Sumerian successors
 The proof of the success of
Sumerian civilization is the
extent to which they were
copied by successors
 Successors were various
Semitic peoples that moved
into Mesopotamia
 Copied Sumerian writing
system, Gods, etc.
 Akkadian Empire
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Sumerians conquered by
Sargon in 2331 BCE,
leader of the Semetic
Akkadians
 Babylonians (Amorites)
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Another Semetic people
who conquered Mesopotamia 100 years later
Code of Hammurabi
Code of Hammurabi
(on display at the Louvre)
Lecture 2
Egypt (1)
 The Nile
 Just as the Tigris and
Euphrates defined life in
ancient Mesopotamia, the
River Nile shaped ancient
Egypt
 It flooded regularly and
gently, replenishing the fields
of the Nile Valley
 These fields produced
abundant crops which made
the great achievement of the
ancient Egyptians possible
 The easy navigation of the
river also made it easy to
unify the country and keep it
unified
The Nile Valley as
seen from space
Lecture 2
Egypt (2)
 Periods of Egyptian History
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Archaic
Old Kingdom
1st Intermediate
Middle Kingdom
2nd Intermediate
New Kingdom
3100-2600 BCE
2660-2180 BCE
2180-2080 BCE
2080-1640 BCE
1640-1570 BCE
1570-700 BCE
Unification of Egypt
Construction of Pyramids
Political chaos
Recovery & political stability
Hyksos “invasion”
Creation of Egyptian Empire
Akhenatan’s “heresy”
Lecture 2
Egypt (3)
 Egyptian Culture
 Religion
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Like the Sumerians, the
Egyptians were polytheistic
Because of the political unity
of Egypt, they all worshipped
the same gods
The pharaoh was at the
center of this religion, as a
god in human form
Egyptian religion was less an
attempt to appease the gods,
but to prepare for the afterlife
Many monumental structures,
most notably the pyramids,
had that purpose
Mortuary Temple of
Hatschepsut
near Thebes (modern Luxor)
Lecture 2
Egypt (4)
 Egyptian Culture (cont.)
 Social Structure
 Egyptian population mostly
free, but subject to labor calls
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The pyramids were built this
way
No caste system—a person
of humble origins could rise
as high as their talent would
take them
 The deserts surrounding
Egypt largely isolated the
country during its early
history
 Hyksos “invasion” (c. 1640
BCE)

Ended Egypt’s relative
isolation from the world
Contemporary depictions of
Ancient Egyptian peasants
Lecture 2
Indus Valley Civilization (1)
 Like in other areas,
civilization in on the Indian
subcontinent began in a river
valley
 Centered in the Indus River
Valley in modern Pakistan
 Knowledge of the Indus
Valley civilization is limited
because no one has been
able to decipher its written
language
 What historians have learned
primarily comes through
archeology
Lecture 2
Indus Valley Civilization (2)
 Evidence seems to suggest a
gradual evolution from
Neolithic until civilization
emerged about 2500 BCE
 They built impressive cities
 Mohenjo-Daro may have had
a population of 100,000
 Some city neighborhoods
laid out in a grid. Something
thought to have originated
later with the Greeks
 Impressive drainage systems
to funnel wastes out of the
cities
Lecture 2
Indus Valley Civilization (3)
 There appears to have been
contact between the Indus
Valley Civilization and
Mesopotamia
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Pottery and other artifacts
of Indus Valley have been
found in Mesopotamian
archeological sites
 The decline of the Indus
Valley civilization is as
obscure as its origin and
history
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Your textbook makes the
case for decline due to a
man-made ecological crisis
 Other scholars have
suggested natural
calamities
 Also hard to make connections
to later Indian civilizations