World History
Chapter 2
Early River Valley Civilizations
Let’s Preview the Chapter…
What do you know about large rivers and
the land that borders Dublin, Georgia or
even the state of Georgia?
 Do many people live by these large rivers?
Why? Or Why not?
 How would their lives be different if they
didn’t have rivers?

Let’s Preview the Chapter…

You will learn about very early societies.
These people had few models upon which
to build their civilizations. Their response
to their environment, to organizing their
social system, and to finding technological
solutions to everyday problems formed a
foundation for most of the societies that
followed them.
Previewing Main Ideas pg. 26
What rivers helped sustain the four river
civilizations?
 In which empire and river valley area was
the first code of laws developed?
 Which river valley civilization was the most
isolated? What factors contributed to that
isolation?

Timeline Discussion pgs. 26-27
What is the meaning of B.C. and A.D.
before or after a date?
 How many years passed between the
development of the first city-states and
the formation of China’s Zhou Dynasty?
 What famous code of laws developed in
1792 B.C.?

Timeline Discussion

The earliest event shown on the time line
occurred how many years before the
present?
Section 1 Vocabulary
Fertile Crescent – the Mesopotamian
region with a curved shape and richness
of its land led to its being called a fertile
crescent.
 This area includes the lands facing the
Mediterranean Sea and a plain that
became known as Mesopotamia. The
word in greek means “land between
rivers”. (Tigris and Euphrates)

Section 1 Vocabulary
Section 1 Vocabulary
Mesopotamia – land between the rivers.
 The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flow
southeastward to the Persian Gulf.
 These rivers flooded Mesopotamia at least
once a year.
 The flood water left a thick bed of mud
called silt. Farmers used this rich soil and
river water to yield large quantities of
wheat and barley.

Section 1 Vocabulary

Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
Section 1 Vocabulary
City-State – functioned as an
independent country of today does.
 Sumerian city-states included Uruk, Kish,
Lagash, Umma and Ur.

Section 1 Vocabulary
Dynasty – military leaders who became
full time rulers passed down their power
to their sons, who would eventually pass
down power to their heirs.
 This series of rulers from a single family is
called a dynasty.

Section 1 Vocabulary
Cultural Diffusion – the exchanging of
products and ideas with neighboring
cultures. A new product or idea spreads
from one culture to another.
 Polytheism – The belief in more than
one god.

Section 1 Vocabulary
Empire – brings together several peoples,
nations, or previously independent states
under the control of one ruler.
 Hammurabi – a Babylonian king who
caused Babylon to reach its peak during
his reign from 1792 BC to 1750 BC.
 His most enduring legacy is the code of
laws he put together called the Code of
Hammurabi.

Section 1 Vocabulary

Hammurabi
Section 1 Study Question

The lands that made up the Fertile
Crescent region faced the Mediterranean
Sea. The land itself is made up of a plain
that is located directly between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers.
Section 1 Study Question
The importance of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers was the yearly
flooding that they both did which left a
thick layer of muddy soil that contained
fertilized dirt called silt.
 Farmers planted grain in this rich new soil
and irrigated fields with the river water.
 The results were large yields of wheat and
barley.

Section 1 Study Question
Three environmental challenges for the
people who began to settle in the
Mesopotamian:
 Unpredictable flooding combined with a period
of little or no rain. The land sometimes almost
became a desert.
 With no natural barriers for protection, a
Sumerian village was nearly defenseless.
 The natural resources of Sumer were limited.
Building materials and other necessary items
were scarce.

Section 1 Study Question
The Sumer people overcame these
challenges by:
 For water they dug irrigation ditches that carried
river water to their fields and allowed them to
produce a surplus of crops.
 For defense they built city walls with mud bricks.
 Sumerians traded grain, cloth, and crafted tools
with the peoples of the mountains and desert.
In exchange, they received raw materials such
as stone, wood, and metal.

Section 1 Study Question
A city-state functioned much like a
present day country does today.
 Military leaders gained power in the
city-states by frequent wars that led the
Sumerians to give military leaders control
of standing armies. These leaders
eventually took political power.

Section 1 Study Question
Sumerians believed that many different
gods controlled the forces of nature.
 Sumerians gave human qualities to their
gods such as falling in love, having
children, quarreling, etc.
 Sumerians build impressive ziggurats for
the sacrifice of animals, wine and food.
 Sumerians worked hard to earn their
gods’ protection.

Section 1 Study Question
Sumerians believed that the souls of the
dead went to the “land of no return”. (a
place between the Earth’s crust and the
ancient sea)
 2nd Question: Sumerians had social
classes which went from the noble (kings
and rulers) to slaves.

Section 1 Study Question
The Sumerians invented the wheel, sail
and plow and were the first to use bronze.
 Some other Sumerian inventions were:
 Arithmetic and geometry
 Architectural innovations such as arches,
columns, ramps, pyramids.
 Cuneiform – a system of writing.

Section 1 Study Question

An Empire differs from a city-state
because a city-state controls only a city
and its surrounding territory, whereas an
empire controls many peoples, nations,
and states.
Section 1 Study Question
Sargon of Akkad was a conqueror, ruler, and
renowned military leader who defeated the citystates of Sumer.
 Sargon marched his army from Akkad to
Sumer.
 The Akkadians had already adopted many of the
Sumerian cultural traits before the conquest.
 By taking control of the both northern and
southern Mesopotamia-he created the world’s
first empire. His dynasty lasted 200 years.

Section 1 Study Question
Section 1 Study Question

The value of making the punishments for
crimes in Hammurabi’s Code public to all
was so that all could know the severity of
the punishments and this might cause
prevention of people breaking the law.
Section 1 Study Question
Hammurabi’s Code of Law advanced
civilizations because it established a
uniform law code for his empire.
 It also reinforced the idea that
government had a responsibility to its
citizens.

Section 2 Vocabulary
 Delta – a broad, marshy, triangular area
of land formed by deposits of silt at the
mouth of the river.
 The Nile Delta begins about 100 miles
before the river enters the Mediterranean
Sea.
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Narmer – the Egyptian king given credit
for uniting Upper and Lower Egypt into
one kingdom.
 Historical evidence shows that the king of
Lower Egypt wore a red crown, and the
king of Upper Egypt wore a white crown.
Narmer is said to have worn a crown that
was red on one side and white on the
other, showing unity of the two kingdoms.
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Pharaoh – Egyptian god kings who were
thought to be almost as splendid and
powerful as the gods of the heavens.
 The pharaoh stood at the center of
Egypt’s religion, government and army.
 The Egyptian’s felt that is was the
pharaoh’s responsibility to see to the
kingdom’s well-being.
Section 2 Vocabulary
The Egyptian’s felt that the pharaoh
caused the sun to rise, the Nile to flood,
and the crops to grow.
 It was the pharaoh’s duty to promote
justice and truth.

Section 2 Vocabulary
 Theocracy – type of government in
which rule is based on religious authority.
 Pyramid – a resting place after death.

These remarkable monuments were
engineering achievements, built by people
who had not yet even began to use the
wheel.
Section 2 Vocabulary
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Mummification – the process by which
elite or royal Egyptians’ bodies were
preserved. The bodies would be
embalmed and dried to prevent it from
decaying.
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Hieroglyphics – simple pictographs.
The term comes from the Greek words
hieros and gluph, meaning sacred carving.
 With this type of writing, a picture stands
for a word or idea, just as with the
Sumerians and cunieform.
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Papyrus – a writing surface created by
the Egyptians made from papyrus reeds.
 These reeds grow in the marshy Nile
delta. The reeds are split into narrow
strips and placed in two layers while
damp, and pressed. As the plant’s sap
dries, the sap sticks the sheets together
into a paper-like sheet.
Section 2 Study Question
Egypt is referred to as the “Gift of the Nile”
because just as in Mesopotamia, the Nile
brought yearly flooding in July from rain and
melting snow from the mountains which cause
to river to exceed its banks.
 In an otherwise parched land, the abundance of
water brought great farming opportunities. The
Egyptians worshipped the river as a god who
gave life and sometimes took life. Therefore it
was nicknamed the “Gift of the Nile”.

Section 2 Study Question

The difference between the flooding of the
Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates
in Mesopotamia is that the Nile flooded
with greater regularity than the others.
Section 2 Study Question
The environmental risks that the Egyptians
faced were far better than those of the
Mesopotamian farmers since the flooding
of the Nile River was more predictable.
 However there were still risks such as:
 When flood waters were a little lower than
normal, the amount of fresh silt and water
for crops was greatly reduced. As a
result, people starved.

Section 2 Study Question
When floodwaters were a few feet above
flood level, the unwanted water destroyed
houses, granaries, and seeds.
 The vast desert on either side of Egypt
acted as natural barriers between Egypt
and other lands. This forced Egyptians to
live on a small piece of land and not have
interaction with other people.

Section 2 Study Question
Cataracts are the point in the Nile River
in interior Africa where boulders turn the
river into churning rapids.
 These cataracts made it impossible for
riverboats to pass this spot.
 The two regions that lay between the
cataracts is Upper Egypt and Lower
Egypt.

Section 2 Study Question

Upper Egypt – the Nile River region that
is in the southern part of Egypt. The
elevation of the land is higher here which
is why it is called upper. It is a skinny
strip of land from the first cataract to the
point where the river fans out into many
branches.
Section 2 Study Question

Lower Egypt – is to the North near the
Mediterranean Sea. Lower Egypt includes
the Nile Delta region.
Section 2 Study Question
The difference between the Old,
Middle, and New Kingdoms of Egypt:
 Old Kingdom – (2700 – 2200 BC)
Pharaohs had absolute power and were
considered gods on Earth. Pharaohs were
buried in pyramids only during this time
period.

Section 2 Study Question
 Middle
Kingdom – (2100 to 1800 BC)
This was considered as Egypt’s “Golden
Age”. Trade, arts and literature
flourished. Pharaoh’s were expected to be
good kings and wise rulers.
 During this time pharaoh’s were buried in
hidden locations, not in large pyramids.
Section 2 Study Question
New Kingdom – (1500 to 1000 BC)
Egypt’s expansion period. Egypt
expanded her borders through military
conquest and became a world power.
 Pharaoh’s were all powerful and were
buried in one geographic location called
the “Valley of the Kings”.

Section 3 Vocabulary
 Subcontinent – the landmass that
includes India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
 These countries make up the Indian
subcontinent.
 A wall of the world’s highest mountains
separates this region from the rest of the
Asian continent.
 The mountains are the Hindu Kush,
Karakorum, and the Himalayas.
Section 3 Vocabulary
Section 3 Vocabulary
 Monsoon – seasonal winds that
dominated India’s climate.
 From October to February, winter
monsoons from the northeast blow dry air
westward across the country.
 From the middle of June through October,
the winds shift and blow eastward from
the southwest, carrying moisture from the
ocean in great rain clouds.
Section 3 Vocabulary
Section 3 Vocabulary
 Harappan
Civilization – settlements
along the Indus River and its tributaries
mostly in what is modern-day Pakistan.
 The largest cities were Kalibangan,
Mahenjo-Daro and Harappa.
Section 3 Study Question
The mountains and deserts made good
forms of protection for the people of the
Indus Valley civilization.
 The rivers provided water and fertile soil.

Section 3 Study Question





The geography of the Indian Subcontinent consists of
the world’s tallest mountains to the north and a large
desert to the east which helps to protect from invasions.
The mountains guard and enormous flat and fertile plain
formed by the Ganges and Indus Rivers.
Much of the lower Indus Valley is occupied by the Thar
Desert
The southern part of he subcontinent is a peninsula that
thrusts out into the Indian Ocean.
The center of the peninsula is the Deccan Plateau which
is framed by a small mountain range called the Ghats.
Section 3 Study Question
The environmental challenges that Indus
River Valley farmers faced were:
 Just as the Sumerian civilization, floods of
the rivers were unpredictable.
 The rivers sometimes changed course.
 The cycle of wet and dry seasons brought
by the monsoon winds was unpredictable.
Too little rain equaled withered plants.
Too much rain swept away whole villages.

Section 3 Study Question
They built a lot of their cities with sun
dried mud bricks.
 They built strong levees or earthen walls
to keep the water out of their cities,
elaborate plumbing and sewage systems,
aqueducts.
 They also built many other buildings and
structures.

Section 3 Study Question
The cities of the early Mesopotamians
were a jumble of buildings connected to a
maze of winding streets. The buildings
were made of irregular, sun-dried bricks.
 The cities of the Indus Valley civilizations
were more sophisticated in that they were
planned. The cities were laid out on grids.
Cities had fortified areas called citadels.
Bricks were made of oven-dried bricks and
were cut in standard sizes.

Section 3 Study Question
The Harappan planning had city plumbing.
The city was partially built on mud-brick
platforms for protection from flooding.
Streets were as wide as 30 feet.
 Walls divided residential areas.
 Houses varied in size. They also featured
bathrooms where wastewater flowed out
to the street and then to sewage pits
outside the city walls.

Section 3 Study Question
Section 3 Study Question
Harappan civilization contained a unique
language, culture traits, religion, and trade
patterns.
 The Harappans developed a written
language. In comparison to the Sumerian
cuneiform and the Egyptian hieroglyphics,
the Harappan language has been
impossible to decipher.

Section 3 Study Question
Harappan housing suggests that social
divisions were not great.
 Artifacts such as clay and wooden
children’s toys suggest a prosperous
society that could afford to produce nonessential goods.
 Animal artifacts suggest that they were
important.

Section 3 Study Question
Harappan rulers had close ties to religion.
They had theocracies as their form of
government.
 Harappans conducted thriving trade with
other people in the region.

Section 3 Study Question
Things that may have contributed to the
decline of the Indus Valley culture were:
 Continental plate movement may have
caused the shifts under the surface which
caused earthquakes and floods and
altered the course of the Indus River.
 These shifts may have caused other
smaller rivers in the region to dry up,
which affected trade by water.

Section 3 Study Question

Indus Valley agriculture may have been
affected as a result of soil that was
exhausted by overuse.
Section 4 Vocabulary
Loess – yellowish silt from the banks of
the Huang He or Yellow River flooding its
banks.
 The silt is actually fertile soil called loess.
 This fertilized soil is blown by the winds
from deserts to the west and north.

Section 4 Vocabulary
Oracle bones – animals bones and
tortoise shells on which priests had
scratched questions for the gods.
 After questions were inscribed on a bone,
a priest applied a hot poker to it, which
caused it to crack. The priests then
interpreted the cracks to see how the god
answered.

Section 4 Vocabulary
Mandate of Heaven – divine approval
obtained by just rulers.
 The concept of the mandate was that
royal authority came from heaven.
 A wicked or foolish king could lose the
Mandate of Heaven and so lose the
right to rule.
 The Mandate of Heaven became central
to the Chinese view of government.

Section 4 Vocabulary
Dynastic Cycle – the pattern of the rise,
decline, and replacement of dynasties.
 Complete Dynastic Cycle Activity.
 Feudalism – a political system in which
nobles owe loyalty and military service to
the king and protection to the people who
live on their estates.

Section 4 Study Question

The environmental challenges of China
were of course just as every other river
civilization: Floods

The Huang He’s floods could be disastrous. Sometimes
floods devoured whole villages, earning them the
nickname “China’s Sorrow”.
Because of China’s isolation from the rest of Asia, early
settlers had to supply their own goods rather than
trading with outside people.
China’s natural boundaries did not completely protect
these settlers from outsiders.


Section 4 Study Question

China’s environmental challenges
compared to those of the Indus Valley
because both had unpredictable and
disastrous floods. China’s natural barriers
effectively limited trade.
Section 4 Study Question

Peking Man is a fossil of the remains of a
Homo erectus skeleton that was found in
southwest China 1.7 million years ago.
Section 4 Study Question
The significance of the first legendary dynasty of
China which was the Xia Dynasty /had a
leader that was an engineer and mathematician
named Yu.
 His flood control and irrigation projects helped
tame the Huang He or Yellow River and its
tributaries so that settlements could grow.
 This legend reflects the level of technology of a
society making the transition to a civilization.

Section 4 Study Question
The Shang Dynasty was the first family of
Chinese rulers to leave written records.
 The Shang kings built elaborate palaces and
tombs.
 The cities in the Shang Dynasty compare to
those of the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia in
that they all surrounded their cities with
protective walls.

Section 4 Study Question

The roles of women in Sumer
civilization gave them the right to work
as merchants, farmers, or artisans. They
could also have property in their own
name. Women could also be priests.
Some upper class women learned to read
and write. Sumerian women had more
rights than women in later civilizations.
Section 4 Study Question

The roles of women in the Egyptian
society held the same rights as men,
such as wealthy or middle-class women
could own or trade property. They could
propose marriage or seek divorce and if
she received a divorce she could receive
1/3 of the couple’s property.
Section 4 Study Question

Women in the Chinese society were
treated as inferiors. They were expected
to obey their fathers, their husbands and
later their own sons. When a girl was
between 13 and 16 years old, her
marriage was arranged and she moved
into the house of her husband. Only by
bearing sons for her husband’s family
could she hope to improve her status.
Section 3 Study Question
The most important aspects of
Chinese culture were:
 Family was central to Chinese society.
 Social classes
 Religious beliefs
 Development of writing

Section 4 Study Question


One major advantage of Chinese writing was that
people in all parts of China could learn the same system
of writing, even if their spoken languages were very
different. The Chinese language helped unify a large
and diverse land and made control much easier.
The disadvantage of the Chinese system was the
enormous number of written characters to be
memorized. There was a different character for each
unit of language. A person needed to know over 1500
characters to be barely literate.
Section 4 Study Question
The Zhou (joh) Dynasty replaced the
Shang Dynasty.
 They kept much of the Shang culture, therefore
there was no sweeping cultural change.
 To justify their conquest, the Zhou leaders
declared that the final Shang king had been
such a poor ruler that the gods had taken away
the Shang’s rule and given it to the Zhou.

Section 4 Study Question

The Mandate of Heaven helped explain
the cycle of rise, decline, and replacement
of dynasties.
Section 4 Study Question

The Zhou made the following
improvements in technology and trade:
Built roads and canals to stimulate trade
and agriculture.
 Coined money which further improved
trade.
 Blast furnaces that produced cast iron.

Section 4 Study Question
 The
Zhou Dynasty came to a
decline because gradually their
rule weakened.
 In 771 BC nomads from the
north and west sacked the Zhou
capital and murdered the Zhou
monarch.