Early River Civilization Notes
The Nile
- The Nile River valley was necessary for farming, used for traveling, and is the longest river in the world (4100 miles).
- floods every year from July to November, and it brought rich soil for the Egyptians, and washed away all of the waste
- contains deposits of granite that were used for building materials.
- Farming: used hand saws, oxen pulled larger soughs, goats and animals to walk on the ground after planting to pack the seeds down.
- harvest march-may--used sickles to cut grain
- Culture-Religion Polytheistic religion: multiple gods
- traveled on large boats
- economy depended mostly on farmers
- Social structure: king, ruling class, craftsman, farmers, marginalized groups, and slaves
The empires (MY GROUPS PRESENTATION)
Mesopotamia
- the area in the middle east broken up into different civilizations
- Nuzi, Nineveh, Mari, Assur, Babylon
- Uruk-one of the first civilizations 5000 B.C.E. 50000-80000 people, making it the largest city of that time
- Nippur-considered a sacred group, 5000 BCE 2500 BCE, and it was a special place to worship
- Nineveh-one of the oldest cities, 6000 BCE, around 3000 BCE it became very religious, an earthquake destroyed temple of Ishtar -- rebuilt 2260 BCE
- Mesopotamian rivers--2 Tigris and the Euphrates, Land between rivers (land between the rivers), material was deposited by the 2 rivers, but there was never a regular supple of water
- Mesopotamia, in Iraq, mainly desert in the N and marshes and lagoons in the S, S gets a lot of rain, 5800 sq. mi. area, Most crops are grown in the S.
- Trade routes-pottery, gem stones, wine, and animals were traded, 4000-6000BCE, trading was done with Persians in Ancient India, but also traded with Egypt and Afghanistan.
- Culture-
- Technology--Used cuneiform to write, used base 60 numeral system, used advanced mathematics, invented the wheel, only the sons of prominent people could go to school
- Religion-believed the world was a flat disk surrounded by vast hollow space, the sea was around the earth (top, bottom, and sides), the universe had been born to the waters, polytheistic society (more than one god), Patriarchal (fathers were head of the household)
- Sports-hunting, wrestling, polo (but with men sitting on the shoulders of other men instead of horses, Majore (like Rugby)
- Government-Monarchy, First code of laws in action for thousands of years, believed that their rulers were descendants of gods, broken up into a city-state system
Indus
- Monsenjo-Daro-mound of dead-largest city, 2 portions, Citadel was the lower city, called public bath, had sanitation systems, had own water wells
- Father of Rivers, Originated from Tibetan Plateau in South Asia, Tibet North of the Himalayas
- deserts and mountains protected the people naturally, 1000 mi east of India
- Culture-religion is uncertain, similar to Hinduism, people were born into social classes, classes didn't change, women were valued because they had babies, the kids took on the parents' jobs when they were older, highly organized agriculture, animals were food, trade, made jewelry
- first city was Harappa-3 classes-religious elite, trading class, the poor workers, Gujranwala was the largest site
The Yellow River located in China
- Anyang was built manly of wood. Rich people lived in timber framed houses. Poor people lived outside of the city.
- Shang people needed walled cities, since they were constantly waging war.
- it deposits yellowish silt, it's floods are disastrous and sometimes it's called "China's Sorrow".
- early settlers couldn't trade with outsiders
- Only 10% of China is suitable for farming and most land is located between the yellow river and Chang Jiang in Eastern China.
- Culture-called mother river, paper making, gun powder, poetry, printing,inventions and scientific achievements spread to the rest of the world and promoted chines culture
- Supplies most of China's local population with drinking water, and irrigates much of China's farmland.
- 400 million people live in the Yellow River Basin.
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