The Early River Valley Civilizations
- Mesopotamian - The Babylonian Empire
- Powerful state in ancient world
- most fertile and rich parts of the ancient world
- kings are called first dynasty of Babylon
- Babylon is the capital
- Jew were held there for 70 years
- Babylon means "Gate of Gods"
- Babylon is located in the land of Shinar
- Babylonia was an ancient empire that was in the Near East in southern Mesopotamia in between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers
- Babylonia was a long, narrow country about 40 miles wide and an area of about 8,000 square miles
- was from 606-536 BC
- death penalty
- the death penalty was prescribed for theft, murder, adultery, kidnapping, rape, the receipt of stolen property from a temple or a palace, and for a false accusation of a capital crime
- marriage
- marriage was only legal when recorded in writing
- the penalty for adultery was death
- married women were permitted to own property
- The Nile - The First Dynasty
- 3100 BC - 2890 BC
- it was during the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt
- the first dynasty was founded in the Lower Kingdom of Egypt
- the capital at this time was Memphis
- It was founded by the Egyptian Pharaoh Narmer
- Narmer is known as the first pharaoh in Egypt
- Pharaoh Narmer is also known for reuniting the two kingdoms of Egypt
- the Narmer Palette was made
- the shield was one of the first objects to have Egyptian hieroglyphic writing on it
- there is no definite ending, so many historian combine dynasties 1 and 2
- historians obtain this information from tombs
- The Nile - The Second Dynasty
- 2890 BC - 2686 BC
- it was during the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt
- the capital at this time was Thinis
- Hotepsekhemwy was the founder of the Second Dynasty of Egypt
- the last pharaoh of the Second Dynasty was Khasekhemwy
- he married Nemathap, ending the Second Dynasty
- their marriage strengthened the unity of the Upper Kingdom and the Lower Kingdom of Egypt.
- their son, Djoser, was the first pharaoh of the Third Dynasty
- the Third Dynasty started the New Kingdom Period in Egypt.
- The Indus
- arose about 2500 BC
- there has been 1056 settlements found
- two major cities: Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
- they are called the Harappan culture
- People who developed the civilization are unknown
- advanced in technology
- created first known sanitation system
- strong and stable gov't
- written language - undeciphered
- The Yellow River Civilization (China)
- Shang Dynasty
- formed 1600 - 1046 BC
- first family of Chinese rulers that left written records
- built palaces and tombs
- ruled Yellow River Valley in 2nd millennium BC defeating the Xia (shyah) Dynasty
- Capital : Anyang
- Language : Old Chinese
- Religion: Chinese Folk Religion
- Gov't : Monarchy
- civilization was based on agriculture, lots of hunting and animal care
- they fought a lot of wars with neighboring settlements and nomadic people who raised animals
- court rituals were performed at the court to honor spirits, people were often buried alive with the royal corpse
- shang tang was the last leader of teh last Yin Dynasty
- he commited suicide after his army was defeated by the Zhou
- Legend says that his army betrayed him and went to the Zhou Dynasty
Mesopotamia
- commonly thought of as the first civilization but Mesopotamia is just the area where the first civilizations were. there were different civilizations, mostly broken up into city states.
- cities by the river
- kutu
- kish
- isin
- adab
- girsu
- erech
- Uruk
- one of the first civilizations
- in about 5000 BCE the city was founded
- had 50,000 - 80,000 people in its 6km by 6km walls, in 2900 BCE
- made it the largest city in the world at the time.
- had walls all around
- Nippur
- was considered a sacred group
- was formed around the year 5000 BCE
- hit its peak around 2500 BCE
- was a special pace of the worship to the Sumerian god, Enlil, ruler of the cosmos
- Ninevuh
- one of the oldest cities
- was founded around the year 6000 BCE
- by 3000 BCE they became very religious, worshiping the goddess Ishtar
- there was an earthquake that destroyed the first temple of Ishtar
- then it was later rebuilt in the year 2260 BCE
- How the river worked in the Mesopotamia
- the 2 rivers in Mesopotamia are the Tigris and the Euphrates
- the valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates River was known as the land "between the rivers" in Greek
- there was never a regular supple of water in Mesopotamia but the soil was so enriched over the years by the layers of silt which is material deposited by the two rivers
- Geography
- it's in between the Tigris and Euphrates river in Iraq
- Mesopotamia is mainly desert in the north and mainly marshes, lagoons, and mudflats in the south
- the south get a lot of rain. mostly crops are grown there and the rivers irrigate the crops in the dry seasons
- Mesopotamia is a 5,800 sq. mile area
- the trade routes of how they would get their money and food are
- Trade Routes between Mesopotamia
- many of the objects traded were domesticated animals, wine, donkeys, gemstones, camels, pottery, and horses
- a lot of the trading was done with the Persians and ancient India, but they also traded with Afghanistan and Egypt
- All of the trading was done between 4000 and 6000 BCE
- Culture/technology
- they used cuneiform to write
- they used a base 60 numeral system. this is where the 60 minutes hour, 24 hour days, and the 360 circle
- they used advanced mathematics invented the wheel
- only the sons of prominent people could to go to school
- Religion
- the world was a flat disk that was surrounded by a vast hollow space and that this was enclosed in an over-arching heaven
- the sea was all around the earth top bottom and sides
- the universe had been born of these waters
- they were a polytheistic society
- they were a patriarchal society
- Sports
- Hunting
- Wrestling
- Polo, but with men sitting on the shoulders of other men instead of horses
- Majore - a sport like rugby
- Gov't
- were a monarchy - led by king and queen
- wrote the first code of laws
- they believed that their rulers were descendants of gods
- broken up into a city-state system
Indus River Civilization
- Geography
- "Father of Rivers"
- Originating from the Tibetan Plateau
- Located in South Asia
- Tibet north of the Himalayas
- The Indus Valley people had deserts and mountains protecting them naturally
- 1000 miles east of India
- Cultures of Indus
- the religion is still uncertain. It was very similar to the Hinduism of today
- people were born into social classes
- your social class wont change
- if you're born poor, you will always be poor
- Women were valued because they made babies
- when kids grew old they took on the parents' jobs
- Highly organised agriculture
- animals were a source of food
- trade was a big part of their culture and economy
- Harappa
- one of the first cities was located at Harappa
- three classes
- religious elite
- trading class
- the poor workers
- largest known Harappan site is Ganweriwala located on the bank of the Sarasvati river
- Mohenjo-Daro
- divided into 2 portions
- Citadel was the lower city
- which was called the public bath
- they had sanitation systems
- people have their own water wells
The Yellow River: China
- Civilization
- Anyang was built mainly of wood. The city stood in a forest clearing.
- The rich people lived in timber framed houses with walls of clay and straw
- the poor people lived in huts outside the city
- Shang peoples needed walled cities because they were constantly waging war
- Geography
- the main reason why it's called the Yellow River is because it deposits yellowish silt which is fertile soil called loess which is blown from the deserts to the west and north
- the Yellow River's floods are disastrous because it devours the whole village
- The Yellow River is sometimes called "China's Sorrow"
- China's relative geographic isolation early settlers couldn't trade with other outsiders, so they had to figure it out on their own
- only 10% of China's land is suitable for farming
- most of the farming land is located between the Huang He (Yellow River) and Chang Jiang in eastern China
- Culture
- they called the Yellow River the moth river
- gunpowder, the compass, paper making, printing, poetry, and Song Ci
- Yellow River civilization is the Yuan Dynasty in glittering gems
- Are inventions and scientific achievements not only to promote Chinese culture development, but also spread to the rest of the world, made an important contribution to the culture development of human beings
- Importance
- the Yellow River is important because it provides China's local population with drinking supply and without the Yellow River grasslands will shrink so farmers will have to graze their animals somewhere else
- the Yellow River supplies water to 155 million people or 12% of Chinese population, and irrigates 18 million acres or 15% of China's farmland
- 400million people live in the Yellow River basin
The Fall of Empires in the Early Days
- fall of the Mesopotamian Empires
- there were many empires that rose and fall in the "cradle of civilization," Mesopotamia.
- Fall of the Assyrian Empire
- The Assyrian Empire ended in 612 BC when the capital city Nineveh was invaded by an allied force of Babylonians, Medes, Scythians, and Susianians
- King Sin-shar-ashkun was killed during the siege
- the Babylonians took over the area shortly afterward
- Fall of the Babylonian Empire
- The Babylonian Empire was the strongest empire after the fall of the Assyrian Empire
- In 539 BC, the king of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great, ordered an invasion on the Babylonian land
- Babylonia soon became a part of the Persian Empire
- From then on Babylonia was known as "Persian Babylonia"
- Fall of the Persian Empire
- The Persian Empire fell the Alexander the Great after a long military campaign around 332 BC
- It became a part of the Greek Seleucid Empire
- After this there was a lot of conflict between Romans and Parthians for the region
- The Nubians and Egyptians
- Nubia and Egypt were the two biggest river valley civilizations by the Nile River
- Fall of the Nubians
- Around 2040-1640 BC, the Egyptian people started making trade routes through Nubia
- As time progressed, the routes expanded and eventually Egypt took over Nubia
- Egypt still exists today
- Indus
- People don't know for sure what happened to the Indu civilization
- Historians believe there may have been a huge climate change
- Other believe that the river ad a current change and parts of the Indu region were flooded while other experience drought
- good shortages also caused people to starve and spread diseases
- Yellow River/China: Fall of the Xia
- the fall of the Xia is blamed on its last king who fell in love with an evil woman and became a tyrant
- the people rebelled against his leadership
- Yellow River/China: Fall of the Shang
- the Shang dynasty ended when King Zhou killed his own son and murdered his ministers
- the Zhou army battled the Shang Zhou and the Shang Zhou lost
- the Zhou dynasty began with the suicide of Shang Zhou
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