Nile River Valley
- Nile River Valley is located in Africa and goes through Egypt
- Necessary for farming
- Used river for traveling
- Longest river in the world (4,150 miles)
- Nile would flood every year from July to November
- Washed away all of waste
- Brought new riches to Egyptians
- Surrounding seas protected them from war and disease
- River used for transportation
- Contains deposits of granite, sandstone, and limestone which were used for building materials
- Crops: barley, leeks, garlic, wheat, lettuce, radishes, grapes, cabbage, etc...
- Used sickles to cut grain
- Wheat=bread, barley=beer, flax linen=cloth
- Animals that they used for their hides, milk, meat and help with farming: sheep, goats, pigs, etc...
- Religion: Polytheistic (multiple gods)
- Built pyramids
- Traveled on large boats
- Economy depended mostly on farmers
- Social Structure: king, ruling class, craftsman, farmers, marginalized groups, and slaves
Mesopotamia
- is commonly thought of as the first civilization
- Uruk: found in 5000 B.C.E, largest city in the world at the times, 50-80 thousand people
- Nippuar: considered sacred group, formed around 5000 B.C.E, special place of worship
- Ninevah: oldest cities, found 6000 B.C.E, very religious, earthquake that destroyed the temple, later rebuild in 2260 B.C.E
- 2 rivers: Tigris and Euphrates
- Valley between was know as land "between rivers" in greek
- Never regular supply of water in Mesopotamia
- Mainly desert in north and lagoons in south
- South gets lots of rain, most crops grown there
- 5,800 square mile area
- Trade routes are how they got money and food
- Objects traded: domesticated animals, donkeys, wine, gemstones, and horses
- Lot of trading was done with Persians and ancient India, but also traded with Afghanistan and Egypt
- Trading was done between 4000 & 6000 B.C.E
- Write: Cuneiform
- Numeral System: base 60
- Only sons of prominent people could go to school
- Invented the wheel, used advanced math
- Believed that world was a flat disc that was surrounded by a vast hollow space and that this was enclosed in an over-arching heaven
- Sea was all around the earth top, bottom, and sides
- Polytheistic & Patriarchal Society
- Sports: hunting, wrestling, polo, majore
- Were a monarchy
- Wrote first code of laws
- Believed their rulers were descendants of gods
- Broken up into a city-state system
Indus River Civilization
- "Father of Rivers"
- Originated from the Tibetan Plateau
- Located in South Asia
- Tibet north of the Himalayas
- Indus Valley people had deserts and mountains protecting them naturally
- 1000 miles east of India
- Religion: uncertain
- People were born into social classes
- Classes didnt ever change
- Women were valued, and made babies
- When kids grew old they took on the parents' jobs
- Highly organized agriculture
- Animals main source of food
- Trade was a big part of their culture
- Three classes: religious elite, trading class, poor workers
- Mahenjo-daro: divided into two portions
- Citadel was the lower city, called public bath
- Sanitation Systems and had own water wells
China
- Anyang was built mainly of wood.
- City was stood in a forest clearing
- Rich people lived in timbar framed houses with walls of clay and straw
- The poor people lived in huts outside the city
- Shang people needed walled cities because they were constantly waging war
- Called Yellow River because deposits yellowish silt which is fertile soil
- Yellow River Floods are disastrous because it devous the whole village
- Yellow River sometimes called "Chinas Sorrow"
- Only 10% of Chinas land is suitable for farming
- Called the Yellow River the Mother River
- Gunpowder, compass, paper making, painting, and poetry and inventions or achievements
- Provides drinking water
- River supplies water to 155 million people or 12% of chinese population, and irrigates 18 million acres or 15% of Chinas farmland
- 400 million people live in the Yellow River basin
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