History 1A - 1hr Exam Prep

Utnapishtim

• was given immortality by the gods after the flood

• Following Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh was very unsettled because he became overly aware of his own mortality – a fate that he desperately wanted to avoid and therefore began his journey of looking for Utnapishtim

• During the flood, Utnapishtim received a warning from Ea to build a boat and collect a seed from every living thing on earth; when he survived, the gods didn’t know what to do with him since no mortal was supposed to have survived

  • They eventually granted him everlasting life in a faraway land

• In the epic, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the conditions by which he can be granted immortality

• He is sometimes called Babylonian Noah even though Noah should be the Israelite Utnapishtim chronologically

Sargon of Akkad

• King Sargan conquered Sumer and had a very long reign lasting from 2340 to 2284BC

• From what is known about him, he was abandoned as an infant and has been found to be reminiscent of biblical Moses

• During his reign, he set about creating an empire by conquering the rest of Akkad

• The goddess Ishtar helped him become king of the Akkadian city of Kish

• After conquering Akkad, he moves south which is when he conquers Sumer

• Upon his death, the kingship stays in his family, creating a royal dynasty

Narmer-Menes

• Narmer-Menes is thought to be the first king of Egypt after uniting upper and lower Egypt and starting the first dynasty in around 3100BC

• He is referred to as Narmer-Menes because there are conflicting sources about his name

• On the famous Narmer palette, he wears the double crown because it combines the crowns of upper and lower Egypt (red crown [lower] and the white crown [upper])

Imhotep

• The most famous surviving monuments belong to the Old Kingdom, known as the Pyramid age of Egyptian history

• The first pharaoh of the period, Zoser, took the throne in around 2685BC and the famous step pyramid was built as his tomb by Imhotep

Ten Commandments

• After the escape from Egypt and the formation of the nation of Israel, the Israelites considered themselves “the chosen people of the Lord” and that God would offer his protection as long as they followed his law

• His laws were both absolute and conditional; the Ten Commandments offered the absolute law

  • They stated that you couldn’t kill, lie, steal, cheat, work on the sabbath, and other laws

  • They also featured the “eye for an eye” treatment, similar to the Code of Hammurabi; however, there was notably no distinction between social classes as in the code.

  • The punishment for killing was always death (unless unintentional), no matter the status of the victim. 

• The Ten Commandments were delivered to Moses by God on two stone tablets on Mount Sinai and lived in the Ark of the Covenant

Maat

• Maat was the right order or justice, and it was the virtue that defined criminality in Egypt

• It was a defining component of the duties of the pharaoh, to maintain maat or lead with maat

  • When a pharaoh ruled in accordance with maat, Egypt prospered

  • When Egypt was successfully invaded, the rulers were said to have been ruling without maat

  • Maat was also used on the “day of judgement” when it was decided whether an individual would continue into the afterlife after death

    • If they lived with maat, they were more likely to pass the test and enjoy a happy afterlife

Moses

• In around 1300BC, the Hebrews were delivered from slavery by Moses when he led them out of bondage through the Red Sea away from their pursuers with the help of God, and into the Sinai desert

• They were said to have been searching for the promised land for 40 years

• While in the desert, God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and gave him two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments which began the formal agreement or the covenant between God and his followers, known as the “Sinai Covenant”

Fertile Crescent

• The fertile crescent is the area that roughly represents a crescent shape of the eastern mediterranean

  • Bound by the Tigris river to the north

  • And the Euphrates river to the south

  • It follows the Persian gulf north through Mesopotamia to Assyria, then west to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, then south to Egypt

• The earliest civilizations (namely Mesopotamia) arise within the fertile crescent due to its favorable agricultural conditions

David

• David was a shepherd who rose to the position of armorbearer under Saul’s reign

• When Israel and the Philistines clashed, David volunteered to fight against the giant Philistine champion Goliath

  • He kills Goliath causing the Philistine army to flee and his popularity to skyrocket

  • Saul considers him a threat to his throne so David ends up fleeing and even briefly switches sides to fight for the Philistines for a bit

  • When Saul is killed in battle, David comes home and is anointed king

• David’s reign lasts around 3 decades: from 1000-970BC

• Under David, the kingdom of Israel expands north into southern Syria (including Damascus)

• David also moved the Israelites' most sacred object of the Ark of the Covenant and brought it into Jerusalem where it resided in a tent. 

Solomon

• Solomon was David’s son and he succeeded his father to rule from 970-922BC

• His most famous achievements include building the temple of Jewish religion located on the temple mount in Jerusalem and built between 967-960BC

• He continued the work of his father by:

  • Consolidating the kingdom that David had built

  • Fortifying the new territories that David had added to the kingdom

  • Cementing relationships with neighboring powers often through dynastic marriages

• Solomon set out to reconcile his Jewish subjects with his other subjects

  • His non-Jewish wives could continue worshipping their own gods even if they were different than Yahweh

  • He even built them temples for their gods in Jerusalem making him a very religiously tolerant king

• He organized and centralized the administration of his kingdom allowing the Israelite economy to undergo significant growth

  • The increased wealth gave him the resources to embark on his great public building program

  • His program resulted in forced labor and compulsory taxes causing his popularity to take a nosedive

  • While it increased the sense of magnificence and physical security in the Israelite kingdom, his subjects’ considered it an “infringement of their liberty” and there were many signs of unrest as a result

• Solomon and his father were known as the “united monarchy” because after Solomon’s death, Israel split into two, Israel and Judas and this time was known as the “divided monarchy”

Gilgamesh

• Gilgamesh was a famous semi-mythic king, the fifth king of Uruk in Mesopotamia

• His kingship was described as authoritative and oppressive

• Gilgamesh himself was two parts god, one part man and he thus had great strength and beauty, but he was mortal

• His people complained about his arrogance to the gods who in turn created Enkidu who is mortal but possesses god-like characteristics in terms of his strength that make him Gilgamesh’s equal

• After a fight where they both realize the other is just as strong, they form a strong friendship and brotherhood

• Enkidu’s death that results as a punishment from the gods after the pair kill both the Bull of Heaven and Humbaba launches Gilgamesh’s journey to find immortality as he grapples with his newfound awareness of his mortality

Hammurabi

• Hammurabi was the 6th of 11 kings in the Old Babylonian dynasty and he ruled from 1792-1750BC

• Hammurabi’s code is a reflection of his belief that he received permission from Shamash to write the code

  • Shamash being the sun-god and the god of justice

• His code has a heavy focus on the concept of an eye-for-an-eye and makes clear distinctions between social classes

  • Offenses against nobility receive worse consequences than offenses against slaves or other lower-class people

Manetho

• Manetho was an Egyptian priest who lived from 323-245BC who divided Egyptian history into thirty dynasties of the ruling families spanning from the Protodynastic period to the New Kingdom and the eventual overthrow by Persian rule

• While the list is extensive, some of the time periods and years are contradictory, or placed one after another when it is known now that they were occurring simultaneously

• While Manetho’s organization has led to much confusion for historians, it has helped form a broad timeline for Egyptian kings

Great Pyramids at Giza

• The Great Pyramids of Giza were built during the 4th dynasty which was known as the “pyramid age”

• While Imhotep’s famous step-pyramid as Zoser’s tomb had been built in the previous dynasty, the pyramids of Giza adopted a smooth-sided structure rather than the step-pyramid structure that had likely been adopted from Mesopotamia ziggurats

• The pyramids were built for the three of the pharaohs of the 4th dynasty

Ammenemes/Amenemhat I

• Ammenemes was the first pharaoh of the 12th dynasty

• He reconsolidated royal power so well that the 12th dynasty is considered to be the heart of the Middle Kingdom

• During his rule and others of the 12th dynasty and overarching Middle Kingdom, there were many religious changes in Egypt; most significantly, the shift of the concept of afterlife

  • Previously, the afterlife was only guaranteed for the pharaoh and possibly for nobility and the royal court if you placed your tomb as close to the kings as possible

  • However, during this period, a “day of judgement” was born where upon death, everyone had the opportunity to achieve the afterlife where your soul went on trial to see if you had lived with maat, if you were just, or a generally kind person

  • This gave everyone the same chance at the afterlife

Nubia

• Nubia was a region located south of Egypt and was an important source of resources; specifically in gold and manpower

  • Nubians were often recruited into Egyptian armies and as policemen

• The border between Nubia and Egypt shifted with Ammenemes I pushing the border of northern Nubia back

  • Some of his successors went even further into Kush, pushing Egyptian territory all the way to the second cataract

Ahmose I

• Ahmose was a king during the New Kingdom who ruled from 1550-1525BC

• He founded the 18th Dynasty and restored Egyptian control over Nubia

• His expansions set the stage for the next centuries of the New Kingdom as a period of stability that involved massive expansion of Egyptian power

• Ahmose is also most known for the reunification of Egypt following the defeat of the Hyksos and the end of the First Intermediate Period

Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten

• Akhenaten was born Amenhotep IV and most famously attempted a mostly unsuccessful massive religious revolution in Egypt, ruling from 1364-1347BC

• Historically, each town or region in Egypt worshipped or favored their own patron god but acknowledged the existence of the other gods

  • The people had a conservative spirit meaning that gods and goddesses were not abandoned but incorporated into a growing system.

  • Akhenaten tried to elevate Atem to supremacy (Atem was the physical sun itself, not really a god) and promote him as the one and only true god of the Egyptians.

• He is attributed with the Great Hymn to the Aten that praises Aten as the creator and sustainer of all life

• He wanted everyone to worship their pharaoh (himself), while only the royal family worshipped Atem

• His revolution was largely unsuccessful and died quickly after himself

Covenant Code

• The covenant code was a formal agreement between God and his followers that was formed when God gave to Moses the Book of the Covenant on Mount Sinai (“the Sinai Covenant”)

• The covenant code dealt with case law so criminal, social, and civil issues

• The covenant code lived in the Ark of the Covenant; a small wooden chest that resided in a tent until Solomon built a temple for it to stay that became the temple of Jewish religion

• Historians believe that the Ark of the Covenant is lost

Babylonian Captivity

• Under Josiah, Yahweh was taken as the only God

• Following Josiah’s purge where Josiah managed to violently eliminate other religious cults in Judah, there was a failed attempt at a revolt in 586BC that was severely punished

  • The revolters destroyed Solomon’s temple and were subsequently interned in the city of Babylon (known as Babylonian captivity) which lasted until 536B

  • During captivity, Judaism had to adapt to a new environment because worshippers could not go to the temple in Jerusalem that was traditionally connected with worship

• People adapted to worshipping their god wherever they were which continues in the Jewish diaspora today. 

Ur

• Ur was a major metropolis in Mesopotamia that historians believe was founded sometime after the period of Ubaid which ended in 3500BC

• In 2330BC, southern Mesopotamia was conquered by Sargon of Akkad and Ur’s walls were subsequently broken down and the current ruler was removed

• The Third Dynasty of Ur began in 2112BC when Elam from the East descended and defeat the dynasty of Sargon, creating the Third Dynasty of Ur

• The Third Dynasty of Ur lasted until 2004BC when it fell to invaders from the desert called Amarites.

• After the fall, Sumerian language became a so-called dead-language

  • Educated people could still read it and it was preserved as a literary language by Mesopotamian priests

Enkidu

• Enkidu is a character in the Epic of Gilgamesh described to have a “god-like existence”

• He was created by the gods for the purpose of killing Gilgamesh

• When Enkidu was created, he lived in the wild until Gilgamesh heard of his existence and sent a harlot to “civilize him”

• Enkidu and Gilgamesh end up fighting

  • When they realize the other is a formidable opponent, a friendship forms.

• Enkidu and Gilgamesh successfully kill Humbaba in the cedar forest and the Bull of Heaven sent by a vengeful Ishtar

• Ishtar is angry that they kill her creation and convinces the other gods to strike Enkidu with a mortal illness that eventually leads to Enkidu’s death

Rosetta Stone

• The Rosetta stone was discovered in 1799 during an expedition in Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte

• There were 3 inscriptions on it that all said the same thing in 3 languages

  • Greek

  • Hieroglyphic Egyptian

  • Demotic Egyptian

• While nobody could read the hieroglyphic or demotic Egyptian, Napoleon rightfully assumed that they were the translations of the Greek and he sent them to some of his scholars to decode

• The Rosetta stone was captured in 1801 by the British and the stone was a massive help to the eventual decoding of hieroglyphs, started by Jean-Francois Champollion

Amun-Ra

• Ra, the god of the sun, becomes the most important God and the chief god in the 5th dynasty thanks to the patronage of the pharaohs of the dynasty

• Egyptian kings received a “son of Ra” name that designated him as the son of Ra when he took the throne

• In the 12th dynasty after the first king who seized power in 1991BC had a different patron god: Amun, personified with the head of a ram

  • Amun and Ra fuse into one god, Amun-Ra, who remains at the head of Egyptian history with brief exceptions such as Akhenaten’s reign where he unsuccessfully attempted to replace Amun-Ra with Aten, an attempt that died with him

Sinuhe

• The story of Sinuhe begins with the death of Ammenemes

• Sinuhe is a high-ranking member of the royal court, serving as a servant to the king

• When Ammenemes is assassinated, Sinuhe fears that he will be blamed and flees to the Asiatics in the northeast

• He is taken in by the local ruler and does pretty well for himself, marrying the eldest daughter of the king and given a part of the kingdom

• He is not happy in his new home and he misses home in Egypt

  • When he gets recalled to the Egyptian court by the new pharaoh, he goes back home even though he is worried about what will happen to him

• He ends up getting an honorable escort to the new pharaoh and is given another position at the royal court, a promotion from his previous role

• He even achieves his own pyramid

Sesostris II

• Sesostris III was a powerful pharaoh during the 12th dynasty

• He continued the doctrine of superiority of the Egyptians established by his predecessor Ammenemes with a hostile perception of foreigners

• He ruled from 1878 to 1841BC and famously beat the Nubians in war, pushing Egyptian territory all the way to the second cataract and into the capital Kush of Nubia

Hatshepsut

• Hatshepsut was one of the only female rulers of Egypt, reigning from 1490-1469BC

• She became queen after her husband’s son succeeded her at a very young age and she took absolute power for herself

• In many historical documents, she is depicted as male

• She disappears from the records in about 1458BC, likely when Thutmose III (the original successor) became determined to wipe out the memory of her by destroying images of her and hacking out inscriptions

  • Her name is replaced with his to give the impression that there was no interruption between Thutmose III’s father’s reign and his own

Sea Peoples

• The Sea Peoples come from Egyptian records mostly under Merneptah and Rameses III

• They describe groups of people who migrated or invaded parts of the eastern Mediterranean during the period of widespread upheaval near the end of the Bronze Age and comprised groups of various peoples

• They appear during the 19th Dynasty in their first attempt at an Egyptian invasion in 1220BC in alliance with the Libyans

  • None of their attempts were successful.

• Their origins remain unclear, and their names on Egyptian victory depictions are hard to decipher because Egyptians didn’t write with vowels

Abraham

• Abraham is known as the patriarch and progenitor of the Jewish people from the Mesopotamian city of Ur

• He is said to have left Ur and discovered God in the town of Haran in northern Mesopotamia

• There is evidence of immigration of people speaking Semitic languages into the area that would become Israel between 2000 and 1750BC and it’s possible that these immigrants included some of the men named as patriarchs, namely Abraham

• The wandering of his family in ~1800BC to the promised land of Canaan is one of the most important episodes in the patriarchal history of the Hebrews

Saul

• Saul was anointed as the first king of the Israelites in 1020BC, and reigned until 1000BC

• He had initial military successes against the Philistines but eventually had to contend with David as ruler after David rose to popularity following his fight against Goliath in one of the Philistine wars

• Saul considers David a threat, but he is killed in battle (ultimately rejected as king by God) and subsequently succeeded by David

Ark of the Covenant

• The Ark is a small wooden chest, and the covenant is the two stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai

• The covenant initiated a formal agreement between God and his followers

  • If the people followed what the covenant said, God would offer his protection

• The Ark of the Covenant was something of a portable shrine that the Hebrews, when they were a nomadic people, carried around in a wagon with them until it received its primary residence in the temple built by Solomon

• Today, the Ark of the Covenant is believed to be lost

Ashur

• Ashur was the capital city of Assyria, either named after the god Ashur or the god was named after the city

• Ashur was the chief divinity of the Assyrian pantheon of gods

• The Kings of Assyria did not consider themselves kings, rather they believed they were simply acting on behalf of the god Ashur as deputies

  • This lasts until Shamshi-adad’s reign where he is not content with simply being a deputy of Ashur and he instead announces that he is the “king of the universe”

Ashurbanipal

• Ashurbanipal rule from 668-630BC

• Under his rule, the Assyrian empire achieved its largest size at any point in Assyrian history

  • This period of expansion is not maintained for long

• Ashurbanipal successfully conquered Egypt by capturing the city of Thebes and driving the current pharaoh into exile

  • During the next dynasty [26th], the Egyptians regain control of Thebes, but remain on friendly terms with the Assyrians

• The Banquet of Ashurbanipal was a memorable moment during his reign where he is depicted with his family enjoying an outdoor picnic on the palace grounds surrounded by palm trees with the severed heads of decapitated enemies on them

Neolithic Revolution

• The Neolithic Revolution began around 7000BC and is defined as the wide-scale transition of human culture from nomadic lifestyle to permanent settlement

• This was prompted by developments in agriculture and domestication which made humans want to stay where their plants/animals were instead of continuing their hunter-gatherer methods of going out to find food

• The first communities began coalescing into villages, and the villages grouped into cities, the first one to form being Mesopotamia. 

Hyksos

• The Hyksos as a term did not exist until the 3rd century BC, and there was disagreement as to what the word even meant

  • 3rd century Egyptian priest Menotho thought  it meant “king shepherds”

  • 1st century AD Josephus thought it meant “captive shepherds”

  • “Hyksos” is actually thought to come from “ruler of a foreign country” meaning that they are foreign kings instead of captive or shepherd kings

• The Hyksos likely came from the Israel/Palestine area as evidenced by the names of individuals that survive in the records

• The Hyksos invasion ended the Middle Kingdom period, and they ruled during the First Intermediate Period (from 1648-1540BC)

• Post-reconquest period (the 18th dynasty forward) literature makes them out to be oppressive, evil, and barbarian rulers

  • This could have likely been influenced by the Egyptian desire to avoid flattering a group that had invaded or conquered them

• The Hyksos respected Egyptian religious traditions and even practiced some of them themselves by calling themselves sons of Ra and incorporating the Ra element into their name

• They were overthrown by the Egyptians in 1540BC under the leadership of Kamoseh who became known as the liberator of Egypt, officially ending the First Intermediate Period and beginning the New Kingdom

Tuthmosis III / Thutmose III

• Tuthmosis III inherited the throne at a very young age, and his father’s wife Hatshepsut seized absolute power from him

• When she was overthrown (likely by Tuthmosis himself), he tried very hard to erase her existence from the record by destroying any surviving images of her and hacking out inscriptions that contained her name

• He ruled from 1458-1425BC and was a very successful conqueror

  • In the famous battle at Magiddo, he took his armies through a difficult mountain pass to come up behind his enemies and defeat them which re-established control over Palestine

• His main goal was to overthrow the “vile enemy” and extend the boundaries of Egypt, as supported by his military campaigns

Josiah’s Purge

• Josiah’s purge was a result of the covenant code between God and his followers

• In it, the first of the Ten Commandments shows God stating that Yahweh is to be taken as the only God

  • It notably does not dismiss the possibility of other gods, just that their worship is prohibited

• In around 620BC under Josiah’s reign, Josiah manages to eliminate all other religious cults in Judah other than that of the sole worship of Yahweh and he does so in a very violent way known as Josiah’s purge

  • His purge included the destruction of idols, the elimination of priests, and mainly the centralization of worship

Shamshi-adad I

• Shamshi-adad I was a king of Assyria who conquered as an outsider and ruled from 1813-1781BC

• He was known for not being content with just being a deputy for Ashur, he announced that he wasn’t a deputy, but a king

  • More specifically that he was the “king of the universe”

  • From this point forward, the kings of Assyria are not just kings in their own right but also kings of the universe.

• Assyria began a temporary period of decline following Shamshi’s rule. 

Philistines

• The Philistines were a group that were frequently in conflict with the Hebrews, and were one of the groups known as the Sea Peoples

• They arrive in Canaan shortly after the Israelites and subsequently take over all of Canaan until the Israelites begin building a rebellion with the installation of their first king Saul

• Goliath story —> Philistine

Tikulti-ninurta I

• Tikulti-ninurta I (1244-1208BC) conquered Babylon and thus proclaimed himself not just king of Assyria and the universe, but king of Assyria, the universe, and Babylon

• This invasion was significant because when the conquerors returned from Babylon, they brought back important collections of Babylonian inscribed texts which meant that Assyrian literature from that point forward had heavy Babylonian influence