near east

middle bronze age

• 2000 to 1700 BCE

assyrian merchants

• From the city of assur

• On the tigris river

• Traded from 1900 to 1750 BCE - during bronze age

• Gave tin and textiles to kanesh through donkey caravan in exchange for silver

  • part of a Larger trading network

    • Tin was probably from Iran and copper was from the Persian Gulf

• assyrians gererally wanted copper, tin, silver

anatolia

• First cities form around 2500 BCE - before bronze age

• Alaca hoyuk

  • Tell

  • Made of mud brick through a natural process for intentional burial

  • In Persian = tepe

  • had Rich royal graves

• Other similar cities in the area which become kingdoms

• Southern portion was brought into the akkadian empire in 2400 BCE by sargon the first

• From 2100 to 1800 BCE

  • Colonial period

  • 10 assyrian merchant colonies

  • Included soldiers

  • Trade conducted by families and not the state

  • Colonies were attached to cities which were independent and only control the immediate area surrounding it

• Colonies = karum = port

  • They do not pay taxes as long as good stayed within

kanesh

• Aka kultepe

• Tablets were found with akkadian script

  • Discovered in Antique markets in the 1880s

  • Origin = larget Assyrian colony beside kanesh in anatolia

    • By bedrick hrozny 1920s

  • Talked about ordinary concerns like marriage, divorce, prenups, adoption, laws of inheritance, economic issues

  • Had hittite loanwords

    • The earliest record of an indo European language

• The largest of the 10 colonies in anatolia

• 1820 BCE conquered by Anitta

  • The king of kussara

  • Moved his main residence here and called it nesa

  • His descendants then moved the capital to hattusa and find the hittite dynasty

  • He then burned kanesh and laid a curse on it

  • Hittite language (nesilil) first found in tablets at nesa using the cuneiform script

  • karum ended

mesopotamian area

• texts from End of third Millennium BCE talk about the arrival of two groups of people:

  • Amorites

    • Semitic intruders from Syria

    • Settled in southern Mesopotamia

    • From 2000 to 1700 BCE

  • hurrians

    • From the Caucasus region

    • By 2000 BCE settled in northern Mesopotamia

    • Later they become the mitanni

mashkam-shapir

• Lasted for 200 years

  • Archeologically short

• Urbanize quickly

• Second capital of the city state of larsa

• Had a network of canals separated into 5 districts

  • Buildings faced the canals instead of streets

• Two internal harbors

• Areas for each

  • Copper

  • Pottery making

  • Religious quarters

• Temple on top of a ziggurat

  • Life-size statues of dogs, lions, horses, humans

  • Human statues indicate the major city

• Flourishing trade

• After gulf trade peaked in the early 2nd Millennium, the city declined by the 1700s BCE

old babylonian period

• 2000 to 1600 BCE

• Babylon rose due to hammurabi

  • Through diplomacy and warfare

  • just ruler

    • Brought debt cancellation which ushered in loyalty

    • His law code proclaims this

  • Propaganda

    • ex. name of years were named by his achievements

• In the land of akkad in Southern Mesopotamia

  • Spoke akkadian

• Hammurabi Conquers isin, larsa, mari, eshnunna

  • Through Yearly campaigns

  • Now southern and central Mesopotamia are a single unified state

  • His policy was centralisation

  • Previous land owners had their land taken away and given to loyal governors

mari letters

• shimri-lim

  • King of Mari

• Letters talk about his court life

  • Topics

    • Warfare

    • Food and drink

    • Using ice houses

    • Social conditions

    • Craft like textiles and metal work

• Also sent letters to his wife queen shibtu

  • Domestic affairs

  • She was in charge of administration, palace and the temple in the King's absence

• Between 1810 to 1759 BCE

• Letters also show how administrators of department's reported directly to the king

• Letter show how taxes were collected from territories

• Talks about how women had less opportunities than men even though they had land and wealth

late bronze age cities

• 1600 to 1000 BCE

• cosmipolitan period

  • heads of state interacted with each other as equals

    • by being generous with each other so if not alliannces broke

    • ex. akhanaten and the mitanni king

hittites

• 1600 to 1400 BCE

• 10,000 clay tablets found at hattusa

  • By Hugo Winkler

  • Polyglot

    • 8 languages were found on the tablets

• hatussa was Capital from 1650 to 1200 BCE

  • Considered to be the home of the gods

  • On the northern anatolian plateau near alaca hoyuk

• The forerunners of the Iron Age

  • Began making iron objects in 18th century BCE

• After their fall there's a dark age where there is no written records

amarna letters

• Details Egypt and the mitani had an alliance against the Hittites

  • But the Hittites defeat the mitani

• Also diplomatic correspondence between the pharaoh and Levante

• Topics

  • Swearing of loyalty

  • Egypt Asking for help to fight the Hittites

    • But the levant held alliances with the Hittites

• 1350s to 1332 BCE

• Akkadian

  • The international language at the time and the language of diplomacy

uluburun shipwreck

• Just before the amarna period

  • 1400

• Off the coast of Turkey

• Shows the trade between the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean

• holds were full, so ship had a loop and collected the items

• Included:

  • Luxury goods

  • Copper and Tin to make bronze

  • George with glass beads

  • Turpentine

    • Pistachia resin

  • Glass

  • Ebony

  • Ivory

  • hippo teeth

  • Precious stones

  • Gold

battle kadesh

• 1279 BCE

• Ramses the great (the 2nd) versus the hittite king

• Ended in a draw even though Ramses claimed he won

• Resulted in the first ever peace treaty

  • The Levante was split into Egyptian and hittite zones

phillistines

• One of the sea peoples

• Probably from the agean

• Brought ceramics, architecture, rituals

• Over 600 years brought new plants from Europe, Egypt, Mesopotamia

  • Opium poppy, cumin, coriander, Bay leaves, Sycamore

  • Used local species that the natives were not like:

    • Legumes and radishes

  • So they influenced cuisine

• Against the Israelites

• Goliath from David and Goliath was a philistine

• Settled in coastal areas in the southern Levant and took control of it

• Mycenaean similarities

  • Pottery, shrines are similar

  • Shows it's a period of colonization

• They introduced iron to the Levante

mediterranean coast

• 1000 to 700 BCE

• Phoenicians and the Israelites were controlling the Levant

• Philistines were incorporated into society

phoenicians

• Held independent city states in Canaan

  • Main

    • tyre

    • sidon

• Present day Syria, Lebanon, northern Israel

• Maritime people

• Had large ships with Horseheads

  • Dedicated to the God of the sea = yamm

• Craftspeople

  • ex.

    • Glassware

    • Carved ivory

      • Used for the inlays of furniture

    • Ship building

    • Purple dye

      • AKa tyrion purple

        • cuz made in tyre

      • For the robes of Mesopotamian royalty

      • From sea snails

      • Dyed the skin of the workers so they were called the purple people

    • Other dyes like indigo

alphabet

• One of the biggest inventions of the near east

• Mostly due to the phoenicians

• Instead of syllabic scripts

• before:

  • Each syllable has its own symbol

  • Each language would have hundreds of signs

• Breaks down syllables into sounds like vowels and consonants

  • Resulted in 20 to 30 signs for a language

• By the 11th century

• Spread rapidly

  • Armenians, Israelites, Greeks by the 8th century

• Replaces cuneiform

  • It lasted for 3000 years before this

near eastern empire

• First Millennium BCE

  • Neo Assyria, neo babylonia, Persia develop

  • Much larger, centralized and longer lasting

• Includes other states who are able to keep their identity and some political autonomy

  • Still have to pay tribute and allegiance

    • It pays for monumental construction like palaces, armies, temples

  • This stops them from resisting

• Territory is taken by conquest

  • new provinces are governed by military support

  • Usually through brutal force

 

assyrian empire

• Old assyrian

  • 2000 to 1700 BCE

  • The colonial period which consisted of karum in kanesh

• Middle assyrian

  • 14th century BCE

  • mitani dominance is over

neo-assyrians

• Imperial expansion

  • once conquered you are assyrian

  • forcefully removed and temples detroyed

  • this sort of force didn’t work with israelites cuz they wanted to hold on to their religion etc.

• aka Late Assyria

  • Felt they were inheriting the ancient empire AKA old Assyria

• through adad-nirari II

• In 911 BCE

• Fell in 612 BCE

assyrian apogee

• 680 to 612 BCE

• The height of the empire

• Under Ashurbanipal

  • Defeats the elamites

  • destroys susa

• Predecessors conquered Israel and Egypt

  • israelites moved to other places

    • to isolate people and not have the means to revolts

  • Loses Egypt soon after

neo-babylonian empire

• 612 to 539 BCE

• Asharabenipal dies so Assyria collapses

  • Neo babylonians take ninevah

  • Create a power vacuum

• The cities are destroyed by the medes from Iran and the neo babylonians

  • medes withdraw and leave the area to the babylonians

phrygians

• 8th century BCE

• Central anatolian plain

• Capital = gordium

  • Had a citadel surrounded by Stonewall and reinforced with a timber frame

  • Had one of the earliest decorative mosaic floors

• Lower city was surrounded by Stone wall aka ashlar

• events influence greek mythology

  • the area was known for gold mines

  • The origin of king Midas and his predecessor king gordius knot

  • The knot is cut by Alexander the Great and fulfill the prophecy that he would conquer the world

lydians

• They rise after phrygia declines

• Western anatolia and Asia minor

• Wealthy

• Positioned on trade routes between Asia and the Mediterranean

• croesus

  • 560 to 546 BCE

  • King killed by persians who are allied with the phrygians

• Capital = sardis

  • On the western edge of anatolia and near gold sources

• 1st to mint Coins

  • Using electrum, silver, gold

    • Electrum is a natural alloy of gold and silver

    • Lydians found out how to separate it into gold and silver

  • Stamped with an ox or lion

  • Copied quickly by the Greeks and persians

    • But they put rulers faces on them

• Eventually conquered by the persians

persians

• Until 550 BCE, under median kings

  • cyrus the great overthrows them and persians become the dominant power

• Cyrus finds the achaemenid empire

  • Capital = pasargadae

• He conquers the Balkans and Eastern Europe all the way to the Indus valley

• Allowed the Jews in Babylon to return to the Levant

• Son = cambyses II

  • Takes Egypt, Nubia, cyrenaica

• Decline

  • Greeks win in the Greco Persian wars

  • 499 to 449 BCE

  • Battled over the ionian city states (lydians) of Asia minor

  • Persians tried to invade main land Greece twice

  • Also tried to meddle in later internal Greek wars

  • Tried to ally with Sparta and the Athens

  • Persian rulers become decadent causing more internal trouble

  • Finally defeated by Alexander the Great in 334 BCE

    • They had better tech advancements