Chapter 3 - People and Ideas on the Move 

3.1 - The Indo-Europeans 

• The Indo-European languages are the forerunners of many current languages in Europe, Southwest Asia, and South Asia.
  • English, Spanish, Persian, and Hindi are all descended from various dialects of the Indo-European language.
• The Hittites communicated with one another in their own Indo-European language. 
  • They did, however, adopt Akkadian, the Babylonian language they had acquired, for worldwide use. 
  • The Hittites acquired Mesopotamian concepts concerning literature, art, politics, and law. 
  • As a result, the Hittites mixed their own customs with those of other, more advanced peoples.
• The Hittites were masters of warfare technology. 
• They defeated Egyptian opposition by using their better chariots and iron weaponry to conquer an empire. 
  • The Hittite war chariot was small and maneuverable. 
  • The chariot had two wheels and a leather-covered timber frame, and it was pulled by two or four horses.

3.2 - Hinduism and Buddhism Develop

• Hindus all share the same worldview. 

• Religion, they believe, is a means of releasing the spirit from the illusions, disappointments, and errors of everyday life. 

  • Between 750 and 550 B.C., Hindu gurus attempted to decipher and explain the Vedic hymns' underlying meaning.

• Over the last 2,500 years, Hinduism has undergone numerous transformations. 

  • Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the guardian, and Shiva, the destroyer, were three gods whose personas were sometimes associated with the world soul, Brahman. 

• The caste system was strengthened by Hindu notions about karma and reincarnation. 

  • A person's good fortune was considered to originate from good karma gained in a previous life if he was born as an upper-caste male—a Brahmin, warrior, or merchant. 
  • A person born as a woman, a laborer, or an untouchable, on the other hand, may be reaping the consequences of wicked conduct committed in a previous life.

• Siddhartha couldn't stop thinking about the world outside, which he had never seen before.

• He left the palace four times when he was 29 years old. 

  • He first saw an elderly man, then a sick man, a dead, and eventually a wandering holy man who appeared to be at peace with himself.

  

3.3 - Seafaring Traders

• Sidon and Tyre, both noted for their red-purple dye manufacture, and Byblos, a papyrus trading center, were the Phoenicians' most prominent city-states in the eastern Mediterranean.
• The Phoenicians required a mechanism to record transactions clearly and swiftly as merchants. 
  • As a result, the Phoenicians devised a writing system based on symbols that represented sounds.

3.4 - The Origins of Judaism

• Abraham and his family wandered for many years from Mesopotamia to Canaan to Egypt and returned to Canaan, according to the Bible. 

• The Hebrews were monotheists, unlike the other polytheist groups around them.

• Moses came to the top of Mount Sinai to pray when the Hebrews were traveling over the Sinai Peninsula. 

  • According to the Bible, he had a conversation with God. Moses carried down two stone tablets on which Yahweh had written the Ten Commandments when he descended from Mount Sinai.

• For a Hebrew woman, Deborah's leadership was exceptional. 

  • In Hebrew culture, men and women had very different roles. Religious ceremonies could not be officiated by women. 
  • The most essential role of a Hebrew woman was to raise her children and give moral leadership for them.

• The judges would periodically bring the disparate tribes together for a unified military effort. 

  • Nonetheless, the Hebrews' dominance in ancient Palestine was threatened by the Philistines, a neighboring population.