HIST 1-3

• Paleolithic Age 

  • 200,000-10,000 BC

  • Archaeology = only evidence for the distant past of humans (no writing) 

    • Homo sapiens (sapiens) emerge 

  • Hunter-gather 

• Neolithic Revolution 

  • 10,000-4,000 BC 

  • Agriculture 

  • Domestication of animals 

  • Fertile Crescent has optimal soil, weather, temp, wild animals→ EU had an easier time

  • Changes in daily life 

    • Food surplus→Sedentary life

    • Specialization of craft 

      • Not everyone has to be a farmer 

  • Patriarchy begins 

    • Need more people → women are home more having babies

    • Need more resources → men are out more 

Mesopotamia

• C. 4,000–1,000 BC (bronze age)

• “Land between two rivers”

  • Tigris and euphrates 

• Collection of number of different societies

  • Uruk, Akkadian, Ur, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hittie 

    • By historic period Neo-Babylonians, Persian, Seleucid

  •  Huge advances in writing, math, astrology 

  • Religion highly developed 

• Sumerians

  • First established civilization in Mesopotamia 

  • Collection of little independent ruled cities that are connected culturally 

  • 5000-3000 millennia BC

  • Erido = first settlement 

  • War very common

  • “King priests”

  • Inventions in Sumer

    • Wheel and plow

    • Planting of the first orchards

      • Dates, figs and olives

    • Development of metal casting (bronze= copper + tin)

    • Most significant = writing 

      • Cuneiform (wedge shape)

        • First written language 

        • Preserve knowledge generations and geographically 

Epic of Gilgamesh 

• Enheduanna

• Written in cuneiform by a women

• King Sargon’s daughter 

• Wrote short poems

• Is the world’s first known female writer 

• Shows a women (of high status) is able to read and write

• Threat to Sumer

  • Broad open plain with little defenses 

  • The tigris/euphrates flood sporadically 

  • Several neighboring people 

  • From 2350 BC Sumer was overrun several times by outsiders

  • This uncertainty reflected in literature and religion 

    • Worry, wonder, at the mercy of the gods and nature

    • Horrible after life 

    • Fertile crescent isn't as dependable as the nile river 

• Akkadian Empire

• Sargon of Akkad united Sumerian/Semitic 

  • All ruled by one person 

• 2334 BC-2193 BC

• Another warring nation 

• Blue book of imperialism 

• Empire collapsed 

• Babylonians 

  • Akkadian rule weakens

  • Brief independence for sumerian cities

  • Babylonains invaded in turn and adopted sumerian culture 

  • Laws based on the whims of the people in control until laws are written 

    • Hammurabi Law (first written law) 

    • Women, slaves, and poor men are less important in the laws

    • Eye for an eye or monetary punishment 

    • Shows classes 

• Mespotamian Religion

  •  Polytheistic and syncretistic 

  • Sky gods, earth gods, forces of nature, animism 

  • Gods were immortal and had supernatural powers 

  • Religion was pessimistic and fatalistic

  • No ethical dimension  

Assyrians

• Descendants of the Sumer-Akkadians 

  • Half = babylonians 

  • Other = Assyrians 

  • 24th- 7th centuries BC 

  • Spoke Semitic language in Mesopotamia 

• Military expansion/innovation 

  • Judah, egypt, babylon 

  • Siege tower; armored giant staircase b/c it's hard to besiege a walled city 

Nineveh

• Largest city in the world c. 690 BC

• Destroyed by persians c.680

• Assyrains ruled for the longest and over the biggest territory in the mesopotamia lasagna  

Egypt (history is 5,000 yrs long)

• Nile

  • 4,000 miles

  • reliable/predictable 

    • Floods regularly/ predictably 

  • #1 crop producing 

  • Lower Egypt by Mediterranean Sea

• Old kingdom

  • United by Menes (upper and lower egypt united under one rule)

  • Peace, propensity, power

  • Pyramids

• Middle kingdom

•  New Kingdom

Egyptian Religion 

• Polytheistic 

  • Gods manifested in humans/animals/nature 

  • Pharaoh = god-men (have little beard)

    • Divine ruler/a god himself 

  • Afterlife = huge significances 

    • Cont. of this life so you'll need ur body and things 

    • Pyramids = tombs for pharaohs

    • Mummification (anubis)

      • 1st for wealthy and then accessible to the poor

      • Natron (salt and baking soda)

      • Canopic jars 

        • Organs are out in other than heart 

        • Look like 4 sons of horus

        • Imsety, duamutef, hapi, qebehsenuef 

    • Funerary art

    • Book of the the dead 

      • Weight heart against feather 

        • If its heavier you are fed to amit 

          • 42 offenses 

Pyramids of Giza

• Not built exclusively with slave labor 

  • Shrines for the workers 

• Built to Khufu

  • 4th dynasty pharaoh

  • Old kingdom period 

Hatshepsut 1508-1458 BC

• First and few women in history to hold political power 

  • as a legitimate pharaoh

• Depicted with a beard 

• Did trade 

Hieroglyphs 3200 BC - AD 400 

• Debates on how much cuneiform affected hieroglyphs 

• Depict sound 

• Rosetta Stone

  • Founded in rosetta by napoleon in 1799 (in the british museum)

  • The key to decipher hieroglyphs 

  • Dates to decree from Memphis (196 BC)

  • Written Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic script (egyptian lang in a new script), coptic (egyptian lang in ancient greek)

  • 1820’s - understanding egyptians history 

Hebrews

• Canaan (in between mesopotamia and egypt)

• Exclusive monotheistic religion 

  • Big influence religiously, less politically  

• Circumcision 

• Diet 

• One temple to one God 

• Write down holy scripture so people dont forget their religion because they had to disperse (diaspora)

• Dead sea scrolls - oldest written pieces of jewish history

Hebrews Religion

• Developed over time 

• Yahweh = chief god of israel 

  • Mono

  • Eternal god

  • Not subject to biological conditions or fate 

• During babylonian exile, yahweh became single 

• Ethical monotheism = how to live correctly comes from god

  • First explicit form of monotheism the world had seen (becomes dominant belief)

• Use of scripture = written un questionable text that is elevated because of god 

Hebrew Scripture 

• Wrote tradition down to preserve identity 

• Tanak (old testament to christians) 

  • 39 books 

  • 1st 5 books = torah (pentateuch)

  • Constant exile, uprooting, etc

Biblical Minimalists 

• Can't use bible for history

Refutation

• Can use history 

• If you discard historical text you lose a lot of information  

Persians

• Cyrus the great 580 BC-530 BC

• Founder of achaemenid empire 

• Innovative conquer 

  • Give jews local autonomy with a persian governor

•   Paradise gardens

• Irrigation systems

  • Qanat 

• Died in battle before seeing his empire succeed 

Darius 550-486 BCE

• susa/persepolis 

• “Royal road”

• Canal

• Bosphorus

  • To invade greece

  • Persian wars 

Minoan, Mycenaean and Archaic Greece 

Minoan Crete 

• All history we know comes from archaeology 

• Palace of knosos

  • Sir arthur evans 

  • Oldest in eu?

  • King Minos (where they got their name)

    • Minotaur

    • Labyrinth

  • Palace admin 

• Traded heavily in the color purple

• Economic monopoly 

• Linear A

  • Proto greek

• Tsunami 

Keftiu

• Egyptians were trading with these people (maybe minoans)

Mycenaean Civilization 1600 BC-1100 BC

• Mainland greece 

• Take over minoan crete 

• Brings linear B 

• Tholos tomb 

• Military prowess beating the trojans 

• Sea people, dorian invasion or sustained drought 

Collapse of Bronze Age 1100 BC

• Last tablet of linear B 1200 BC

  • Return to illiteracy for 400 years 

  • No cities 

Sea peoples

• Don’t know who, what, where 

• Lead to the collapse of the bronze age

• People on boats going around the mediterranean/ mycenaean and steal 

• Since mycenaean weren’t doing well food wise their civilization is gone

Homer 

• 850 BC

• Modern scholar 

• Wrote iliad and odyssey 

  • First things written in the greek alphabet 

  • Ionic greek

  • Dactylic hexameter

  • Education 

  • Written in oral composition

    • poem/singsong rhythm 

    • Remembered better   

• Iliad

  • About death and war 

• Odyssey 

  • Trojan horse

Hesiod

• Write after homer 8/7th cent BC

• Works and days 

  • “Almanac” of antiquity 

• Theogony

  • “Genealogy” of the gods 

Mythos

• Stories 

• Developed and told over time 

  • Solidified with writing 

• Themes 

  • Kernels of truth

  • Explanatory 

  • Allegorical 

• Comparative mythology

Sappho 

• 630-570 BC

• One of the great lyric poets

• Seen as the tenth muses