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