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 


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