Transcript Ancient Sumer and Empire Builders

Ancient Sumer and Empire
Builders
The Fertile Crescent
• First known civilization in area, Mesopotamia,
“between the rivers” in Greek
• Between Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
• Key to development in Mesopotamia
• Lots of similarities to Egypt. The two rivers
flooded badly at times. Epic of Gilgamesh tells
of a great flood that destroyed the world
about 4900 years ago.
• Temple priests and royal officials were leaders
• Built using bricks of clay dried in sun, no timber
• Sumer in SE Mesopotamia, 3300 BC
Sumerian Civilization
• Ruler- maintain city walls,
irrigation system, led army,
enforced laws, chief servant of
god, hired scribes
• Social Hierarchy
-Ruling family, leading officials,
high priests
-lesser priests, scribes, merchants,
artisans
-Majority; peasant farmers
-Slaves
• Women; wives of rulers had
special duties but most were
dependant on men. Did have legal
rights
Sumerian Religion
• Polytheistic
• Gods controlled forces of nature
• Gods favored truth and justice but were
responsible for violence and suffering as well
• Ziggurat (zihg uh rat)- pyramid-temple
• Believed in afterlife but very grim
Showing that Sumerian Gods
descended from the Heavens
Learning
• 3200 BC invented writing, cuneiform (kyoo
nee uh form), wedge shapes
• Scribes go through years of
learning
• Untidy copying or talking in
class punished by caning
• Number system based on 6,
dividing hour into 60 minutes
and circle into 360 degrees
• Around 2500 BC armies of conquering peoples
swept across Mesopotamia
• By 1900 BC Sumerian civilization was replaced
Sargon
Nebuchadnezzar
Hammurabi
Cyrus the Great
Assurbanipal
Darius
Zoroaster
• 2300 BC, Sargon, ruler of Akkad, invaded and
conquered neighboring city-states of Sumer
• Built first empire in history
• Local rulers to help
• Didn’t last long after his death
Code of Hammurabi
• 1790 BC
• Not the author but had 300 known laws
carved on stone pillars for all to see
• First time laws were codified
• One section on criminal law. Used to take law into
own hands but tried to promote social order
• Civil law; business, tax, marriage, inheritance
• Designed to protect the powerless, (slaves, woman)
• Order was essential in a stable empire
Code of Hammurabi
Spread of Ideas
• Hittites came to Mesopotamia about 1400 BC, less
advanced but had extracted iron from ore.
Weapons were harder and sharper edges. Started
Iron Age . Fell 1200 BC
• Assyrians- 1100 BC, feared warriors but well
ordered society, royal women veiled in public,
first to put together library of cuneiform
tablets
• Babylonians- 600 BC crushed Assyrians,
Persian Gulf to Med Sea, massive rebuilding
projects, Hanging Gardens, study of stars and
planets
One of the “seven wonders of the ancient world”
Persian Empire
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539 BC. Cyrus then Darius I 522 – 486 BC
Tolerance of other’s customs and beliefs
Satrap- governor in charge of province
Built huge system of roads to unite empire
Common set of weights and measures
Money economy (coins) set up but some still
used barter system
• Both helped trade
• Zoroaster taught a single wise god, Ahura
Mazda (ah hoo ruh mahz duh) ruled and in
constant battle with Ahriman (ah rih muhn)
prince of lies and evil
• Zend-Avesta- sacred book
• Would be a judgment day
• Christianity and Islam stress similar ideas
Phoenicians
• Sailors and traders in
present day Lebanon and
Syria
• Glass from sand and purple
dye from sea snail
• Set up various colonies in
North Africa and Sicily to
Spain
• Gave us our alphabet, 22
symbols for consonant
sounds
• How were these huge empires able to be so
big and still be ruled by a single ruler?
• -leaders visited the regions, built and
maintained roads for travel, and set out a
code of laws that incorporated laws from
conquered peoples, satraps