Transcript PPT: Early Civilizations

Early Civilizations
The Nile Delta at Night
Geography
• Mesopotamia: In the Fertile Crescent. Yearly
floods of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
• Egypt: On the banks of the Nile River. Yearly –
predictable – floods created fertile soil.
• Indus Valley: Fertile plain between Indus and
Ganges Rivers. Yearly floods leave fertile soil –
but have to deal with monsoons.
• China: Plain between Huang He and Yangtze
Rivers. Huang He floods deposits loess.
Record Keeping
• Mesopotamia: Developed Cuneiform.
Tablets show maps, scientific
investigations, medicine and a number
system.
• Egypt: Hieroglyphics developed, wrote on
stone tablets, temple walls and papyrus
• Indus Valley: use of seal to mark items,
Had a written language – not able to
decipher.
• China: Earliest writing from oracle bones.
Pictographs developed (can read without
speaking). Number characters.
Complex Institutions
• Mesopotamia: GOVERNMENT: City-state,
Hammurabi’s Code, dynastic rule. Priests rulers but
eventually military leaders take over power.
• RELIGION: Polytheistic people servants to the gods,
gods like humans but immortal. After death go to “land
of no return” – gloomy. Sacrifices to gods.
• Egypt: GOVERNMENT: Menes king that united Upper
and Lower Egypt. Pharaohs ruled – considered a god.
• RELIGION: Theocracy – pharaoh responsible for
kingdom’s well-being – rules even after death.
Polytheistic (2,000 gods), built temples to honor them.
Belief in afterlife – possible to live in beautiful Other
World.
• Indus Valley: GOVERNMENT: Not much is
known about it. Organization of city-planning
suggests a strong central government in place.
• RELIGION: Polytheistic, evidence shows links
to modern Hindu culture.
• China: GOVERNMENT: Dynastic Rule,
Mandate of Heaven – ruler has divine right to
rule. Feudalism – nobility granted land from
king has servants work land and pays king with
military service and crops.
• RELIGION: Spirits of ancestors had power to
bring good or bad fortune to family. Pay respect
to father’s ancestors. Polytheistic.
Specialized Workers
• Mesopotamia: priests, military leaders,
government workers, judges, merchants (trade),
artisans, farmers, slaves
• Egypt: Royalty, landownerd, government
officials, priests, army commanders, merchants,
artisans, farmers, slaves
• Indus Valley: artisans, military, merchants,
farmers – not much known
• China: artisans (bronze, weapons, jewelry, silk
cloth), royalty, civil servants, military, farmers
Advanced Technology
• Mesopotamia: irrigation, wheel, sail, plow,
use of bronze, writing, some medicine,
geometry, columns, arches, ramps
• Egypt: Papyrus (paper), hieroglyphics,
numbers and geometry, stone columns,
calendar, practical medicine (checking heart
rate, splints), Pyramid building
• Indus Valley: Sophisticated city-planning –
grid system, plumbing and sewage system,
citadel, oven baked bricks.
• China: Silk cloth, roads, canals, coined money,
cast iron, sickles, knives, spades, bronze work,
pictographs
Advanced Cities
• Mesopotamia: Cities grew prosperous from
farming and used surplus to increase longdistance trade. New cities grew and culture
spread
• Egypt: Cities grew along Nile with trade,
protected by deserts around them. Large
cites and tombs built up and down Nile.
• Indus Valley: streets laid out on grid system.
Had plumbing and sewage system. Urban
housing shows social division not great. More
than 100 cities along the Indus River.
• China: large cities connected with roads and
canals – trade flourished; all built within
China’s heartland. Leader in center of city.
Upper class timber framed houses with walls of
clay and straw inside city walls.